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LIBRARY 
OP  r tie. 

UNIVERSlTyaflLUNOIS. 


THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


THE 


FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


^  History. 


By  Thomas  Carlyle. 


COMPLETE  IN  ONE  VOLUME. 


\  NEW  YORK  : 

THE  F.  M.  iuPTON  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL  1. 


BOOK  1. 
Death  of  Louis  XV. 

EHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Louis  the  Well-beloved   ii 

IL  Realised  Ideals   14 

IIL  Viaticum  ,      .  21 

IV.  Louis  the  Unforgotten  •      •  23 


BOOK  IL 

The  Paper  Age. 

*L  AsTRiEA  Redux   29 

IL  Petition  in  Hieroglyphs   33 

IIL  Questionable   35 

IV.  Maurepas   38 

V.  AsTRiEA  Redux  without  Cash   40 

VL  Windbags   43 

VIL  CoNTRAT  Social   46 

VIIL  Printed  Paper   48 


BOOK  IIL 
The  Parlement  of  Paris. 


I.  Dishonoured  Bills  . 
IL  Contkoller  Calonne 
IIL  The  I^otables  . 

e's  Edicts 
e's  Thunderbolts 
s  Plots 
ink 

Death -THROES 


IV.  Lome; 
V.  LoM 
VL  LoM 
VIL  In 7^ 
VIII.  Lc 
IX.  Bij 


r 


53 

56 

59 
65 

68 
72 
75 
79 
86 


) 


6  CONTENTS, 
\   . — 


BOOK  IV. 
States-GeneraC. 


Page 


I.  The  Notables  again      .      .      ,  <,  c  ^  ,     -  o 

II.  The  Election   „  ,  ,  •  94' 

HI.  Grown  Electric     .      »      .      p  *  o  o  •  98 

IV.  The  Procession      .      .      »      0,0  «  •  .101 


BOOK  V. 
The  Third  Estate. 


I.  Inertia  o      •      ,  114 

II.  Mercury  de  Breze  .  120 

III.  Broglie  the  War-God   125 

IV.  To  Arms  !  ,      .      .      .       .  1 29 

V.  Give  us  Arms   .133 

\  Yl^  Storm  and  Victory   137 

VlL  Not  a  Revolt   114 

VIIl.  Conquering  y^our  King   147 

IX.  The  Lanterne  .      .      .      •      »       ,      .      .      .  149 


BOOK  VL 
Consolidation. 


T.  Make  the  Constitution 

II.  The  Constituent  Assembly 

III.  The  General  Overturn 

IV.  In  Queue 
V.  The  Fourth  Estate 


BOOK  VII. 
The  Insurrection  of  Women. 


I.  Patrollotism  . 
II.  O  Richard,  O  my  I 

III.  Black  Cockades 

IV.  The  Men  ads 

V.  Usher  Pv'I  ail  lard 
VI.  To  Versailles  . 
VII.  At  Versailles  . 
VIII.  The  Equal  Diet 
IX.  Lafayette 
X.  The  Gkand  P2n tries 
XI.  From  ^/'-k'-v  tm.ks 


i 


179 

157 

X96' 
199 
203 


THE 


FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


Vol.  I.— The  BASTiLLEa 


BOOK  FIRST. 
DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


CHAPTER  I. 

LOUIS  THE  WELL-BELOVED, 

President  Henault,  remarking  on  royal  Surnames  ot  Honour 
how  difficult  it  often  is  to  ascertain  not  only  why,  but  ever^  when, 
they  were  conferred,  takes  occasion  in  his  sleek  official  way,  to 
make  a  philosophical  reflection.    '  The   Surname  of  Bien-ainie 

*  (Well-beloved),'  says  he,  '  which  Louis  XV.  bears,  will  not  leave 

*  posterity  in  the  same  doubt.  This  Prince,  in  the  year  1744, 
'  while  hastening  from  one  end  of  his  kingdom  to  the  other,  and 
'  suspending  his  conquests  in  Flanders  that  he  might  fly  to  the 
•^assistance  of  Alsace,  was  arrested  at  M^tz  by  a  malady  which 

*  threatened  to  cut  short  his  days.    At  the  news  of  this,  Paris,  ail 

*  in  terror,  seemed  a  city  taken  by  storm  :  the  churches  resounded 
'  with  supplications  and  groans  ;  the  prayers  of  priests  and 
'  peof)le  were  every  momei  t  interrupted  by  their  sobs  :  and  it  was 
'  from  an  interest  so  dear  and  tender  that  this  Surname  of  Bie7t- 
'  dime  fashioned  itself,  a  title  higher  still  than  all  the  rest  which 

*  this  great  Prince  has  earned.'^ 

So  stands  it  written  ;  in  lasting  memorial  of  that  year  1744. 
Thirty  other  years  have  come  and  gone  ;  and  '  this  great  Prince ' 
again  lies  sick  ;  but  in  how  altered  circumstances  now  !  Churches 
rfesound  not  with  excessive  groanings  ;  Paris  ib  stoically  calm  i 

*  iibr^^d  Chronoiogique  d<j  rilistoh  e  de  Franc  e  (Taris,  1775),  p.  701. 


12 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


sobs  interrupt  no  prayers,  for  indeed  none  are  offered  ;  except 
Priests'  Litanies,  read  or  chanted  at  fixed  money-rate  per  hour, 
which  are  not  hable  to  interryiption.  The  shepherd  of  the  people 
has  been  carried  home  from  Little  Trianon,  heavy  of  heart,  and 
been  put  to  bed  in  his  own  Chateau  of  Versaiiies  :  the  flock  knows 
it,  and  heeds  it  not.  At  most,  in  the  immeasurable  tide  of  French 
Speech  (which  ceases  not  day  after  day,  and  only  ebbs  towards 
the  short  hours  of  night),  may  this  of  the  royal  sickness  emerge 
from  time  to  time  as  an  article  of  news.  Bets  are  doubtless  de- 
pending ;  nay,  some  people  '  express  themselves  loudly  in  the 
streets.'  *  But  for  the  rest,  on  green  field  and  steepled  city,  the 
May  sun  shines  out,  the  May  evening  fades  ;  and  men  ply  their 
useful  or  useless  business  as  if  no  Louis  lay  in  danger. 

Dame  Dubarry,  indeed,  might  pray,  if  she  had  a  talent  for  it ; 
Duke  d'Aiguillon  too,  Maupeou  and  the  Parlement  Maupeou  : 
these,  as  they  sit  in  their  high  places,  with  France  harnessed 
under  their  feet,  know  well  on  what  basis  they  continue  there. 
\Look  to  it,  D'Aiguillon  ;  sharply  as  thou  didst,  from  the  Mill  of  St. 
Cast,  on  Ouiberon  and  the  invading  'English  ;  thou,  ^covered  if 
not  with  glory  yet  with  meal  !  i  Fortune  was  ever  accounted  in- 
constant ;  and  each  dog  has  but  his  day. 


Forlorn  enough  languished  Duke  d'Aiguillon,  some  years  ago ; 
covered,  as  we  said,  with  meal ;  nay  with  worse.  For  La 
Chalotais,  the  Breton  Parlementeer,  accused  him  not  only  of 
poltroonery  and  tyranny,  but  even  of  concussion  (official  plunder 
of  money)  ;  which  accusations  it  was  easier  to  get  Squashed  '  by 
backstairs  Influences  than  to  get  answered  :  neither  could  the 
thoughts,  or  even  the  tongues,  of  men  be  tied.  Thus,  under 
disastrous  eclipse,  had  this  grand-nephew  of  the  great  Richelieu 
to  glide  about ;  unworshipped  by  the  world  ;  resolute  Choiseul, 
the  abrupt  proud  man,  disdaining  him,  or  even  forgetting^  him. 
Little  prospect  but  to  glide  into  Gascony,  to  rebuild  Chateaus 
there,t  and  die  inglorious  killing  game  !  However,  in  the  year 
1770,  a  certain  young  soldier,  Dumouriez  by  name,  returning  from 
Corsica,  could  see  '  with  sorrow,  at  Compi^gne,  the  old  King  of 
^  France,  on  foot,  with  doffed  hat,  in  sight  of  his  army,  at  the  side 
^of  a  magnificent  phaeton,  doing  homage  to  the— Dubarry. 'J 

Much  lay  therein  !  Thereby,  for  one  thing,  could  D'Aiguillon 
postpone  the  rebuilding  of  his  Chateau,  and  rebuild  his  fortunes 
first.  For  stout  Choiseul  would  discern  in  the  Dubarry  nothing 
but  a  wonderfully  dizened  Sc^let-woman  ;  and  go  on  his  way  as 
if  she  were  not.  •  "intolerable  :  tlie  source  of  sighs,  tears,  of  pettings 
and  poutings  ;  which  would  not  end  till  '  France'  (La  France,  as 
she  named  her  royal  valet)  finally  mustered  heart  to  see  Choiseul ; 
and  with  that  'quivering  in  the  chin  {tremo.enmit  du  menton 

♦  M^moires  de  M..  le  Baron  Besenval  (Paris,  1805),  ii.  59-90- 
t  Arthur  Young,  Travels  during  the  years  1787-88-89  (Bury  St.  Edmunds,- 
1792),  i.  44. 

X  La  Vie  et  Ics  Mdmoires  du  Gdndral  Dumouriez  (Paris,  1823),  u  T4Xj 


LOUIS  THE  WELL-BELOVED, 


13 


natural  in  such  cases)*  faltered  out  a  dismissal  :  dismissal  of  his 
last  substantial  man,  but  pacitication  of  his  sca^t-woman.  Thus 
D'Aiguillon  rose  again,  and  cuhninated.  And^vith  him  there  rose 
Maupeou,  the  banisher  of  Parlements  ;  who  plants  you  a  refractory 
President  ^  at  Croe  in  Combrailles  on  the  top  of  steep  rocks, 
inaccessible  except  by  litters/  there  to  consider  himself.  Likewise 
there  rose  Abbe  Terray,  dissolute  Financier,  paying  eightpence  ill 
the  shilling, — so  that  wits  exclaim  in  some  press  at  the  playhouse, 
"  Where  is  Abbe  Terray,  that  he  might  reduce  us  to  two-thirds  ! 
And  so  have  these  individuals  (verily  by  black-art)  built  them  a 
Domdaniel,  or  enchanted  Duba|-rydom  ;  call  it  an  Armida-Palace, 
where  they  dwell  pleasantly  ;  Chancellor  Maupeou  '  playing  blind- 
-man's-buff ^  with  the  §carlet  Enchantress  ;  or  gallantly  presenting 
her  with  dwarf  Negroes  i^and  a  Most  Christian  King  has  unspeak- 
able peace  within  doors,  whatever  he  may  have^  without.  "  My 
Chancellor  is  a  scoundrel ;  but  I  cannot  do  without  him."t 

Beautiful  Armida-Palace,  where  the  inmates  live  enchanted 
lives ;  lapped  in  soft  music  of  adulation ;  waited  on  by  the 
splendours  of  the  world ; — which  nevertheless  hangs  wondrously 
as  by  a  single  hair.  Should  the  Most  Christian  King  die ;  or 
even  get  seriously  afraid  of  dying  !  For,  alas,  had  not  the  fair 
haughty  Chateauroux  to  fly,  with  wet  cheeks  and  flaming  heart, 
from  that  Fever-scene  at  Metz  ;  driven  forth  by  sour  shavelings  ? 
She  hardly  returned,  when  fever  and  shavelings  were  both  swept 
into  the  background.  Pompadour  too,  when  Damiens  wounded 
Royalty  '  slightly,  under  the  fifth  rib/  and  our  drive  to  Trianon 
went  off  futile,  in  shrieks  and^  madly  shaken  torches, — had  to 
pack,  and  be  in  readiness  :  yet  did  not  go,  the  wound  not  proving 
poisoned.  For  his  Majesty  has  religious  faith  ;  believes,  at  least 
in  a  Devil.  And  now  a  third  peril ;  and  who  knows  what  may  be 
in  it  !  For  the  Doctors  look  grave  ;  ask  privily.  If  his  Majesty 
had  not  the  small-pox  long  ago  — and  doubt  it  may  have  been  a 
false  kind.  Yes,  Maupeou,  pucker  those  sinister  brows  of  thine, 
and  peer  out  on  it  with  thy  malign  rat-eyes  :  it  is  a  questionable 
case.  Sure  only  that  man  is  mortal ;  that  with  the  life  of  one 
mortal  snaps  irrevocably  the  wonderfulest  talisman,  and  all 
Dubarrydom  rushes  off,  with  tumult,  into  infinite  Space  ;  and  ye, 
as  subterranean  Apparitions  are  wont,  vanish  utterly, — leaving 
only  a  smell  of  sulphur  ! 

These,  and  what  holds  of  these  may  pray,— to  Beelzebub,  or 
whoever  will  hear  them.  But  from  the  rest  of  France  there  conies, 
as  was  said,  no  prayer  ;  or  one  of  an  opposite  character,  '  expressed 
'openly  in  the  streets.'  Chateau  or  Hotel,  were  an  enlightened 
Philosophism  scrutinises  many  things,  is  not  given  to  prayer  : 
neither  are  Rossbach  victories,  Terray  Finances,  nor,  say  only 
Sixty  thousand  Lettres  de  CacheV  is  Maupeou's  share), 

persuasives  towards  that.    O  Henault  !  Prayers?    From  a  France 
smitten  (by  black-art)  with  plague  after  plague,  and  lying  now,  in 
*  Besenval,  Memoires,  ii.  21. 
Dulaure,  Histoite  de  Paris  (Paris,  1824),  vii.  3289 


14 


DEATH  OF  ^LOUIS  XV. 


shame  and  pain,  with  a  Harlot's  foot  on  its  neck,  what  prayer  catl 
come  ?  Those  lank  scarecrows,  that  prowl  hunger-stricken  through 
all  highways  and  byways  of  French  Existence,  will  they  pray  ? 
The  dull  millions  that,  in  the  workshop  or  furrowfield,  grind  fore- 
done  at  the  wheel  of  Labour,  like  haltered  gin-horses,  if  blind  so 
much  the  quieter  ?  Or  they  that  in  the  Bicetre  Hospital,  ^  eight 
'  to  a  bed,'  lie  waiting  their  manumission  ?  Dim  are  those  heads  of 
theirs,  dull  stagnant  those  hearts  :  to  them  the  great  Sovereign  is 
known  mainly  as  the  great  Regrater  of  Bread.  If  they  hear  of  his 
sickness,  they  will  answer  with  a  dull  Tant  pis  pour  ha;  or  with 
the  question.  Will  he  die  ? 

Yes,  will  he  die  ?  that  is  now,  for  all  France,  the  grand  ques- 
tion, and  hope  ;  whereby  alone  the  King's  sickness  has  still  some 
interest' 


CHAPTER  II. 

REALISED  IDEAT.S. 

Such  a  changed  France  have  we  ;  and  a  changed  Louis. 
Changed,  truly  ;  and  further  than  thou  yet  seest  ! — To  the  eye  of 
History  many  things,  in  that  sick-rocm  of  Louis,  are  now  visible, 
which  to  the  Courtiers  there  present  were  invisible.  For  indeed 
it  is  well  said,  '  in  every  object  there  is  inexhaustible  meaning  ; 

*  the  eye  sees  in  it  what  the  eye  brings  means  of  seeing.'  To  New- 
ton and  to  Newton's  Dog  Diamond,  what  a  different  pair  of  Uni- 
verses ;  while  the  painting  on  the  optical  retina  of  both  was,  most 
likely,  the  same  !  Let  the  Reader  here,  in  this  sick-room  of  Louis, 
endeavour  to  look  with  the  mind  too. 

Time  was  when  men  could  (so  to  speak)  of  a  given  man,  by 
nourishing  and  decorating  him  with  fit  appliances,  to  the  due  pitch, 
make  themselves  a  King,  almost  as  the  Bees  do  ;  cind  what  was 
still  more  to  the  purpose,  loyail)'  obey  him  when  made.  The  man 
so  nourished  and  decorated,  thenceforth  named  royal,  does  verily 
bear  rule  ;  and  is  said,  and  even  thought,'  to  be,  for  example, 

*  prosecuting  conquests  in  Flanders,'  when  he  lets  himself  like 
luggage  be  carried  thither  ;  and  no  li?;;ht  luggage  ;  covering  miles 
of  road.  For  he  has  his  unblushing  Chateauroux,  with  her  band- 
boxes and  rouge-pots,  at  his  side  ;  so  that,  at  every  new  station,  a 
wooden  gallery  must  be  run  up  between  their  lodgings.  He  has 
not  only  his  Maison-Boiiche^  and  Valctaille  without  end,  but  his 
very  Troop  of  Players.,  with  their  pasteboard  coulisses,  thunder- 
barrels,  their  kettles,  fiddles,  stage-wardrobes,  portable  larders 
(and  chaffering  and  quarrelling  enough)  ;  all  mounted  in  wagons, 
tumbrils,  second-hand  chaises,-  siifficient  not  to  conquer  Flanders, 
but  the  patience  of  the  world.  With  such  a  flood  of  loud  jinglin« 
appurtenances  does  he  lumber  along,  prosecuting  his  conquests  xw 
Flanders  :  wonderful  to  behold.    So  neverthelc^^s  it  was  and  hao 


REALISED  IDEALS. 


been  :  to  some  solitary  thinker  it  might  seem  strange ;  but  even  to 
him  inevitable,  not  unnatural. 

For  ours  is  a  most  fictile  world  ;  and  man  is  the  most  fingent 
plastic  of  creatures.  A  world  not  fixable  ;  not  fathomable  !  An 
unfathomable  Somewhat,  which  is  Not  we ;  which  we  can  work 
with,  and  live  amidst, — and  model,  miraculously  in  our  miraculous 
Being,  and  name  World. — But  if  the  very  Rocks  and  Rivers  (as 
Metaphysic  teaches)  are,  in  strict  language,  7nade  by  those  outward 
Senses  of  ours,  how  much  more,  by  the  Inward  Sense,  are  all 
Phenomena  of  the  spiritual  kind  :  Dignities,  Authorities,  Holies, 
Unholies  !  Which  inward  sense,  moreover  is  not  permanent  like 
the  outward  ones,  but  forever  growing  and  changing.  Does  not 
the  Black  African  take  of  Sticks  and  Old  Clothes  (say,  exported 
Monmouth-Street  cast-clothes)  what  will  suffice,  and  of  these, 
cunningly  combining  them,  fabricate  for  himself  an  Eidolon  (Idol, 
or  Thing  Seen),  and  name  it  Mu7nbo- Jumbo  j  w^hich  he  can 
thenceforth  pray  to,  with  upturned  awestruck  eye,  not  without 


So  it  was,  we  say,  in  thoselL)nquests  of  Flanders,  thirty  years 
ago  :  but  so  it  no  longer  is.  /Has,  much  more  lies  sick  than  poor 
Louis:  not  the  French  King  only,  but  the  French  Kingship;  this 
too,  after  long  rough  tear  and  wear,  is  breaking  doWn.  The  world 
is  all  so  changed  ;  so  much  that  seemed  vigorous  has  sunk 
decrepit,  so  much  that  was  not  is  beginning  to  be  ! — Borne  over  the 
Atlantic,  to  the  closing  ear  of  Louis,  King  by  the  Grace  of  God, 
what  sounds  are  these  ;  muffled  ominous,  new  in  our  centuries  ? 
Boston  Harbour  is  black  with  unexpected  Tea  :  behold  a  Penn- 
sylvanian  Congress  gather ;  and  ere  long,  on  Bunker  Hill, 
Democracy  announcing,  in  rifle-volleys  death-winged,  under  her 
Star  Banner,  to  the  tune  of  Yankee-doodle-doo,  that  she  is  born, 
and,  whirlwind-hke,  will  envelope  the  whole  world  ! 

Sovereigns  die  and  Sovereignties  :  how  all  dies,  and  is  for 
a  Time  only  ;  is  a  ^  Time-phantasm,  yet  reckons  itself  real  ! " 
The  Merovingian  Kings,  slowly  wending  on  their  bullock-carts 
through  the  streets  of  Paris,  with  their  long  hair  flowing,  have  all 
wended  slowly  on, — into  Eternity.  Charlemagne  sleeps  at  Salz- 
burg, with  truncheon  grounded  ;  only  Fable  expecting  that  he 
will  awaken.  Charles  the  Hammer,  Pepin  Bow-leggeci,  where 
now  is  their  eye  of  menace,  their  voice  of  command  ?  Rollo  and 
his  shaggy  Northmen  cover  not  the  Seine  with  ships  ;  but  have 
sailed  off  on  a  longer  voyage.  The  hair  of  Towhead  {Tete 
d^etoupes)  now  needs  no  combing  ;  Iron-cutter  {Taillefer)  cannot 
cut  a  cobweb  ;  shrill  Fredegonda,  shrill  Brunhilfla  have  had  out 
their  hot  life-scold,  and  lie  silent,  their  hot  life-frenzy  cooled. 
Neither  from  that  black  Tower  de  Nesle  descends  now  darkling 
the  doomed  gallant,  in  his  sack,  to  the  Seine  waters  ;  plunging 
into  Night  :  for  Dame  de  Nesle  now^  cares  not  for  this  world's 
gallantry,  heeds  not  this  world's  scandal  ;  Dame  de  Nesle  is  her- 


hope?  The  white  Europea: 
and.  see  whether  he,  at  hi 
wisely. 


:ks  ;  but  ought  rather  to  consider  ; 
could  not  do  the  like  a  little  more 


I6 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV, 


self  gone  into  Night.  They  are  all  gone  ;  sunk, — down,  down, 
with  the  tumult  they  made  ;  and  the  rolling  and  the  trampling  of 
ever  new  generations  passes  over  them  ;  and  they  hear  it  ,not  any 
more  forever. 

And  yet  withal  has  there  not  been  realised  somewhat  ?  Con- 
sider (to  go  no  further)  these  strong  Stone-edifices,  and  what  they 
hold  !  Mud-Town  of  the,  Borderers  {Lutetia  Parisiorurn  or 
Barisioriifn)  has  paved  itself,  has  spread  over  all  the  Seine 
Islands,  and  far  and  wide  on  each  bank,  and  become  City  of 
Paris,  sometimes  boasting  to  be  '  Athens  of  Europe,'  and  even 
'  Capital  of  the  Universe.'  Stone  towers  frown  aloft  ;  long-last- 
ing, grim  with  a  thousand  years.  Cathedrals  are  there,  and  a 
Creed  (or  memory  of  a  Creed)  in  them  ;  Palaces,  and  a  State  and 
Law.  Thou  seest  the  Smoke-vapour ;  ^///extinguished  Breath  as 
of  a  thing  living.  Labour's  thousand  hammers  ring  on  her  anvils  : 
also  a  more  miraculous  Labour  works  noiselessly,  not  with  the 
Hand  but  with  the  Thought.  How  have  cunning  workmen  in  all 
crafts,  with  their  cunning  head  and  right-hand,  tamxd  the  Four 
Elements  to  be  their  ministers  ;  yoking  the  winds  to  their  Sea- 
chariot,  making  the  very  Stars  their  Nautical  Timepiece  ; — and 
written  and  collected  a  Bibliotheqtie  dti  Roi j  among  whose  Books 
is  the  Hebrew  Book  !  A  wondrous  race  of  creatures  :  tkese\i'diVQ. 
been  realised,  and  what  of  Skill  is  in  these  :  call  not  the  Past 
Time,  with  all  its  confused  wretchednesses,  a  lost  one. 

Observe,  however,  that  of  man's  whole  terrestrial  possessions 
and  attainments,  unspeakably  the  noblest  are  his  Symbols,  divine 
or  divine-seeming  ;  under  which  he  marches  and  fights,  with 
victorious  assurance,  in  this  life-battle  :  what  we  can  call  his 
Realised  Ideals.  Of  which  reahsed  ideals,  omitting  the  rest, 
consider  only  these  two  :  his  Church,  or  spiritual  Guidance  ;  his 
Kingship,  or  temporal  one.  The  Church  :  what  a  w^ord  was  there  ; 
richer  than  Golconda  and  the  treasures  of  the  world  !  In  the 
heart  of  the  remotest  mountains  rises  the  little  Kirk  ;  the  Dead  all 
slumbering  round  it,  under  their  white  memoiial-stones,  ^  in  hope 
'  of  a  happy  resurrection  : ' — dull  wert  thou,  O  Reader,  if  never  in 
any  hour  isay  of  moaning  midnight,  when  such  Kirk  hung  spectral 
in  the  sky,  and  Being  was  as  if  swallowed  up  of  Darkness)  it 
spoke  to  thee— things  unspeakable,  that  went  into  thy  soul's  soul. 
Strong  was  he  that  had  a  Church,  wh,  '  we  can  call  a  Church  :  he 
stood  thereby,  though  'in  the  centre  of  Immensities,  in  the  conflux 
'  of  Eternities,"  yet  manlike  towards  God  and  man  ;  the  vague 
shoreless  Universe  had  become  for  him  a  firm  city,  and  dwelling 
which  he  knew.  Such  virtue  was  in  Belief ;  in  these  words,  well 
spoken  :  I  believe.  Well  might  men  prize  their  Credo^  and  raise 
stateliest  Temples  for  it,  and  reverend  Hierarchies,  and  give  it 
the  tithe  of  their  substance  ;  it  was  worth  living  for  and  dying 
for. 

Neither  was  that  an  inconsiderable  moment  when  wild  armed 
men  first  raised  their  Strongest  aloft  on  the  buckler- throne,  and 
with  clanging  armour  and  hearts,  said  solemnly  :  Be  thou  our 
Acknowledged    Strongest  !    In  such  Acknowledged  Strongest 


REALISED  IDEALS. 


17 


(well  named  King,  Kon-ning^  Can-ning,  or  Man  that  was  Able) 
what  a  Symbol  shone  now  for  them —significant  with  the  des- 
tinies of  the  world  !  A  Symbol  of  true  Guidance  in  return  for 
loving  Obedience  ;  properly,  if  he  knew  it,  the  prime  want  of 
man.  A  Symbol  which  might  be  called  sacred  ;  for  is  there  not, 
in  reverence  for  what  is  better  than  we,  an  indestructible  sacred- 
ness  ?  On  which  ground,  too,  it  was  well  said  there  lay  in  the 
Acknowledged  Strongest  a  divine  right  ;  as  surely  there  might 
in  the  Strongest,  whether  Acknowledged  or  not,— considering 
who  made  him  strong.  And  so,  in  the  midst  of  confusions 
and  unutterable  incongruities  (as  all  growth  is  confused),  did 
this  of  Royalty,  with  Loyalty  environing  it,  spring  up ;  and 
grow  mysteriously,  subduing  and  assimilating  (for  a  principle 
of  Life  was  in  it)  ;  till  it  also  had  grown  world-great,  and  was 
among  the  main  I*  acts  of  our  modern  existence.  Such  a  Fact, 
that  Louis  XIV.,  for  example, '  could  answ^er  the  expostulatory 
Magistrate  with  his  "  LEtat  c'est  moi  (The  State  1:  I  am  the 
State)  ; "  and  be  replied  to  by  silence  and  abashed  looks.  -So 
far  had  accident  and  forethought  ;  had  your  Louis  Elevenths, 
with  the  leaden  Virgin  in  their  hatband,  and  torture-wheels  and 
conical  oubliettes  (man-eating  i)  under  their  feet  ;  your  Henri 
Fourths,  with  their  prophcoied  social  millennium,  '  when  every 
*•  peasant  should  have  his  fowl  in  the  pot ; '  and  on  the  whole, 
the  fertility  of  this  most  fertile  Existence  (named  of  Good  and 
Evil), — brought  it,  in  the  matter  of  the  Kingship.  Wondrous  1 
Concerning  which  may  we  not  again  say,  that  in  the  huge  mass  oi 
Evil,  as  it  rolls  and  swells,  there  is  ever  some  Good  working  im- 
prisoned ;  working  towards  deliverance  and  triumph  ? 

How  such  Ideals  do  realise  themselves  ;  and  grow,  wondrously, 
from  amid  the  incongruous  ever-fluctuating  chaos  of  the  Actual  : 
this  is  what  World- History,  if  it  teach  any  thing,  has  to  teach  us. 
How  they  grow;  and,  after  long  stormy  growth,  bloom  out 
mature,  supreme  ;  then  quickly  (for  the  blossom  is  brief)  fall  into 
decay  ;  sorrowfully  dwindle  ;  and  crumble  down,  or  rush  down, 
noisily  or  noiselessly  disappearing.  The  blossom  is  so  brief ;  as 
of  some  centennial  Cactus-flower,  which  after  a  century  of  waiting 
shines  out  for  hours  !  Thus  from  the  day  when  rough  Clovis,  in 
the  Champ  de  Mars,  in  sight  of  his  whole  army,  had  to  cleave 
retributively  the  ifead  of  that  rough  Frank,  with  sudden  battle- 
axe,  and  the  fierce  words,  "  It  was  thus  thou  clavest  the  vase 
(St.  Remi's  and  mine)  "  at  Soissons,"  forward  to  Louis  the  Grand 
and  his  IJEtat  c'est  moi^  we  count  some  twelve  hundred  years  : 
and  now  this  the  very  next  Louis  is  dying,  and  so  much  dying  with 
him  ! — Nay,  thus  too,  if  Catholicism,  with  and  against  Feudalism 
(but  not  against  Nature  and  her  bounty),  gave  us  Enghsh  a 
Shakspeare  and  Era  of  Shakspeare,  and  so  produced  a  blossom 
of  Catholicism— it  was  not  till  Catholicismx  itself,  so  far  as  Law 
could  abolish  it,  had  been  abolished  here. 

Rut  of  those  decadent  ages  in  which  no  Ideal  either  grows  or 
blossoms  ?  When  Belief  and  Loyalty  have  passed  away,  and  only 
the  cant  and  false  echo  of  them  remains  ;  and  all  Solemnity  has 


I8 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


become  Pageantry  ;  and  the  Creed  of  persons  in  authority  has 
become  one  of  two  things  :  an  Imbecihty  or  a  Macchiavehsm  ? 
Alas,  of  these  ages  World- History  can  take  no  notice  ;  they  have 
lo  become  compressed  more  and  more,  and  finally  suppressed  in 
the  Annals  of  Mankind  ;  blotted  out  as  spurious,— which  indeed 
they  are.  Hapless  ages  :  wherein,  if  ever  in  any,  it  is  an  un- 
happmess  to  be  born.  To  be  born,  and  to  learn  only,  by  every 
tradition  and  example,  that  God's  Universe  is  Belial's  and 'a  Lie  ; 
and  'the  Supreme  Quack'  the  hierarch  of  men!  In  which 
mournfulest  faith,  nevertheless,  do  we  not  see  whole  generations 
(two,  and  sometimes  even  three  successively)  live,  what  they  call 
living  ;  and  vanish, — without  chance  of  reappearance  ? 

In  such  a  decadent  age,  or  one  fast  verging  that  way,  had  our 
poor  Louis  been  born.  Grant  also  that  if  the  French  Kingship 
had  not,  by  course  of  Nature,  long  to  live,  he  of  all  men  was  the 
man  to  accelerate  Nature.  The  Blossom  of  French  Royalty, 
cactus-like,  has  accordingly  made  an  astonishing  progress.  In 
those  Metz  da^^s,  it  was  still  standing  with  all  its  petals,  though 
bedimmed  by  Orleans  Regents  ^nARotie  Ministers  and  Cardinals; 
but  now,  in  1774,  we  behold  it  bald,  and  the  virtue  nigh  gone  out 
of  it. 

Disastrous  indeed  does  it  look  with  those  same  '  reahsed  ideals,' 
one  and  all  !  The  Church,  which  in  its  palmy  season,  seven 
hundred  years  ago,  could  make  an  Emperor  wait  barefoot,  in 
penance-shift  ;  three  days,  in  the  snow,  has  for  centuries  seen 
itself  decaying  ;  reduced  even  to  forget  old  purposes  and  enmities, 
and  join  interest  with  the  Kingship  :  on  this  younger  strength  it 
would  fain  stay  its  decrepitude  ;  and  these  two  wull  henceforth 
stand  and  fall  together.  Alas,  the  Sorbonne  still  sits  there,  in  its 
old  mansion  ;  but  mumbles  only  jargon  of  dotage,  and  no  longer 
leads  the  consciences  of  men  :  not  the  Sorbonne  ;  it  is  Encydopd- 
cites,  ^  Philosophie,  and  who  knows  what  nameless  innumerable 
multitude  of  ready  Writers,  profane  Singers,  Romancers,  Players, 
Disputators,  and  Pamphleteers,  that  now  form  the  Spiritual 
Guidance  of  the  world.  The  world's  Practical  Guidance  too  is 
lost,  or  has  ghded  into  the  same  miscellaneous  hands.  Who  is  it 
that  the  King  {Able-77tan,  named  2i\so  Roi,  Rex,  or  Director)  now 
guides  ?  His  own  huntsmen  and  prickers  :  when  there  is  to  be  no 
hunt,  it  is  well  said,  '  Le  Roi  ne  /era  rien  (To-day  his  Majesty  will 
do  nothing).'^  He  lives  and  lingers  there,  because  he  is  living 
there,  and  none  has  yet  laid  hands  on  him. 

The  nobles,  in  like  manner,  have  nearly  ceased  either  to  guide 
or  misguide  ;  and  are  now,  as  their  master  is,  little  more'than 
ornamental  figures.  It  is  long  since  they  have  done  with  butcher- 
ing one  another  or  their  king  :  the  Workers,  protected,  encouraged 
by  Majesty,  have  ages  ago  built  walled  towns,  and  there  ply  their 
crafts  ;  will  permit  no  Robber  Baron  to  >  live  by  the  saddle,' but 
maintain  a  gallows  to  prevent  it.  Ever  since  that  period  of  the 
Fronde,  the  Noble  has  changed  his  fighting  sword  into  a  court 

*  Mdmoires  sur  la  Vie privde  de  Mat'ic  Antoinette,  par  Madame  Campan 
(Paris,  1826),  i.  12. 


REALISED  IDEALS. 


19 


rapier  ;  and  now  loyally  attends  his  king  as  ministering  satellite ; 
divides  the  spoil,  not  now  by  violence  and  murder,  but  by  solicit- 
ing and  finesse.  These  men  call  themselves  supports  of  the 
throne,  singular  gilt-pasteboard  caryatides  in  that  singular  edifice  ! 
For  the  rest,  their  privileges  every  way  are  now  much  curtailed. 
That  law  authorizing  a  Seigneur,  as  he  returned  from  hunting,  to 
kill  not  more  than  two  Serfs,  and  refresh  his  feet  in  their  warm 
blood  and  bowels,  has  fallen  into  perfect  desuetude, — and  even  into 
incredibihty  ;  for  if  Deputy  Lapoule  can  believe  in  it,  and  call  for 
the  abrogation  of  it,  so  cannot  we  ."^  No  Charolois,  for  these  last 
fifty  years,  though  never  so  fond  of  shooting,  has  been  in  use  to 
bring  down  slaters  and  plumbers,  and  see  them  roll  from  their 
roofs  ;t  but  contents  himself  with  partridges  and  grouse.  Close- 
viewed,  their  industry  and  function  is  that  of  dressing  gracefully  and 
eating  sumptuously.  As  for  their  debauchery  and  depravity,  it 
is  perhaps  unexampled  since  the  era  of  Tiberius  and  Commodus. 
Nevertheless,  one  has  still  partly  a  feeling  with  the  lady  Mare- 
chale  :  "  Depend  upon  it.  Sir,  God  thinks  twice  before  damning 
a  man  of  that  quality. ''J  These  people,  of  old,  surely  had  virtues, 
uses  ;  or  they  could  not  have  been  there.  Nay,  one  virtue  they 
are  still  required  to  have  (for  mortal  man  cannot  live  without  a 
conscience)  :  the  virtue  of  perfect  readiness  to  fight  duels^  .,  — 
Such  are  the  shepherds  of  the  people  -y^nh  nDw  h'Ow  fares  it 
with  the  flock  1  With  the  flock,  as  is  inevitable,  it  fares  ill,  and 
ever  worse.  They  are  not  tended,  they  are  only  regularly  shorn. 
They  are  sent  for,  to  do  statute-labour,  to  pay  statute-taxes  ;  to 
fatten  battle-fields  (named  '  Bed  of  honour ')  with  their  bodies,  in 
quarrels  which  are  not  theirs  ;  their  hand  and  toil  is  in  every 
possession  of  man  ;  but  for  themselves  they  have  little  or  no 
possession.  Untaught,  uncomforted,  unfed  ;  to  pine  dully  in  thick 
obscuration,  in  squalid  destitution  and  obstruction  :  this  is  the  lot 
of  the  millions  ;  peiiple  taillable  et  corveable  a  merci  et  iniseri- 
corde^  In  Brittany  they  once  rose  in  revolt  at  the  first  introduction 
■'""^f-iTxridulum  Clocks  ;  thinking  it  had  something  to  do  with  the 
Gabelle,  Paris  requires  to  be  cleared  out  periodically  by  the 
Police  ;  and  the  horde  of  hunger-stricken  vagabonds  to  be  sent 
wandering  again  over  space — for  a  time.  '  During  one  such 
^periodical  clearance,'  says  Lacretelle,  'in  May,  1750,  the  Police 
'  had  presumed  withal  to  carry  off  some  reputable  people's  chil- 
*dren,  in  the  hope  of  extorting  ransoms  for  them.    The  mothers 

*  fill  the  public  places  with  cries  of  despair  ;  crowds  gather,  get 

*  excited  :  so  many  women  in  destraction  run  about  exaggerating 

*  the  alarm  :  an  absurd  and  horrid  fable  arises  among  the  people  ; 
^  it  is  said  that  the  doctors  have  ordered  a  Great  Person  to  take 
'  baths  of  young  human  blood  for  the  restoration  of  his  own,  all 
'spoiled  by  debaucheries.  Some  of  the  rioters,' adds  Lacretelle, 
quite  coolly,  *  were  hanged  on  the  following  days  : '  the  Pohce 

*  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Franqaise,  par  Deux  Amis  de  la  Liberte  (Paris, 
1793),  ii.  212. 

t  Lacretelle,  Histoire  de  France  pendant  le  \Zvie  Siccle  (Paris,  1819),  1.  271* 
X  Dulaure,  vii,  261.   ^  _ 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


went  on."^  O  ye  poor  naked  wretches!  and  this,  then,  is  your 
inarticulate  cry  to  Heaven,  as  of  a  dumb  tortured  animal,  crying 
from  uttermost  depths  of  pain  and  debasement^  Do  these 
azure  skies,  like  a  dead  crystalline  vault,  only  reverberate  the 
echo  Q^"  it  on  you?  Respond  to  it  only  by  'hanging  on  the 
fohowing  days  ?  —Not  so  :  not  forever  !  Ye  are  heard  in  Heaven. 
And  the  answer  too  will  come, — in  a  horror  of  great  darkness, 
and  shakings  of  the  world,  and  a  cup  of  trembling  which  all  the 
nations  shall  drink. 

Remark,  meanwhile,  how  from  amid  the  wrecks  and  dust  of 
this  universal  Decay  new  Powers  are  fashioning  themselves, 
adapted  to  the  new  time  and  its  destinies.  Besides  the  old 
Noblesse,  originally  of  Fighters,  there  is  a  new  recognised  Noblesse 
of  Lawyers  ;  whose  gala-day  and  proud  battle-day  even  now  is. 
An  unrecognised  Noblesse  of  Commerce  ;  powerful  enough,  with 
money  in  its  pocket.  Lastly,  powerfulest  of  all,  least  recognised 
of  all,  a  Noblesse  of  Literature  ;  without  steel  on  their  thigh, 
without  gold  in  their  purse,  but  with  the  'grand  thaumaturgic 
faculty  of  Thought'  in  their  head.  French  Philosophism  has 
arisen  ;  in  which  little  word  how  much  do  we  include  !  Here, 
indeed,  lies  properly  the  cardinal  symptom  of  the  whole  wide- 
spread malady.  Faith  is  gone  out ;  Scepticism  is  come  in.  Evil 
abounds  and  accumulates  :  no  man  has  Faith  to  withstand  it,  to 
amend  it,  to  begin  by  amending  himself ;  it  must  even  go  on 
accumulating.  While  hollow  languor  and  vacuity  is  the  lot  of  the 
Upper,  and  want  and  stagnation  of  the  Lower,  and  universal 
misery  is  very  certain,  what  other  thing  is  certain  1  That  a  Lie 
cannot  be  beheved  !  Philosophism  knows  only  this  :  her  other 
feehef  is  mainly  that,  in  spiritual  supersensual  matters  no  Behef  is 
possible.  Unhappy  !  Nay,  as  yet  the  Contradiction  of  a  Lie  is 
some  kind  of  Belief ;  but  the  Lie  with  its  Contradiction  once 
sv/ept  away,  what  will  remain  The  five  unsatiated  Senses  will 
remain,  the  sixth  insatiable  Sense  (of  vanity)  ;  the  whole  dcBmonic 
nature  of  man  will  remain, — hurled  forth  to  rage  blindly  without 
rule  or  rein  ;  savage  itself,  yet  with  all  the  tools  and  weapons  of 
civilisation  ;  a  spectacle  new  in  History. 

In  such  a  France,  as  in  a  Powder-tower,  where  fire  unquenched 
and  now  unquenchable  is  smoking  and  smouldering  all  round,  has 
Louis  XV.  lain  down  to  die.  With  Pompadourism  and  Dubarryism, 
his  Fleur-de-lis  has  been  shamefully  struck  down  in  all  lands  and 
on  all  seas  /Poverty  invades  even  the  Royal  Exchequer,  and  Tax- 
farming  can  squeeze  out  no  more  ;  there  is  a  quarrel  of  twenty-five 
years'  standing  with  the  Parlement  ;  everywhere  Want,  Dishonesty, 
Unbelief,  and  hotbrained  Sciolists  for  state-physicians  :  it  is  ay 
portentous  hour.  "  / 

Such  things  can  the  eye  of  History  see  in  this  sick-room  of 
King  Louis,  v/hich  were  invisible  to  the  Courtiers  there.  It  is 
twenty  years,  gone  Christmas-day,  since  Lord  Chesterfield, 
summing  up  what  he  had  noted  of  this  same  France,  wrote,  and 


*  Lacretelle,  iii.  175. 


REALISED  WEALS.  21 


sent  off  by  post,  the  following  words,  that  have  become  memorable  : 
*  In  short,  all  the  symptoms  which  I  have  ever  met  with  in  History, 
<  previous  to  great  Changes  and  Revolutions  in  government,  now 
•exist  and  daily  increase  in  France.'^* 


CHAPTER  III. 

VIATICUM. 

For  the  present,  however,  the  grand  question  with  the  Governois 
of  France  is  :  Shall  extreme  unction,  or  other  ghostly  viaticum  (to 
Louis,  not  to  France),  be  administered? 

It  is  a  deep  question.  For,  if  administered,  if  so  much  as  spoken 
of,  must  not,  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  business.  Witch  Dubarry 
vanish  ;  hardly  to  return  should  Louis  even  recover  ?  With  her 
vanishes  Duke  d'Aiguillon  and  Company,  afid  all  their  Armida- 
Palace,  as  was  said  ;  Chaos  swallows  the  whole  again,  and  there 
is  left  nothing  but  a  smell  of  brimstone.  But  then,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  will  the  Dauphinists  and  ChoiseuUsts  say?  Nay  what 
may  the  royal  martyr  himself  say,  should  he  happen  to  get  deadly 
worse,  without  getting  delirious  ?  For  the  present,  he  still  kisses 
the  Dubarry  hand  ;  so  we,  from  the  ante-room,  can  note  :  but 
afterwards  ?  Doctors'  bulletins  may  run  as  they  are  ordered,  but 
it  is  *  confluent  small-pox,' — of  which,  as  is  whispered  too,  the 
Gatekeeper's  once  so  buxom  Daughter  lies  ill  :  and  Louis  XV.  is 
not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with  in  his  viaticum.  Was  he  not  wont  to 
catechise  his  very  girls  in  the  Farc-aux-cer/s,  and  pray  with  iand 
for  them,  that  they  might  preserve  their — orthodoxy  ?t  A  strange 
fact,  not  an  unexampled  one ;  for  there  is  no  animal  so  strange  as 
man. 

For  the  moment,  indeed,  it  were  all  well,  could  Archbishop 
Beaumont  but  be  prevailed  upon — to  wink  with  one  eye  !  Alas, 
Beaumont  would  himself  so  fain  do  it  :  for,  singular  to  tell,  the 
Church  too,  and  whole  posthumous  hope  of  Jesuitism,  now  hangs 
by  the  apron  of  this  same  unmentionable  woman.  But  then  '  the 
force  of  public  opinion '  ?  Rigorous  Christophe  de  Beaumont, 
who  has  spent  his  life  in  persecuting  hysterical  Jansenists  and 
incredulous  Non-confessors  ;  cr  even  their  dead  bodies,  if  no 
better  might  be, — how  shall  he  now  open  Heaven's  gate,  and  give 
Absolution  with  the  corpus  delicti  still  under  his  nose?  Our 
Grand-Almoner  Roche-Aymon,  for  his  part,  will  not  higgle  with 
a  royal  sinner  about  turning  of  the  key  :  but  there  are  other 
Churchmen  ;  there  is  a  King's  Confessor,  foolish  Abbd  Moudon ; 
and  Fanaticism  and  Decency  are  not  yet  extinct.    On  the  whole^ 

*  Chesterfield's  Letters :  December  25th,  1753. 
jf  Dulaurfi^  viii*  (217)1  Besenval,  &c 


22 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


what  is  to  be  done  ?  The  doors  can  be  well  watched  ;  the  Medical 
Bulletni  adjusted  ;  and  much,  as  usual,  be  hoped  for  from  time 
and  chance. 

The  doors  are  .well  watched,  no  improper  figure  can  enter. 
Indeed,  few  wish  to  enter  ;  for  the  putrid  infection  reaches  even 
to  the  CEil-de-Boeufj  so  that  'more  than  fifty  fall  sick,  and  ten 
'  die.'  Mesdames  the  Princesses  alone  wait  at  the  Joathsome  sick- 
bed ;  impelled  by  filial  piety.  The  three  Princesses,  Graille^ 
Chiffe,  Coche  (Rag,  Snip^  Pig,  as  he  was  wont  to  name  them),  are 
assiduous  there  ;  when  all  have  fled.  The  fourth  Princess  Loque 
( Dud),  as  we  guess,  is  already  in  the  Nunnery,  and  can  only  give 
her  orisons.  Poor  Graille  and  Sisterhood,  they  have  never  known 
a  Father  :  such  is  the  hard  bargain  Grandeur  must  make.  Scarcely 
at  the  Debotter  (when  Royalty  took  off  its  boots)  could  they  snatch 
up  their  '  enormous  hoops,  gird  the  long  train  round  their  w^aists^ 
huddle  on  their  black  cloaks  of  taffeta  up  to  the  very  chin  ; '  and 
so,  m  fit  appearance  of  full  dress,  '  every  evening  at  six,'  walk 
majestically  m  :  receive  their  royal  kiss  on  the  brow;  and  then 
walk  majestically  out  again,  to  embroidery,  small-scandal,  prayers, 
and  vacancy.  If  Majesty  came  some  morning,  with  coffee  of  its 
own  making,  and  swallowed  it  with  them  hastily  while  the  dogs 
were  uncoupling  for  the  hunt,  it  was  received  as  a  grace  of  Heaven.  =^ 
Poor  withered  ancient  women  !  in  the  wild  tossings  that  vet  await 
your  fragile  existence,  before  it  be  crushed  and  broken  ;  as  ye 
fly  through  hostile  countries,  over  tempestuous  seas,  are  almost 
taken  by  the  Turks  ;  and  wholly,  in  the  Sansculottic  Earthquake, 
know  not  your  right  hand  from  your  left,  be  this  alwavs  an  assured 
place  in  your  remembrance  :  for  the  act  was  good  and  loving  !  To 
us  also  it  is  a  little  sunny  spot,  in  that  dismal  howling  waste,  where 
we  hardly  find  another. 

Meanwhile,  what  shall  an  impartial  prudent  Courtier  do  ?  In 
these  delicate  circumstances,  while  not  only  death  or  hfe,  but  even 
sacrament  or  no  sacrament,  is  a  question,  the  skilfulest  may  falter. 
Few  are  so  happy  as  the  Duke  d'Orleans  and  the  Prince  de  Conde  ; 
who  can  themselves,  with  volatile  salts,  attend  the  King's  ante- 
chamber ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  send  their  brave  sons  (Duke  de 
Chartres,  Egalite  that  is  to  be  ;  Duke  de  Bourbon,  one  day  Conde 
too,  and  famous  among  Dotards)  to  wait  upon  the  Dauphin.  With 
another  fe^^,  it  is  a  resolution  taken  ;  jacta  est  aim.  Old  Riche- 
lieu,~when  Beaumont,  driven  by  public  opinion,  is  at  last  for 
entering  the  sick-room,— will  twitch  him  by  the  rochet,  into  a  re- 
cess ;  and  there,  with  liis  old  dissipated  mtistiff-face,  and  the 
oiliest  vehemence,  be  seen  pleading  (and  even,  as  we  judge  by 
Beaumont's  change  of  colour,  prevailing)  '  that  the  King  be  not 
killed  by  a  proposition  in  Divinity.'  Duke  de  Fronsac,  son  of 
Richelieu,  can  follow  his  father  :  when  the  Cure  of  Versailles 
whimpers  somctlrin-  a])oiit  sacraments,  he  will  threaten  to  'throw 
*him  out  of  the  window  if  he  inention  siicli  a  thing.' 

Happy  thcso,  we  in  iy  s;)\'  ;  but  to  the  rest  that  hover  between 
two  opinions,  is  ii  not  ti  )  iiig  ?  He  who  would  understand  to  what 
*  Campan,  i.  11-36. 


VIA  TICUM. 


23 


a  pass  Catholicism,  and  much  else,  had  nov.  v  t  ae 

symbols  of  the  Holiest  have  become  gambling-dicc  oi  tiic  i.asest, 
—must  read  the  narrative  of  those  things  by  Besenval,  and  Sou- 
lavie,  and  the  other  Court  Newsmen  of  the  tune.  He  will  see  the 
Versailles  Galaxy  all  scattered  asunder,  grouped  mto  new  ever- 
shiftino-  Constellations.  There  are  nods  and  sagacious  glances  ; 
go-betweens,  silk  dowagers  mysteriously  gliding,  with  smiles  for 
this  constellation,  sighs  for  that  :  there  is  tremor,  of  hope  or 
desperation,  in  several  hearts.  There  is  the  pale  grmnmg  Shadow 
of  Death,  ceremoniously  ushered  along  by  another  grinning 
Shadow,  of  Etiquette  :  at  intervals  the  growl  of  Chapel  Organs,, 
like  prayer  by  machinery  ;  proclaiming,  as  in  a  kind  of  horrid 
diabolic  horse-laughter,  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  Vamt^  / 


CHAPTER  IV, 

LOUIS  THE  UNFORGOTTEN. 

Poor  Louis  !  With  these  it  is  a  hollow  phantasmagory,  where 
like  mimes  they  mope  and  mowl,  and  utter  false  sounds  for  hire  ; 
but  with  thee  it  is  frightful  earnest. 

Frightful  to  all  men  is  Death  ;  from  of  old  named  King  ot 
Terrors.  Our  little  compact  home  of  an  Existence,  where  we 
dwelt  complaining,  vet  as  in  a  home,  is  passing,  in  dark  agonies, 
into  an  Unknov/n  ^f  Sepai'ation,  Foreignness,  unconditioned 
Possibility.  The  Heathen  Emperor  asks  of  his  soul  :  Into  wxiat 
places  art  thou  now  departing?  The  Catholic  King  must  answer  : 
To  the  Judgment-bar  of  the  Most  High  God  !  Yes,  it  is  a  sum- 
mino--up  of  Life  ;  a  final  setding,  and  giving-m  the  '  account  ot 
the  deeds  done  in  the  body  : '  they  are  done  now  ;  and  he  there 
unalterable,  and  do  bear  their  fruits,  long  as  Eternity  shall  last. 

Louis  XV.  had  always  the  kinghest  abhorrence  of  Death. 
Unlike  that  praying  Duke  of  Orleans,  Egalite's  grandfather,— for 
indeed  several  of  them  had  a  touch  of  madness,— who  honestly 
believed  that  there  was  no  Death  1  He,  if  the  Court  Newsmen 
can  be  believed,  started  up  once  on  a  time,  glowing  with  sulphur- 
ous contempt  and  indignation  on  his  poor  Secretary,  who  had 
stumbled  on  the  words,  feu  rot  d'Espagne  (the  late  King  01 
Spain)  :  ''Feu  roi,  Mcmsieurf"—" Mo?iseig7icur;'  hastdy  answered 
the  trembling  but  adroit  man  of  business,  "  c'est  une  litre  qihls 
pren7ient  ('tis  a  title  they  take)."*  Louis,  we  say,  was  not  so 
happy  ;  but  he  did  what  he  could.  He  v/ould  not  suffer  Death  to 
be  spoken  of  ;  avoided  the  sight  of  churchyards,  funereal  monu- 
ments, and  whatsoever  could  bring  it  to  mind.    It  is  the  resource 


*  Besenval,  i.  199. 


24  DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


of  the  Ostrich  ;  who,  hard  hunted,  sticks  his  foohsh  head  in  the 
ground,  and  would  fain  forget  that  his  fooHsh  unseeing  body  is 
not  unseen  too.  Or  sometimes,  with  a  spasmodic  antagonism 
signihcant  of  the  same  thing,  and  of  more,  he  zvould  go  ;  or 
stoppmg  his- court  carriages,  would  send  into  churchyards  and 
ask  '  how  many  new  graves  there  were  to-day,'  though  it  gave  his 
poor  Pompadour  the  disagreeablest  qualms.  We  can  fio-ure  the 
thought  of  Louis  that  day,  when,  all  royally  caparisoned  for 
huntmg,  he  met,  at  some  sudden  turning  in  the  Wood  of  Senart 
a  ragged  Peasant  with  a  coffin  :  "  For  whom  1  ''—It  was  for  a  poor 
brother  slave,  whom  Majesty  had  sometimes  noticed  slaving  in 
those  quarters.  "What  did  he  die  of.^^''— "Of  hunger  •  "-—the 
Kmg  gave  his  steed  the  spur.^ 

But  figure  his  thought,  when  Death  is  now  clutching  at  his  own 
heart-strmgs  ;  unlooked  for,  inexorable  !  Yes,  poor  Louis,  Death 
has  found  thee.  No  palace  walls  or  life-guards,  gorgeous  tapestries 
or  gilt  buckram  of  stiffest  ceremonial  could  keep  him  out  •  but  he 
is  here,  here  at  thy  very  life-breath,  and  will  extinguish  it.'  Thou 
whose  whole  existence  hitherto  was  a  chimera  and  scenic  show  at 
length  becomest  a  reality  :  sumptuous  Versailles  bursts  asunder 
like  a  dream,  into  void  Immensity  ;  Time  is  done,  and  all  the 
scaffolding  of  Time  falls  wrecked  with  hideous  clangour  round  thy 
soul :  the  pale  Kingdoms  yawn  open  ;  there  must  thou  enter 
naked,  all  unking  d,  and  await  what  is  appointed  thee  !  Unhappy 
man^  there  as  thou  turnest,  in  dull  agony,  on  thy  bed  of  weariness 
what  a  thought  is  thine  !  Purgatory  and  Hell-fire,  now  ail-too 
possible,  m  the  prospect  ;  in  the  retrospect,— alas,  what  thing 
aidst  thou  do  that  were  not  better  undone;  what  mortal 
didst  thou  generously  help ;  what  sorrow  hadst  thou  mercv  on  ^ 
Do  the  '  five  hundred  thousand '  ghosts,  who  sank  shamefully  on 
so  many  battle-fields  from  Rossbach  to  Quebec,  that  thy  Harlot 
might  take  revenge  for  an  epigram,— crowd  round  thee  in  this 
hour.?  Thy  foul  Harem;  the  curses  of  mothers,  the  tears  and 
infamy  of  daughters  1  Miserable  man !  thou  '  hast  done  evil  as 
thou  couldst : '  thy  whole  existence  seems  one  hideous  abortion 
and  mistake  of  Nature  ;  the  use  and  meaning  of  thee  not  yet 
known.  Wert  thou  a  fabulous  Griffin,  devoicring  the  works  of 
men  ;  daily  dragging  virgins  to  thy  cave  ;— clad  also  in  scales  that 
no  spear  would  pierce  :  no  spear  but  Death's  ?  A  Griffin  not 
fabulous  but  real !  Frightful,  O  Louis,  seem  these  moments  for  thee. 
—We  will  pry  no  further  into  the  horrors  of  a  sinner's  death-bed. 

And  yet  let  no  meanest  man  lay  flattering  unction  to  his  soul 
Louis  was  a  Ruler  ;  but  art  not  thou  also  one  1  His  wide  Franca 
look  at  It  from  the  Fixed  Stars  (themselves  not  vet  Infinitude)  is 
no  wider  than  thy  narrow  brickfield,  where  thou  too  didst  faithfullv 
or  didst  unfaithfully.  Man,  '  Symbol  of  Eternitv  imprisoned  into 
lime!  It  is  not  thy  works,  which  are  all  mortal,  infinitely  little, 
and  the  greatest  no  greater  than  the  least,  but  only  the  Spirit  thou 
workeet  m,  that  can  have  worth  or  continuance. 

*  CarajBan,  iii.  35, 


LOUIS  THE  UNFORGOTTEN, 


But  reflect,  in  any  case,  what  a  life-problem  this  of  poor 
Louis,  when  he  rose  as  Bien-Aiiiie  from  that  Metz  sick-bed, 
really  was  !  What  son  of  Adam  could  have  swayed  such  inco- 
herences into  coherence?  Could  he?  Blindest  Fortune  alone 
has  cast  him  on  the  top  of  it  :  he  swims  there  ;  can  as  little  sway 
it  as  the  drift-log  sways  the  wind-tossed  moon-stirred  Atlantic. 
"  What  have  I  done  to  be  so  loved  ?"  he  said  then.  He  may  say 
now  :  What  have  I  done  to  be  so  hated  ?  Thou  hast  done  nothing, 
poor  Louis  !  Thy  fault  is  properly  even  this,  that  thou  didst 
7iothing.  What  could  poor  Louis  do  ?  Abdicate,  and  wash  his 
hands  of  it, — in  favour  of  the  first  that  would  accept  !  Other  clear 
wisdom  there  was  none  for  him.  As  it  was,  he  stood  gazing  dubiously, 
the  absurdest  mortal  extant  (a  very  Solecism  Incarnate),  into  the 
absurdest  confused  world  ; — wherein  at  lost  nothing  seemed  so 
certain  as  that  he,  the  incarnate  Solecism,  had  five  senses  ;  that 
were  Flying  Tables  {Tables  Volantes^  which  vanish  through  the 
floor,  to  come  back  reloaded',  and  a  Parc-aux-cerfs. 

Whereby  at  least  we  have  again  this  historical  curiosity  :  a 
human  being  in  an  original  position  ;  swimming  passively,  as  on 
some  boundless  '  Mother  of  Dead  Dogs/  towards  issues  which  he 
partly  saw.  For  Louis  had  withal  a  kind  of  insight  in  him.  So, 
when  a  new  Minister  of  Marine,  or  what  else  it  might  be,  came 
announcing  his  new  era,  the  Scarlet-woman  would  hear  from  the 
lips  of  Majesty  at  supper  :  He  laid  out  his  ware  like  another  ; 
promised  the  beautifulest  things  in  the  world  ;  not  a  thing  of 
which  will  come  :  he  does  not  know  this  region  ;  he  will  see." 
Or  again  :  "  Tis  the  twentieth  time  I  hear  all  that  ;  France  will 
never  get  a  Navy,  I  believe."  How  touching  also  was  this  :  "  If 
/  were  Lieutenant  of  Pohce,  I  would  prohibit  those  Paris  cab- 
riolets." 

Doomed  mortal ; — for  is  it  not  a  doom  to  be  Solecism  in- 
carnate !  A  new  Roi  Faijteant^  King  Donothing  ;  but  with  the 
strangest  new  Mayor  of  the  Palace :  no  bow-legged  Pepin  now^^ 
but  that  same  cloud-capt,  fire-breathing  Spectre  of  Democracy  ; 

incalculable,  which  is  enveloping  the  world  !  -Was  Louis  no 

wickeder  than  this  or  the  other  private  Donothing  and  Eatall  ; 
such  as  we  often  enough  see,  under  the  name  of  Man,  and  even 
Man  of  Pleasure,  cumbering  God's  dihgent  Creation,  for  a  time  ? 
Say,  wretcheder  !  His  Life-solecism  was  seen  and  felt  of  a  whole 
scandalised  world  ;  him  endless  Oblivion  cannot  engulf,  and  swal- 
low to  endless  depths, — not  yet  for  a  generation  or  two. 

However,  be  this  as  it  will,  we  remark,  not  without  interest,  that 
*on  the  evening  of  the  4th,'  Dame  Dubarry  issues  from  the  sick- 
room, with  perceptible  '  trouble  in  her  visage.'  It  is  the  fourth 
evening  of  May,  year  of  Grace  1774.  Such  a  whispering  in  the 
CEil-de-Bceu^" !  Is  he  dying,  then?  What  can  be  said  is,  that 
Dubarry  seems  making  up  her  packages ;  she  sails  weeping  through 
her  gilt  boudoirs,  as  if  taking  leave.    D'Aiguilon  and  Cojapaajr  a;'e 

♦  yotimal  de  Madame  de  Hausset^  p.  293,  &a 


26 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


near  their  last  card  ;  nevertheless  they  will  not  yet  throw  up  the 
game.  But  as  for  the  sacramental  controversy,  it  is  as  good  as 
settled  without  being  mentioned  ;  Louis  can  send  for  his  Abbe 
Moudon  in  the  course  of  next  night,  be  confessed  by  him,  some 
say  for  the  space  of '  seventeen  minutes/  and  demand  the  sacra- 
ments of  his  own  accord. 

Nay  already,  in  the  afternoon,  behold  is  not  this  your  Sorceress 
Dubarry  with  the  handerchief  at  her  eyes,  mounting  D'Aiguillon's 
chariot  ;  rolhng  off  in  his  Duchess's  consolatory  arms  ?  She  is 
gone  ;  and  her  place  knows  her  no  more.  Vanish,  false  Sorceress  ; 
into  Space  !  Needless  to  hover  at  neighbouring  Ruel  ;  for  thy 
day  is  done.  Shut  are  the  royal  palace-gates  for  evermore  ; 
hardly  in  coming  years  shalt  thou,  under  cloud  of  night,  descend 
once,  in  black  domino,  like  a  black  night-bird,  and  disturb  the  fair 
Antoinette's  music-party  in  the  Park  :  all  Birds  of  Paradise  flying 
from  thee,  and  musical  windpipes  growing  mute.^  Thou  unclean, 
yet  unmalignant,  not  unpitiable  thing  !  What  a  course  was  thine  : 
from  that  first  trucklebed  (in  Joan  of  Arc's  country)  where  thy 
mother  bore  thee,  with  tears,  to  an  unnamed  father  :  forward, 
through  lowest  subterranean  depths,  and  over  highest  sunlit  heights, 
of  Harlotdom  and  Rascaldom — to  the  guillotine-axe,  which  shears 
away  thy  vainly  whimpering  head  !  Rest  there  uncursed  ;  only 
buried  and  abolished  :  what  else  befitted  thee  ? 

Louis,  meanwhile,  is  in  considerable  impatience  for  his  sacra- 
ments ;  sends  more  than  once  to  the  window,  to  see  whether  they 
are  not  coming.  Be  of  comfort,  Louis,  what  comfort  thou  canst : 
they  are  under  way,  those  sacraments.  Towards  six  in  the  morn- 
ing, they  arrive.  Cardinal  Grand-Almoner  Roche-Aymon  is  here, 
in  pontificals,  with  his  pyxes  and  his  tools  ;  he  approaches  the 
royal  pillow ;  elevates  his  wafer  ;  mufters  or  seems  to  mutter 
somewhat ; — and  so  (as  the  Abbe  Georgel,  in  words  that  stick  to 
one,  expresses  it)  has  Louis  '  made  the  ajnende  honorable  to  God  ; ' 
so^does  your  Jesuit  construe  it. — "  Wa^  Wa,''  as  the  wild  Clotaire 
groaned  out,  when  life  was  departing,  "  what  great  God  is  this 
that  pulls  down  the  strength  of  the  strongest  kings  !  "t 

The  amende  honorable^  what  '  legal  apology '  you  will,  to  God  : 
—  but  not,  if  DAiguillon  can  help  it,  to  man.  Dubarry  still 
hovers  in  his  mansion  at  Ruel  ;  and  while  there  is  life,  there  is 
hope.  Grand-Almoner  Roche-Aymon,  accordingly  (far  he  sterns 
to  be  in  the  secret),  has  no  sooner  seen  his  pyxes  and  gear  re- 
packed, then  he  is  stepping  majestically  forth  again,  as  if  the 
work  were  done  !  But  King's  Confessor  Abbe  Moudon  starts 
forward  ;  with  anxious  acidulent  face,  twitches  him  by  the  sleeve  ; 
whispers  in  his  ear.  Whereupon  the  poor  Cardinal  must  turn 
round  ;  and  declare  audibly,  That  his  Majesty  repents  of  any 
subjects  of  scandal  he  may  have  given  {a  pu  do7i7ier)  ;  and  pur- 
poses, by  the  strength  of  Heaven  assisting  him,  to  avoid  the  like 
— for  the  future  !"  Words  listened  to  by  Richelieu  with  mastiff- 
face,  growing  blacker;  answered  t(^  nloud,  'with  an  epithet,' 
■ — which  Besenval  will  not  repeat.  Old  Richeheu,  conqueror  of 
*  Campan,  i.  197.  f  Grcgorius  Turoncnsis,  Histor,  lib.  iv.  cap.  21. 


LOUIS  THE  UNFORGOTTEN. 


27 


Minorca,  companion  of  Flying-Table  orgies,  perforator  of  bed- 
room walls,*  is  thy  day  also  done  ? 

Alas,  the  Chapel  organs  may  keep  going ;  the  Shrine  of 
Sainte  Genevieve  be  let  down,  and  pulled  up  again,— without 
effect.  In  the  evening  the  whole  Court,  with  Dauphin  and  Dau- 
phiness,  assist  at  the  Chapel  :  priests  are  hoarse  with  chanting 
their  *  Prayers  of  Forty  Hours;'  and  the  heaving  bellows  blow. 
Almost  frightful  !  For  the  very  heaven  blackens  ;  battering  rain- 
torrents  dash,  with  thunder  ;  almost  drowning  the  organ's  voice  : 
and  electric  fire-flashes  make  the  very  flambeaux  on  the  altar 
pale.  So  that  the  most,  as  we  are  told,  retired,  when  it  was  over, 
with  hurried  steps,  ^  in  a  state  of  meditation  (recueillement)^^  and 
said  httle  or  nothing.f 

So  it  has  lasted  for  the  better  half  of  a  fortnight ;  the  Dubarry 
gone  almost  a  week.  Besenval  says,  all  the  world  was  getting 
impatient  que  cela  finit ;  that  poor  Louis  would  have  done  with  it. 
It  is  now  the  loth  of  May  1774.    He  will  soon  have  done  now. 

This  tenth  May  day  falls  into  the  loathsome  sick-bed  ;  but 
dull,  unnoticed  there  :  for  they  that  look  out  of  the  windows  are 
quite  darkened  ;  the  cistern-wheel  moves  discordant  on  its  axis  ; 
Life,  hke  a  spent  steed,  is  panting  towards  the  goal.  In  their 
remote  apartments.  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness  stand  road-ready  ; 
all  groouis  and  equerries  booted  and  spurred  :  waiting  for  some 
signal  to  escape  the  house  of  pestilence  +  And,  hark  1  across  the 
CEil-de-Boetif,  what  sound  is  that  :  sound  '  terrible  and  absolutely 
like  thunder'?  It  is  the  rush  of  the  whole  Court,  rushing  as  in 
wager,  to  salute  the  new  Sovereigns  :  Hail  to  your  Majesties  ! 
The  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness  are  King  and  Queen  !  Over- 
powered with  many  emotions,  they  two  fall  on  their  knees  together, 
and,  with  streaming  tears,  exclaim,  "  O  God,  guide  us,  protect 
us  ;  we  are  too  young  to  reign  ! " —  i  00  young  indeed. 
Z'  Thus,  in  any  case,  ^  with  a  sound  absolutely  like  thunder,'  has 
the  Horologe  of  Time  struck,  ana  an  old  Era  passed  away.^  The 
Louis  that  was,  lies  forsaken,  a  niass  ot  abhorred  clay  ;  abandoned 
'to  some  poor  persons,  and  priests  of  the  Chapelle  Ardente^ — 
who  make  haste  to  put  him  'in  two  lead  coffins,  pouring  in 
abundant  spirits  of  wine.'  The  new  Louis  with  his  Court  is  rolling 
towards  Choisy,  through  the  summer  afternoon  :  the  royal  tears 
still  flow  ;  but  a  word  mispronounced  by  Monseigneur  d'Artois 
sets  them  all  laughing,  and  they  weep  no  more.  Light  mortals, 
how  ye  walk  your  light  life-minuet,  over  bottomless  abysses, 
divided  from  you  by  a- film  ! 

*  Besenval,  i.  159-172.    Genlis  ;  Due  dc  Levis,  &c. 

f  Weber,  Manoires  concernant  Marie- Antoinette  (London,  1809),  i  22. 

J  On&  grudges  to  interfere  with  the  beautiful  theatrical  'candle,'  which 
Madame  Campan  (i.  79)  has  ht  on  this  occasion,  and  blown  out  at  the  moment 
of  death.  What  candles  might  be  lit  or  blown  out,  in  so  large  an  Establish- 
ment as  that  of  Versailles,  no  man  at  such  distance  would  like  to  affirm  :  at 
the  same  time,  as  it  was  two  o'clock  in  a  May  Afternoon,  and  these  royal 
Stables  must  have  been  some  five  or  six  hundred  yards  from  the  royal  sick- 
toom,  the  'candle'  does  threaten  to  go  out  in  spite  of  us.  It  remains  burning 
indeed*~in  her  fantasy  ;  throwing  light  on  much  in  those  M4moires  of  hers. 


28  DEATH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


For  the  rest,  the  proper  authorities  felt  that  no  Funeral  could 
be  too  unceremonious.  Besenval  himself  thinks  it  was  uncere- 
monious enough.  Two  carriages  containing  two  noblemen  of  the 
usher  species,  and  a  Versailles  clerical  person  ;  some  score  of 
mounted  pages,  some  fifty  palfreniers  ;  th^se,  with  torches  but 
not  so  much  as  m  black,  start  from  Versailles  on  the  second  even- 
ing with  their  leaden  bier.  At  a  high  trot  they  start  ;  and  keep  up 
that  pace.  For  the  jibes  {brocards)  of  those  Parisians,  who  stand 
planted  in  two  rows,  all  the  way  to  St.  Denis,  and  '  give  vent  to 
their  pleasantry,  the  characteristic  of  the  nation,'  do  not  tempt  one 
to  slacken.  Towards  midnight  the  vaults  of  St.  Denis  receive 
their  ovyn  ;  unwept  by  any  eye  of  all  these  ;  if  not  by  poor  Loque 
his  neglected  Daughter's,  whose  Nunnery  is  hard  by. 

Him  they  crush  down,  and  huddle  under-ground,  in  this  im- 
patient way ;  him  and  his  era  of  sin  and  tyranny  and  shame  • 
for  behold  a  New  Era  is  come ;  the  future  all  the  brighter  that  the 
past  was  base. 


BOOK  SECOND. 

THE  PAPER  AGE, 


CHAPTER  1. 

ASTR^A  REDUX. 

A  PARADOXICAL  philosopher,  carrying  to  the  uttermost  length 
that  aphorism  of  Montesquieu's,  ^  Happy  the  people  whose  annals 
2ire  tiresome/  has  said,  '  Happy  the  people  whose  annals  are 
vacant.'  In  which  saying,  mad  as  it  looks,  may  there  not 
§till  be  found  some  grain  of  reason  ?  For  truly,  as  it  has  been 
written,  '  Silence  is  divine,'  and  of  Heaven  ;  so  in  all  earthly 
things  too  there  is  a  silence  which  is  better  than  any  speech. 
Consider  it  well,  the  Event,  the  thing  which  can  be  spoken  of  and 
recorded,  is  it  not,  in  all  cases,  some  disruption,  some  solution  of 
continuity  1  Were  it  even  a  glad  Event,  it  involves  change,  in- 
volves loss  (of  active  Force)  ;  and  so  far,  either  in  the  past  or  in 
the  present,  is  an  irregularity,  a  disease.  Stillest  perseverance 
were  our  blessedness  ;  not  dislocation  and  alteration, — could  they 
be  avoided. 

The  oak  grows  silently,  in  the  forest,  a  thousand  years  ;  only 
in  the  thousandth  year,  Vv^hen  the  woodman  arrives  with  his  axe, 
is  there  heard  an  echoing  through  the  s'olituder  ;  and  the  oak 
announces  itself  when,  with  a  far-sounding  crash,  it  falls.  How 
silent  too  was  the'  planting  of  the  acorn  ;  scattered  from  the  lap  of 
some  wandering  wind  !  Nay,  waen  our  oak  flowered,  or  put  on 
its  leaves  (its  glad  Events),  what  choutof  proclamation  could  there 
be  ?  Hardly  from  the  most  observant  a  word  of  recognition. 
These  things  befell  not,  they  were  slowly  done;  not  in  an  hour, 
but  through  the  flight  of  days  :  what  was  to  be  said  of  it  ?  This 
hour  seemed  altogether  as  the  last  was,  as  the  next  would  be. 

It  is  thus  everywhere  that  foolish  Rumour  babbles  not  of  what 
was  done,  but  of  what  was  misdone  or  undone  ;  and  foolish  His- 
tory (ever,  more  or  less,  the  written  epitomised  synopsis  of  Ru- 
mour) knovvs  so  little  that  were  not  as  well  unknov/n.  Attila  In- 
vasions, VValter-the-Penniless  Crusades,  Sicilian  Vespers,  Thirty- 
Years  Wars  :  mere  sin  and  misery  ;  not  work,  but  hindrance  of 


3P 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


work  !  For  the  Earth,  all  this  while,  was  yearly  green  and  yellow 
with  her  kind  harvests;  the  hand  of  the  craftsman,  the  mind  of 
the  thinker  rested  not  :  and  so,  after  all,  and  in  spite  of  all,  we 
have  this  so  glorious  high-domed  blossoming  World  ;  concerning 
which,  poor  History  may  well  ask,  with  wonder,  Whence  //came  ? 
She  knows  so  little  of  it,  knows  so  much  of  what  obstructed  it, 
what  would  have  rendered  it  impossible.  Such,  nevertheless,  by 
necessity  or  foolish  choice,  is  her  rule  and  practice  ;  whereby  that 
paradox,  *  Happy  the  people  whose  annals  are  vacant,'  is  not  with- 
out its  true  side. 

And  yet,  what  seems  more  pertinent  to  note  here,  there  is  a 
stillness,  not  of  unobstructed  growth,  but  of  passive  inertness,  the 
symptom  of  imminent  downfall.  As  victory  is  silent,  so  is  defeat. 
Of  the  opposing  forces  the  weaker  has  resigned  itself;  the 
stronger  marches  on,  noiseless  now,  but  rapid,  inevitable  :  the  fall 
and  overturn  will  not  be  noiseless.  How  all  grows,  and  has  its 
period,  even  as  the  herbs  of  the  fields,  be  it  annual,  centennial, 
millennial  !  All  grows  and  dies,  each  by  its  own  wondrous  laws, 
in  wondrous  fashion  of  its  own  ;  spiritual  things  most  wondrously 
of  all.  Inscrutable,  to  the  wisest,  are  these  latter  ;  not  to  be  pro- 
phesied of,  or  understood.  If  when  the  oak  stands  proudliest 
flourishing  to  the  eye,  you  know  that  its  heart  is  sound,  it  is  not 
so  with  the  man ;  how  much  less  with  the  Society,  with  the  Nation 
of  men  !  Of  such  it  may  be  affirmed  even  that  the  superficial 
aspect,  that  the  inward  feeling  of  full  health,  is  generally  ominous. 
F or  indeed  it  is  of  apoplexy,  so  to  speak,  and  a  plethoric  lazy 
habit  of  body,  that  Churches,  Kingships,  Social  Institutions, 
oftenest  die.  Sad,  when  such  Institution  plethorically  says  to  it- 
self, Take  thy  ease,  thou  hast  goods  laid  up  ;~like  the  fool  of  the 
Gospel,  to  whom  it  was  answered,  Fool,  this  night  thy  life  shall 
be  required  of  thee  i 

Is  it  the  healthy  peace,  or  the  ominous  unhealthy,  that  rests  on 
France,  for  these  next  Ten  Years  ?  Over  which  the  Historian  can 
pass  lightly,  without  call  to  linger  :  for  as  yet  events  are  not,  much 
less  performances.  Time  of  sunniest  stillness  ;— shall  we  call  it, 
what  all  men  thought  it,  the  new  Age  of  Gold  1  Call  it  at  least, 
of  Paper ;  which  in  many  ways  is  the  succedaneum  of  Gold. 
Bank-paper,  wherewith  you  can  still  buv  when  there  is  no  gold 
left ;  Book-paper,  splendent  with  Theories,  Philosophies,  Sensibi- 
lities,—-beautiful  art,  not  only  of  revealing  Thought,  but  also  of  so 
beautifully  hiding  from  us  the  want  of  Thought  !  Paper  is  made 
from  the  ra<^s  of  things  that  did  once  exist  ;  there  are  endless  ex- 
cellences in  Paper.— Wliat  wisest  Philosophe,  in  this  halcyon  un- 
eventful period,  could  prophesy  that  there  was  approaching,  big 
with  darkness  and  confusion,  the  event  of  events.^  Hope  ushers 
in  a  Revolution, — as  earthquakes  are  preceded  hy  bright  weather. 
On  the  P^ifth  of  May,  fifteen  years  hence,  old  Louis  \vill  not  be 
sending  for  the  Sacraments  ;  but  a  new  Louis,  his  grandson,  vvitli 
the  whole  pomp  of  astonished  intoxicated  France,  will  be  openins^ 
the  States- General. 


ASTRJEA  REDUX, 


31 


Dubarrydom  and  its  D'Aiguillons  are  gone  forever.  There  is  a 
young,  still  docile,  well-intentioned  King;  a  young,  beautiful  and 
bountiful,  well-intentioned  Queen  ;  and  with  them  all  France,  as 
it  were,  become  young.  Maupeou  and  his  I'arlement  have  to 
vanish  into  thick  night  ;  respectable  Magistrates,  not  indifferent  to 
the  Nation,  were  it  only  for  having  been  opponents  of  the  Court, 
can  descend  unchained  from  their  ^  steep  rocks  at  Croe  in  Com- 
brailles'  and  elsev/here,  and  return  singing  praises  :  the  old  Par- 
lement  of  Paris  resumes  its  functions.  Instead  of  a  profligate 
bankrupt  Abbe  Terray,  we  have  now,  for  Controller-General,  a 
virtuous  philosophic  Turgot,  with  a  whole  Reformed  France  in  his 
head.  By  whom  whatsoever  is  wrong,  in  Finance  or  otherwise, 
will  be  righted,— as  far  as  possible.  Is  it  not  as  if  Wisdom  her- 
self were  henceforth  to  have  seat  and  voice  in  the  Council  of 
Kings?  Turgot  has  taken  office  with  the  noblest  plainness  of 
speech  to  that  effect  ;  beer,  listened  to  with  the  noblest  royal  trust- 
fulness."^ It  is  true,  as  King  Louis  objects,  They  say  he  never 
goes  to  mass  but  liberal  France  hkes  him  little  worse  for  that  ; 
liberal  France  answers,  "  The  Abbe  Terray  always  went  "  Philo- 
sophism  sees,  for  the  first  time,  a  Philosophe  (or  even  a  Philoso- 
pher) in  office  :  she  i^i  all  things  will  applausively  second  him; 
neither  will  light  old  Maurep-3  obstruct,  if  he  can  easily  help  it. 

Then  how  '  sweet'  arc  tho  manners  ;  vice  '  losing  all  its  deform- 
ity;' becoming  decent  (as  cstabhshcd  things,  making  regulations 
for  themselves,  do)  ;  becoming  almost  a  kind  of  '  sweet '  virtue  ! 
Intelligence  so  abounds  ;  irradiated  by  wit  and  the  art  of  conver- 
sation. Philosophism  sits  joyful  in  her  glittering  saloons,  the 
dinner-guest  of  Opulence  grown  ingenuous,  the  very  nobles  proud 
to  sit  by  her  ;  and  preaches,  lifted  up  over  rJl  Bastilles,  a  coming 
millennium.  From  far  Ferney,  Patriarch  A^oltaire  gives  sign  : 
veterans  Diderot,  D'Alembert  have  hved  to  see  this  day  ;  these 
with  their  younger  Marmontels,  Morellets,  Chamforts,  Raynals, 
make  glad  the  spicy  board  of  rich  ministering  Dowager,  of  philo- 
sophic Farmer-General.  O  nights  and  suppers  of  the  gods  !  Of 
a  truth,  the  long-demonstrated  will  now  be  done  :  '  the  Age  of 
Revolutions  approaches '  (as  Jean  Jacques  wrote),  but  then  of 
happy  blessed  ones.  Man  awakens  from  his  long  somnambulism  ; 
chases  the  Phantasms  that  beleaguered  and  bewitched  him. 
Behold  the  new  morning  glittering  down  the  eastern  steeps  ;  fly, 
false  Phantasms,  from  its  shafts  of  light  ;  let  the  Absurd  fly  utterly 
forsaking  this  lower  Earth  for  ever.  It  is  Truth  and  Astrcea  Redux 
that  (in  the  shapQ  of  Philosophism)  henceforth  reign.  For  what 
imaginable  purpose  was  man  made,  if  not  to  be  '  happy  '  ?  By 
victorous  Analysis,  and  Progress  of  the  Species,  happiness 
enough  now  awaits  him.  Kings  can  become  philosophers  ;  or  else 
philosophers  Kings.  Let  but  Society  be  once  rightly  constituted, 
— by  victorious  Analysis.  The  stomach  that  is  empty  shall  be 
filled  ;  the  throat  that  is  dry  shall  be  wetted  with  wine.  Labour 
itself  shall  be  all  one  as  rest  ;  not  grievous,  but  joyous.  Wheat- 

*  Turgot's  Letter :  Condorcet,  Vie  de  Turgot  {CEuvres  de  Co/idorceif  U  v.), 
p.  67.   The  date  is  24th  August,  1774. 


32 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


fields,  one  would  think,  cannot  come  to  grov/  untilled  ;  no  man 
made  clayey,  or  made  weary  thereby  ;— unless  indeed  machinery 
win  do  it  ?  Gratuitous  Tailors  and  Restaurateurs  may  start  up,  at 
fit  intervals,  one  as  yet  sees  not  how.  But  if  each  will,  according 
to  rule  of  Benevolence,  have  a  care  for  all,  then  surely— no  one 
will  be  uncared  for  Nay,  who  knows  but,  by  sufficiently  victorious 
Analysis,  '  human  life  may  be  indefinitely  lengthened/  and  men 
get  rid  of  Death,  as  they  have  already  done  of  the  Devil  ?  We 
shall  then  be  happy  in  spite  of  Death  and  the  Devil.— So  preaches 
magniloquent  Philosophism  her  Redeunt  Saturnia  regna. 

The  prophetic  song  of  Paris  and  its  Philosophes  is  audible 
enough  in  the  Versailles  CEil-de-Boeuf ;  and  the  CEil-de-B'ceuf, 
intent  chiefly  on  nearer  blessedness,  can  answer,  at  worst,  with  a 
polite  "Why  not?''  Good  old  cheery  Maurepas  is  too  joyful  a 
Prime  Minister  to  dash  the  world's  joy.  Sufficient  for  the  day  be 
its  own  evil.  Cheery  old  man,  he  cuts  his  jokes,  and  hovers  care- 
less along  ;  his  cloak  well  adjusted  to  the  wind,  if  so  be  he  may 
please  all  persons.  The  simple  young  King,  whom  a  Maurepas 
cannot  think  of  troubling  with  business,  has  retired  into  the 
interior  apartments  ;  taciturn,  irresolute  ;  though  with  a  sharpness 
of  temper  at  times  :  he,  at  length,  determines  on  a  little  smith-' 
work  ;  and  so,  in  apprenticeship  with  a  Sieur  Gamain  (whom  one 
day  he  shall  have  little  cause  to  bless),  is  learning  to  make  locks."^ 
It  appears  further,  he  understood  Geography ;  and  could  read 
English.  Unhappy  young  King,  his  childhke  trust  in  that  foolish 
old  Maurepas  deserved  another  return.  But  friend  and  foe, 
destiny  and  himself  have  combined  to  do  him  hurt. 

Meanwhile  the  fair  young  Queen,  in  her  halls  of  state,  walks 
like  a  goddess  of  Beauty,  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes  ;  as  yet  mingles 
not  with  affairs  ;  heeds  not  the  future  ;  least  of  all,  dreads  it. 
Weber  and  Campanf  have  pictured  her,  there  within  the  royal 
tapestries,  in  bright  boudoirs,  baths,  peignoirs,  and  the  Grand  and 
Little  Toilette  ;  with  a  whole  brilhant  world  waiting  obsequious  on 
her  glance  :  fair  young  daughter  of  Time,  what  things  has  Time  in 
store  for  thee  !  Like  Earth's  brightest  Appearance,  she  moves 
gracefully,  environed  with  the  grandeur  of  Earth  :  a  reality,  and 
yet  a  magic  vision  ;  for,  behold,  shall  not  utter  Darkness  swallow 
it !  The  soft  young  heart  adopts  orphans,  portions  meritorious 
maids,  delights  to  succour  the  poor, — such  poor  as  come  pic- 
turesquely in  her  w?y  ;  and  sets  the  fashion  of  doing  it  ;  for  as 
was  said,  Benevolence  nas  now  begun  reigning.  In  her  Duchess 
de  Polignac,  in  her  Princess  de  Lamballe,  she  enjoys  something 
almost  like  friendship  ;  now  too,  after  seven  long  years,  she  has  a 
child,  and  soon  even  a  Dauphin,  of  her  own  ;  can  reckon  herself, 
as  Queens  go,  happy  in  a  husband. 

Eyents  The  Grand  events  are  but  charitable  Feasts  of  Morals 
{^Fetes  des  uioeurs)^  with  their  Prizes  and  Speeches  ;  Poissarde 
Processions  to  the  Dauphin's  cradle  ;  above  all.  Flirtations,  their 
rise,  progress,  decline  and  fall.  There  are  Snovv-statucs  raised  by 
the  poor  in  hard  winter  to  a  Queen  who  has  given  them  fuel.  There 
*  Campan,  i.  125.  t  lb.  i.  100-151.   Weber,  i.  11-50. 


33 


are  masquerades,  theatricals  ;  beautifyings  of  little  Trianon,  pur- 
chase and  repair  of  St.  Cloud  ;  journeyings  from  the  summer 
Court-Eiysium  to  the  winter  one.  There  are  poutings  and  grudg- 
ings  from  the  Sardinian  Sisters-in-law  (for  the  Princes  too  are 
wedded)  ;  little  jealousies,  which  Court-Etiquette  can  moderate. 
Wholly  the  lightest-hearted  frivolous  foam  of  Existence  ;  yet  an 
artfully  refined  foam  ;  pleasant  were  it  not  so  costly,  like  that 
which  mantles  on  the  wine  of  Champagne  ! 

Monsieur,  the  King's  elder  Brother,  has  set  up  for  a  kind  of  wit ; 
and  leans  towards  the  Philosophe  side.  Monseigneur  d'Artois 
pulls  the  mask  from  a  fair  impertinent ;  fights  a  duel  in  consequence, 
— almost  drawing  blood.*  He  has  breeches  of  a  kind  new  in  this 
world  a  fabulous  kind  ;  ^  four  tall  lackeys,'  says  Mercier,  as  if  he 
had  seen  it,  '  hold  him  up  in  the  air,  that  he  may  fail  into  the 
'garment  without  vestige  of  wrinkle  ;  from  which  rigorous  encase- 
*  ment  the  same  four,  in  the  same  way,  and  with  more  effort,  must 
Meliver  him  at  night 't  This  last  is  he  who  now,  as  a  gray  time- 
worn  man,  sits  desolate  at  Gratz  having  winded  up  his  destiny 
with  the  Three  Days.  In  such  sort  are  poor  mortals  swept  and 
shovelled  to  and  fro. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PETITION  IN  HIEROGLYPHS. 

With  the  working  people,  again,  it  is  not  so  well.  Unlucky ! 
For  there  are  twenty  to  twenty-five  millions  of  them.  Whom,  how- 
ever, we  lump  together  into  a  kind  of  dim  compendious  unity, 
monstrous  but  dim,  far  off,  as  the  canaille;  or,  more  hunianely,  as 
*-  tJie  masses.^  Masses,  indeed  :  and  yet,  singular  to  say,  if,  v/ith  an 
effort  of  imagination,  thou  follow  them,  over  broad  France,  into 
their  clay  hovels,  into  their  garrets  and  hutches,  the  masses  con- 
sist all  of  units.  Every  unit  of  whom  has  his  own  heart  and  sorrows ; 
stands  covered  there  with  his  own  skin,  and  if  you  prick  him  he 
will  bleed.  O  purple  Sovereignty,  Holiness,  Reverence  ;  thou,  for 
example,  Cardinal  Grand-Almoner,  with  thy  plush  covering  of 
honour,  who  hast  thy  hands  strengthened  with  dignities  and 
moneys,  and  art  set  on  thy  world  watch-tower  solemnly,  in  sight  of 
God,  for  such  ends,— what  a  thought  :  that  every  unit  of  these 
masses  is  a  miraculous  Man,  even  as  thyself  art ;  struggling,  with 
vision,  or  with  blindness,  for  his  infinite  Kingdom  (this  life  which 
he  has  got,  once  only,  in  the  middle  of  Eternities)  ;  with  a  spark 
of  the  Divinity,  what  thou  callest  an  immortal  soul,  in  him  ! 

Dreary,  languid  do  these  struggle  in  their  obscure  remoteness ; 

♦  Besenval,  ii.  282-330. 

Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris^  iii.  147.  J  A.D.  1834* 


34 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


 *—  _    ^ 

their  hearth  cheerless,  their  diet  thin.  For  them,  in  this  world, 
rises  no  Era  of  Hope  ;  hardly  now  in  the  other, -if  it  be  not  hope 
in  the  gloomy  rest  of  Death,  for  their  faith  too  is  failing.  Untaught 
uncomforted,  unfed  !  A  dumb  generation  ;  their  voice  only  an 
inarticulate  cry  :  spokesman,  in  the  King's  Council,  in  the  world's 
torum,  they  have  none  that  finds  credence.  At  rare  intervals  (as 
now,  m  1775),  they  will  fling  down  their  hoes  and  hammers  ;  and 
to  the  astonishment  of  thinking  mankind,*  flock  hither  and  thither 
dangerous,  aimless  ;  get  the  length  even  of  Versailles.  Turo-ot  is 
altering  the  Corn-trade,  abrogating  the  absurdest  Corn-laws  ;1here 
IS  dearth,  real,  or  were  it  even  '  factitious  ; '  an  indubitable  scarcity 
ot  bread.  And  so,  on  the  second  day  of  May  1775,  these  waste 
multitudes  do  here,  at  Versailles  Chateau,  in  wide-spread  wretched- 
ness, in  sallow  faces,  squalor,  winged  raggedness,  present,  as  in 
legible  hieroglyphic  writing,  their  Petition  of  Grievances.  The 
Chateau  gates  have  to  be  shut ;  but  the  King  will  appear  on  the 
balcony,  and  speak  to  them.  They  have  seen  the  King's  face  ; 
their  Petition  of  Grievances  has  been,  if  not  read,  looked  at.  For 
answer,  two  of  them  are  hanged,"'  on  a  new  gallows  forty  feet  high 
and  the  rest  driven  back  to  their  dens,— for  a  time.  ' 

Clearly  a  difficult  '  point '  for  Government,  that  of  dealing  with 
these  masses  ;— if  indeed  it  be  not  rather  the  sole  point  and 
problem  of  Government,  and  all  other  points  mere  accidental 
crotchets,  superficialities,  and  beatings  of  the  wind  !  For  let 
Charter-Chests,  Use  and  Wont,  Law  common  and  special  say 
what  they  will,  the  masses  count  to  so  many  millions  of  units  • 
made,  to  all  appearance,  by  God,— whose  Earth  this  is  declared 
to-be.  Besides,  the  people  are  not  without  ferocity;  they  have 
smews  and  indignation.  Do  but  look  what  holiday  old  Marquis 
Mirabeau,  the  crabbed  old  Friend  of  Men,  looked  on,  in  these 
same  years,  from  his  lodging,  at  the  Baths  of  Mont  d'Or  :  '  The 
'  savages  descending  in  torrents  from  the  mountains  ;  our  people 
I  ordered  not  to  go  out.  The  Curate  in  surplice  and  stole  ;  Justice 
'  in  Its  peruke  ;  Marechausee  sabre  in  hand,  guarding  the  place, 
'  till  the  bagpipes  can  begin.  The  dance  interrupted,  in  a  quarter 
^  of  an  hour,  by  battle  ;  the  cries,  the  squcalings  of  children,  of 
I  infirm  persons,  and  other  assistants,  tarring  them  on,  as  the  rabble 
^  does  when  dogs  fight  :  frightful  men,  or  rather  frightful  wild 

animals,  clad  m  jupes  of  coarse  woollen,  with  large  girdles  of 
•  leather  studded  with  copper  nails  ;  of  gigantic  stature,  heightened 
^  by  high  wooden-clogs  {sabots)  ;  rising  on  tiptoe  to  see  the  fight ; 
^  tramping  time  to  it  ;  rubbing  their  sides  with  their  elbows  :  their 

faces  haggard  {figures  haves),  and  covered  with  their  long  greasy 
^hair  ;  the  upper  part  of  the  visage  waxing  pale,  the  lower  distort- 
^  ing  Itself  into  the  attempt  at  a  cruel  laugh  and  a  sort  of  ferocious 

impatience.  And  these  people  pay  the  taille  I  And  you  want 
^  further  to  take  their  salt  from  them  !  And  you  know  not  what  it 
'  is  you  are  stripping  barer,  or  as  you  call  it,  governing  ;  what  by 
''the  spurt  of  your  pen,  in  its  cold  dastard  indifference,  you  will 

*  Lacretelle,  Fra?ice  pendant  le  i3me  SzicU,  iu  455.    Biographu  Uniutr* 
§  Turcot  (by  Durozoir). 


PETITION  IN  HIEROGLYPHS. 


35 


*  fancy  you  can  starve  always  with  impunity ;  always  till  the  catas- 

*  trophe  come  !~Ah  Madame,  such  Government  by  Blindman's- 
'  buff,  stumbling  along  too  far,  will  end  in  the  General  Overturn 

*  (culbitte  generale). 

Undoubtediy  a  dark  feature  this  in  an  Age  of  Gold,— -Age,  at 
least,  of  Paper  and  Hope  !  Meanwhile,  trouble  us  not  with  thy 
prophecies,  O  croaking  Friend  of  Men  :  'tis  long  that  we  have 
heard  such  ;  and  still  the  old  world  keeps  wagging,  in  its  old  way. 


CHAPTER  III. 

QUESTIONABLE. 

Or  is  this  same  Age  of  Hope  itself  but  a  simulacrum  ;  as  Hope  too 
often  is  ?  Cloud-vapour  with  rainbows  painted  on  it,  beautiful  to 
see,  to  sail  towards,— which  hovers  over  Niagara  Falls  ?  In  that 
case,  victorious  Analysis  will  have  enough  to  do. 

Alas,  yes  !  a  whole  world  to  remake,  if  she  could  see  it  ;  work 
for  another  than  she  !  For  all  is  wrong,  and  gone  out  of  joint ; 
the  inward  spiritual,  and  the  outward  economical ;  head  or  heart, 
there  is  no  soundness  in  it.  As  indeed,  evils  of  all  sorts  are  more 
or  less  of  kin,  and  do  usually  go  together  :  especially  it  is  an  old 
truth,  that  wherever  huge  physical  evil  is,  there,  as  the  parent  and 
origin  of  it,  has  moral  evil  to  a  proportionate  extent  been.  I>efore 
those  five-and-twenty  labouring  Millions,  for  instance,  could  get 
that  haggardness  of  face,  which  old  Mirabeau  now  looks  on,  in  a 
Nation  calling  itself  Christian,  and  calling  man  the  brother  of 
man,— what  unspeakable,  nigh  infinite  Dishonesty  (of  seeming  and 
not  being)  in  all  manner  of  Rulers,  and  appointed  Watchers, 
spiritual  and  temporal,  must  there  not,  through  long  ages,  have 
gone  on  accumulating  !  It  will  accumulate  :  moreover,  it  will 
reach  a  head ;  for  the  first  of  all  Gospels  is  this,  that  a  Lie  cannot 
endure  for  ever. 

In  fact,  if  we  pierce  through  that  rosepink  vapour  of  Senti- 
;  mentalism.  Philanthropy,  and  Feasts  of  Morals,  there  lies  behind 
"  it  one  of  the  sorriest  spectacles.    You  might  ask,  What  bonds  that 
'■  ever  held  a  human  society  happily  together,  or  held  it  together  at 
>  all,  are  in  force  here  ?    It  is  an  unbeheving  people  ;  which  has 
^  suppositions,  hypotheses,  and  froth-systems  of  victorious  Analysis  ; 
and  for  belief       mainly,  that  Pleasure  is  pleasant.    Hunger  they 
have  for  all  sweet  things  ;  and  the  law  of  Hunger  ;  but  what  other 
law  ?    Within  them,  or  over  them,  properly  none  ! 
•      Their  King  has  become  a  King  Popinjay  ;  with  his  Maurepas 
"  Government,  gyrating  as  the  weather-cock  does,  blown  about 

I  *  M^moires  de  Mirabeau,  ecrits  par  Lui-meme,  par  son  P^re,  son  Onclo,  et 
I  son  Fils  Adopt  if  (Puris,  1834-5).  ii-  i8^- 


36 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


by  every  wind.  Above  them  they  see  no  God  ;  or  they  even  do  not 
look  above,  except  with  astronomical  glasses.  The  Church  indeedl 
still  is  ;  but  in  the  most  submissive  state  ;  quite  tamed  by  Philo- 
sophism  ;  in  a  singularly  short  time  ;  for  the  hour  was  come. 
5Dome  twenty  years  ago,  your  Archbishop  Beaumont  would  not 
even  let  the  poor  Jansenists  get  buried  :  your  Lomenie  Brienne 
(a  rising  man,  whom  we  shall  meet  with  yet)  could,  in  the  name  of 
the  Clergy,  insist  on  having  the  Anti-protestant  Laws,  which 
condemn  to  death  for  preaching,  '  put  in  execution.'"^  And  alas, 
now  not  so  much  as  Baron  Holbach's  Atheism  can  be  burnt,— 
except  as  pipe-matches  by  the  private  speculative  individual.  Our 
Church  stands  haltered,  dumb,  like  a  dumb  ox  ;  lowing  only  for 
provender  (of  tithes)  ;  content  if  it  can  have  that ;  or,  dumbly, 
dully  expecting  its  further  doom.  And  the  Twenty  Millions  of 
'  haggard  faces  ; '  and,  as  finger-post  and  guidance  to  them  in 
their  dark  struggle,  '  a  gallows  forty  feet  high '  !  Certainly  a 
singular  Golden  Age  ;  with  its  Feasts  of  Morals,  its  '  sweet 
^  nmnners,'  its  sweet  institutions  {institutions  douces)  ;  betokening 
nothing  but  peace  among  men  ! — Peace  O  Philosophe-Senti- 
mentalism,  what  hast  thou  to  do  with  peac  ~.  when  thy  mothers 
name  is  Jezebel  1  Foul  Product  of  still  fouler  Corruption,  thou 
!  with  the  corruption  art  doomed  ! 

Meanwhile  it  is  singular  how  long  the  rotten  will  hold  together, 
provided  you  do  not  handle  it  roughly.  For  whole  generations  it 
continues  standing,  '  with  a  ghastly  affectation  of  life,'  after  all 
life  and  truth  has  fled  out  of  it ;  so  loth  are  men  to  quit  their  old 
ways  ;  and,  conquering  indolence  and  inertia,  venture  on  new. 

j  Great  truly  is  the  Actual ;  is  the  Thing  that  has  rescued  itself 
from  bottomless  deeps  of  theory  and  possibility,  and  stands  there 
as  a  definite  indisputable  Fact,  whereby  men  do  work  and  live,  or 

I  once  did  so.  Wisely  shall  men  cleave  to  that,  while  it  will  endure  ; 
and  quit  it  with  regret,  when  it  gives  way  under  them.  Rash 

:  enthusiast  of  Change,  beware  !  Hast  thou  well  considered  all 
ihat  Habit  does  in  this  life  of  ours  ;  how  all  Knowledge  and  all 
I'ractice  hang  w^ondrous  over  infinite  abysses  of  the  Unknown, 
impracticable  ;  and  our  whole  being  is  an  infinite  abyss,  over- 
arched  by  Habit,  as  by  a  thin  Earth-rind,  laboriously  built 
tOL; ether  ? 

i hit  if  ^ every  man,'  as  it  has  been  written,  'holds  confined 
'within  him  a  mad-m2iXi^  what  must  every  Society  do  ;~-Soc'ety, 
whicli  in  its  commonest  state  is  called  '  the  standing  miracie  oi 
this  world'  !  'Without  such  Plarth-rind  of  Habit/  continues  our 
authoi^  '  call  it  System  of  Habits,  in  a  v^c^xd.^  fixed  ways  of  acting 
'  and  iH  believing, — Society  would  not  exist  at  all.  With  such  it 
' '   ists,  better  or  worse.    Herein  too,  in  this  its  System  of  Habits, 

squired,  retained  how  you  will,  lies  the  true  Law-Code  and 
^  onstitution  of  a  Society  ;  the  only  Code,  though  an  unwritten 
^Hi^  v/hich  it  can  in  nowise  <'//>obey.  The  tiling  we  call  written 
^Code;^    Constitution,    Form    of    Government,    and  the  like, 


QUESTIONABLE. 


37 


^what  is  it  but  some  miniature  image,  and  solemnly  expressed 
^summ.aryof  this  unwritten  Code?  Is^  —  ox  rather  alas,  is  not; 
*bat  only  should  be,  and  always  tends  to  be  !    In  which  latter 

*  discrepancy  lies  struggle  without  end/  And  now,  we  add  in  the 
same  dialect,  let  but,  by  ill  chance,  in  such  ever-enduring  struggle, 
— your  ^thin  Earth-rind'  be  once  broken  I  The  fountains  of  the 
great  deep  boil  forth  ;  fire-fountains,  enveloping,  engulfing.  Your 
'  Earth-rind '  is  shattered,  swallowed  up ;  instead  of  a  green 
flowery  world,  there  is  a  waste  wild-weltering  chaos  : — which  has 
again,  with  tumult  and  struggle,  to  make  itself  into  a  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  be  this  conceded:  Where  thou  findest  a 
Lie  that  is  oppressing  thee,  extinguish  it.  Lies  exist  there  only  to 
be  extinguished  ;  they  wait  and  cry  earnestly  for  extinction. 
Think  well,  meanwhile,  in  what  spirit  thou  wilt  do  it  :  not  with 
hatred,  with  headlong  selfish  violence  ;  but  in  clearness  of  heart, 
with  holy  zeal,  gently,  almost  with  pity.  Thou  wouldst  not  replace 
such  extinct  Lie  by  a  new  Lie,  which  a  new  Injustice  of  thy  own 
were  ;  the  parent  of  still  other  Lies  ?  Whereby  the  latter  end  of 
that  business  were  w^orse  than  the  beginning. 

So,  however,  in  this  world  of  ours,  which  has  both  an  indestruc- 
tible hope  in  the  Future,  and  an  indestructible  tendency  to 
persevere  as  in  the  Past,  must  Innovation  and  Conservation  wage 
their  perpetual  conflict,  as  they  may  and  can.     Wherein  the 

*  daemonic  element,'  that  lurks  in  all  human  things,  7nay  doubt- 
less, some  once  in  the  thousand  years— get  vent  1  But  indeed 
may  we  not  regret  that  such  conflict, — which,  after  all,  is  but  like 
that  classical  one  of  ^  hate-filled  Amazons  with  heroic  Youths/ 
and  will  end  in  embraces^ — should  usually  be  so  spasmodic  ?  For 
Conservation,  strengthened  by  that  mightiest  quality  in  us,  our 
indolence,  sits  for  long  ages,  not  victorious  only,  v>7hich  she  should 
be  ;  but  tyrannical,  incommunicative.  She  holds  her  adversary 
as  if  annihilated  ;  such  adversary  lying,  all  the  while,  like  some 
buried  Enceladus  ;  w^ho,  to  gain  the  smallest  freedom,  must  stir  a 
whole  Trinacria  with  it  ^.tnas. 

Wherefore,  on  the  whole,  we  will  honour  a  Paper  Age  too  ;  an 
Era  of  hope  !  For  in  this  same  frightful  process  of  Enceladus 
Revolt  ;  when  the  task,  on  which  no  mortal  would  willingly  enter, 
has  become  imperative,  inevitable, — is  it  not  even  a  kindness  of 
Nature  that  she  lures  us  forward  by  cheerful  promises,  fallacious 
or  not ;  and  a  whole  generation  plunges  into  the  Erebus  Black-  [ 
ness,  lighted  on  by  an  Era  of  Hope  ?  It  has  been  well  said  : 
^  Man  is  based  on  Hope  ;  he  has  properly  no  other  poosessior  but 

*  Hope  ;  this  habitation  of  his  is  named  the  Place  of  Hope.' 


38 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MAUREPAS. 

But  now,  among  French  hopes,  is  not  that  of  old  M.  de 
Maurepas  one  of  the  best-grounded  ;  who  hopes  that  he,  by  dex- 
terity, shall  contrive  to  continue  Minister  ?  Nimble  old  man,  who 
for  all  emergencies  has  his  light  jest;  and  ever  in  the  worst 
confusion  will  emerge,  cork-like,  unsunk  !  Small  care  to  him  is 
Perfectibility,  Progress  of  the  Species,  and  Astrcea  Redux :  good 
only,  that  a  man  of  light  wit,  verging  towards  fourscore,  can  in  the 
seat  of  authority  feel  himself  important  amomg  men.  Sliall  we 
call  him,  as  haughty  Chateauroux  was  wont  of  old,  '  M.  Faquinei 
(Diminutive  of  Scoundrel)'?  In  courtier  dialect,  he  is  now 
named  ^the  Nestor  of  France ;'  such  governing  Nestor  as  France 
has. 

At  bottom,  nevertheless,  it  might  puzzle  one  to  say  where  the 
Government  of  France,  in  these  days,  specially  is.  In  that  Chateau 
of  Versailles,  we  have  Nestor,  King,  Queen,  ministers  and  clerks, 
with  paper-bundles  tied  in  tape  :  iDut  the  Government  ?  P'or 
Government  is  a  thing  that  governs,  that  guides  ;  and  if  need  be, 
compels.  Visible  in  France  there  is  not  such  a  tking.  Invisible, 
inorganic,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  :  in  Philosophe  saloons,  in 
CEil-de-Boeuf  galleries  ;  in  the  tongue  of  the  babbler,  in  the  pen 
of  the  pamphleteer.  Her  Majesty  appearing  at  the  Opera  is 
applauded  ;  she  returns  all  radiant  with  joy.  Anon  the  appla?uses 
wax  fainter,  or  threaten  to  cease  ;  she  is  heavy  of  heart,  tlie  light 
of  her  face  has  fled.  Is  Sovereignty  some  poor  Montgolfier  ; 
which,  blown  into  by  the  popular  wind,  grows  great  and  mounts  ; 
or  sinks  flaccid,  if  the  wind  be  withdrawn?  France  was  long  a 
'  Despotism  tempered  by  Epigrams  ;'  and  now,  it  would  seem,  the 
Epigrams  have  got  the  upper  hand. 

Happy  were  a  young  ^  Louis  the  Desired '  to  make  France 
happy  ;  if  it  did  not  prove  too  troublesome,  and  he  only  knew  the 
way.  But  there  is  endless  discrepancy  round  him  ;  so  many 
claims  and  clamours  ;  a  mere  confusion  of  tongues.  Not  recon- 
cilable by  man  ;  not  manageable,  suppressive,  save  by  some 
strongest  and  wisest  men  ;— which  only  a  lightly-jesting  lightly- 
gyrating  M.  de  Maurepas  can  so  much  as  subsist  amidst.  Philoso- 
phism  claims  her  new  Era,  meaning  thereby  innumerable  things. 
And  claims  it  in  no  faint  voic  c  ;  for  France  at  large,  hitherto 
mute,  is  now  beginning  to  speak  also  ;  and  speaks  in  that  same 
sense.  A  huge,  many-toned  sound  ;  distant,  yet  not  unimpressive. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  CEil-de-Ba:uf,  which,  as  nearest,  one  can 
licar  ])cst,  chiims  with  shrill  vehemence  that  the  Monarchy  be  as, 
heielnfore:!  Horn  of  Plenty;  whercfrom  loyal  courtiers  may  draw, 
— to  the  just  support  of  the  throne.  Let  Liberahsm  and  a  New 
Era^  if  such  is  the  wish,  be  introduced ;  only  no  curtailment  of 


MAUREPAS. 


39 


the  royal  moneys]  Which  latter  condition,  alas,  is  precisely  the 
impossible  one. 

Philosophism,  as  we  saw,  has  got  her  Turgot  made  Controller- 
General  ;  and  there  shall  be  endless  reformation.  Unhappily 
this  Turgot  could  continue  only  twenty  months.  With  a  miracu- 
lous Fortunatus'  Purse  in  his  Treasury,  it  might  have  lasted 
longer  ;  with  such  Purse  indeed,  every  French  Controller- General, 
that  would  prosper  in  these  days,  ought  first  to  provide  himself. 
But  here  again  may  we  not  remark  the  bounty  of  Nature  in  regard 
to  Hope  ?  Man  after  man  advances  confident  to  the  Augean 
Stable,  as  if  he  could  clean  it  ;  expends  his  little  fraction  of  an 
ability  on  it,  with  such  cheerfulness  ;  does,  in  so  far  as  he  was 
honest,  accomplish  something.  Turgot  has  faculties  ;  honesty, 
insight,  heroic  volition  ;  but  the  Fortunatus'  Purse  he  has  not. 
Sanguine  Controller- General  !  a  whole  pacific  French  Revolution 
may  stand  schemed  in  the  head  of  the  thinker ;  but  who  shall 
pay  the  unspeakable  ^  indemnities  ^  that  will  be  needed  ?  Alas, 
far  from  that  :  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  business,  he  proposes 
that  the  Clergy,  the  Noblesse,  the  very  Parlements  be  subjected  to 
taxes  !  One  shriek  of  indignation  and  astonishment  reverberates 
through  all  the  Chateau  galleries  ;  M.  de  Maurepas  has  to  gyrate  : 
the  poor  King,  who  had  written  fe^v  weeks  ago,  '  11  ny  a  que  vous 
et  moi  qui  aimions  le  peitple  (There  is  none  but  you  and  I  that 
^  has  the  people's  interest  at  heart),'  must  write  now  a  dismissal 
and  let  the  French  Revolution  accomplish  itself,  pacifically  or  not, 
as  it  can. 

Hope,  then,  is  deferred  1  Deferred  ;  not  destroyed,  or  abated. 
Is  not  this,  for  example,  our  Patriarch  Voltaire,  after  long  years  of 
absence,  revisiting  Paris  1  With  face  shrivelled  to  nothing  ;  with 
'  huge  peruke  a  la  Louis  Quatorse,  which  leaves  only  two  eyes 

*  visible'  glittering  like  carbuncles,'  the  old  man  is  here.f  What 
an  outburst !  Sneering  Paris  has  suddenly  grown  reverent  ; 
devotional  with  Hero-worship.  Nobles  have  disguised  themselves  as 
tavern-waiters  to  obtain  sight  of  him  :  the  loveliest  of  France 
would  lay  their  hair  beneath  his  feet.    '  His  chariot  is  the  nucleus 

*  of  a  comet ;  whose  train  fills  whole  streets  : '  they  crown  *him  in 
the  theatre,  with  immortal  vivats  ;  ^  finally  stifle  him  under  roses/ 
— for  old  Richelieu  recommended  opium  in  such  state  of  the  nerves, 
and  the  excessive  Patriarch  took  too  much.  Her  Majesty  herself 
had  some  thought  of  sending  for  him  ;  but  was  dissuaded.  Let 
Majesty  consider  it,  nevertheless.  The  purport  of  this  man's 
existence  has  been  to  wither  up  and  annihilate  all  whereon  Majesty 
and  Worship  for  the  present  rests  :  and  is  it  so  that  the  world 
recognises  him  ?  With  Apotheosis  ;  as  its  Prophet  and  Speaker, 
who  has  spoken  wisely  the  thing  it  longed  to  say  ?  Add  only,  that 
the  body  of  this  same  rose-stifled,  beatified-Patriarch  cannot  get 
buried  except  by  stealth.  It  is  wholly  a  notable  business  ;  and 
France,  without  doubt,  is  (what  the  Germans  call  ^  Of  good 
Hope ')  :  we  shall  wish  her  a  happy  birth-hour,  and  blessed  fruit. 

*  In  May,  1776..  f  Februaiy,  1778. 

C  2 


*>  THE  PAPER  AGE. 


Beaumarchais  too  has  now  winded-up  his  Law-Pleadings 
&T'^  '  """"i  ^^thout  result,  to  himself  and  to  the  world 
W  h..n^K"'^^'''^^'l  Beaumarchais,  for  he  got  ennobled) 

had  been  born  poor  but  aspirm-  esurient ;  with  talents,  audacity, 
adroitness  ;  above  all,  with  the  talent  for  intrigue  :  a  lean,  but  also 
a  tough,  indomitable  man.  Fortune  and  dexterity  brought  him  to 
..H  ^'P.'''^^'^  of  Mesdames,  our  good  Princesses  Loque,  Grailh 
and  Sisterhood.  Still  better,  Paris  Duvernier,  the  Court-Banker, 
honoured  him  with  some  confidence  ;  to  the  length  even  of  transact 
tionsm  cash.  Which  confidence,  however,  Duvernier's  Heir,  a 
person  of  quality,  would  not  continue.  Quite  otherwise  :  there 
springs  a  Lawsuit  from  it  :  wherein  tough  Beaumarchais,  losing 
both  i^oney  and  repute  is,  in  the  opinion  of  Judge-Reporter  Goez- 
man  of  the  Parlement  Maupeou,  of  a  whole  indifferent  acquiescing 
world,  miserably  beaten.  In  all  men^s  opinions,  only  not  in  his  own  t 
Inspired  by  the  mdignation,  which  makes,  if  not  verses,  satirical 
law-papers,  the  withered  Music-master,  with  a  desperate  heroism, 
takes  up  his  lost  cause  in  spite  of  the  world  ;  fights  for  it,  against 
Reporters,  Parlements  and  Principalities,  with  light  banter!  with 
clear  logic  ;  adroitly,  with  an  inexhaustible  toughness  and  resource, 
like  the  skilfullest  fencer;  on  whom,  so  skilful  is  he,  the  whole 
world  now  looks.  Three  long  years  it  lasts  ;  with  wavering  for- 
tune. In  hne,  after  labours  comparable  to  the  Twelve  of  Hercules 
our  unconquerable  Caron  triumphs  ;  regains  his  Lawsuit  and  Law- 
suits ;  strips  Reporter  Goezman  of  the  judicial  ermine;  coverino- 
him  with  a  perpetual  garment  of  obloquy  instead  :— and  in  re-^ard 
to  the  Parlement  Maupeou  (which  he  has  helped  to  extinguish)  to 
Parlements  of  all  kinds,  and  to  French  Justice  generally,  oiVes 
rise  to  endless  reflections  in  the  minds  of  men.  Thus  has  Beau- 
marchais, like  a  lean  French  Hercules,  ventured  down,  driven  by 
destiny,  into  the  Nether  Kingdoms  ;  and  victoriously  tamed  hell- 
dogs  there.  He  also  is  henceforth  among  the  notabilities  of  his 
generation. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ASTR^A  REDUX  WITHOUT  CASH. 

Observe,  however,  beyond  the  Atlantic,  has  not  the  new  day 
verily  dawned  !  Democracy,  as  we  said,  is  born  ;  storm-girt,  is 
struggling  for  life  and  victory.  A  sympathetic  France  rejoices  over 
the  Rights  of  Man  ;  in  all  saloons,  it  is  said,  What  a  spectacle  ! 
Now  too  behold  our  Deane,  our  Franklin,  American  Plenipoten- 
tiaries, here  in  person  soliciting  ;*  the  sons  of  the  Saxon  Puritans, 

*  1773-6.    See  CEuvrcs  de  Beaumarchau ;  where  they,  and  the  history  of 
tliem,  are  given. 
t  »777  ;  Deane  somewhat  earlier  :  Franklin  remained  till  1785, 


ASTRJEA  REDUX  WITHOUT  CASH.  41 


with  their  Old-Saxon  temper,  Old- Hebrew  culture,  sleek  Silas, 
sleek  Benjamin,  here  on  such  errand,  among  the  light  children  of 
Heathenism,  Monarchy,  Sentimentalism,  and  the  Scarlet-woman. 
A  spectacle  indeed ;  over  which  saloons  may  cackle  joyous  ; 
though  Kaiser  Joseph,  questioned  on  it,  gave  this  answer,  most 
unexpected  from  a  Philosophe  :  "  Madame,  the  trade  I  live  bj 
is  that  of  royalist  {^Mon  metier  a  moi  c'est  d^etie  royaliste)P 

So  thinks  light  Maurepas  too  ;  but  the  wind  of  Philosophism 
and  force  of  public  opinion  will  blow  him  round.  Best  wishes, 
meanwhile,  are  sent  ;  clandestine  privateers  armed.  Paul  Jones 
shall  equip  his  Boa  Homme  Richard :  weapons,  military  stores 
can  be  smuggled  over  (if  the  English  do  not  seize  them)  ;  wherein, 
once  more  Beaumarchais,  dimly  as  the  Giant  Smuggjler  becomes 
visible, — filling  his  own  lank  pocket  withal.  But  surely,  in  any 
case,  France  should  have  a  Navy.  For  which  great  object  were 
not  now  the  time  :  now  when  that  proud  Termagant  of  the  Seas 
has  her  hands  full  It  is  true,  an  impoverished  Treasury  cannot 
build  ships  ;  but  the  hint  once  given  (which  Beaumarchais  says  he 
gave),  this  and  the  other  loyal  Seaport,  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
will  build  and  offer  them.  Goodly  vessels  bound  into  the  waters  ; 
a  Ville  de  Paris,  Leviathan  of  ships. 

And  now  when  gratuitous  three-deckers  dance  there  at  anchor, 
with  streamers  flying  ;  and  eleutheromaniac  Philosophedom  grows 
ever  more  clamorous,  what  can  a  Maurepas  do — but  gyrate  ? 
Squadrons  cross  the  ocean  :  Gages,  Lees,  rough  Yankee  Generals, 
*  with  woollen  night-caps  under  their  hats,'  present  arms  to  the  far- 
glancing  Chivalry  of  France  ;  and  new-born  Democracy  sees,  not 
without  amazement,  ^  Despotism  tempered  by  Epigrams  fight  at 
her  side.  So,  however,  it  is.  King's  forces  and  heroic  volunteers  ; 
Rochambeaus,  Bouilles,  Lameths,  Lafayettes,  have  drawn  their 
swords  in  this  sacred  quarrel  of  mankind  ; — shall  draw  them  again 
elsewhere,  in  the  strangest  way. 

Off  Ushant  some  naval  thunder  is  heard.  In  the  course  of 
which  did  our  young  Prince,  Duke  de  Chartres, '  hide  in  the  hold 
or  did  he  materially,  by  active  heroism,  contribute  to  the  victory  ? 
Alas,  by  a  second  edition,  we  learn  that  there  was  no  victory  ;  or 
that  English  Keppel  had  it."^  Our  poor  young  Prince  gets  his 
Opera  plaudits  changed  into  mocking  tehees  ;  and  cannot  become 
Grand- Admiral, — the  source  to  him  of  woes  which  one  may  call 
endless. 

Woe  also  for  Ville  de  Paris,  the  Leviathan  of  ships  !  English 
Rodney  has  clutched  it,  and  led  it  home,  with  the  rest ;  so  suc- 
cessful was  his  new  '  manoeuvre  of  breaking  the  enemy's  line.'  fit 
seems  as  if,  according  to  Louis  XV., '  France  were  never  to  '^ave  a 
Navy.'  Brave  Suffren  must  return  from  Hyder  Ally  and  the  Indian 
Waters  ;  with  small  result  ;  yet  with  great  glory  for  '  six  non- 
defeats  ; — which  indeed,  with  such  seconding  as  he  had,  one  may 
reckon  heroic.  Let  the  old  sea-hero  rest  now,  honoured  of  France, 
in  his  native  Cevennes  mountains  ;  send  smoke,  not  of  gunpowder,, 
*  27th  July,  1778.  t  9th  and  12th  April,  178a* 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


but  mere  culinary  smoke,  through  the  old  chimneys  of  the  Castle 
of  Jales,— which  one  day,  in  other  hands,  shall  have  other  fame. 
Brave  Laperouse  shall  'by  and  by  lift  anchor,  on  philanthropic 
Voyage  of  Discovery  ;  for  the  King  knows  Geography."^  But, 
alas,  this  also  will  not  prosper  :  the  brave  Navigator  goes,  and 
returns  not ;  the  Seekers  search  far  seas  for  him  in  vain.  He 
has  vanished  trackless  into  blue  Immensity ;  and  only  some 
mournful  mysterious  shadow  of  him  hovers  long  in  all  heads  and 
hearts. 

Neither,  while  the  War  yet  lasts,  will  Gibraltar  surrender.  Not 
though  Crillon,  Nassau-Siegen,  with  the  ablest  projectors  extant, 
are  there  ;  and  Prince  Conde  and  Prince  d'Artois  have  hastened 
to  help.  Wondrous  leather-roofed  Floating-batteries,  set  afloat  by 
French- Spanish  PacHe  de  Fainille,  give  gallant  summons  :  to 
which,  nevertheless,  Gibraltar  answers  Plutonically,  with  mere 
torrents  of  redhot  iron^— as  if  stone  Calpe  had  become  a  throat  of 
the  Pit  ;  and  utters  such  a  DoonVs-blast  of  a  No,  as  all  men  must 
credit.f 

And  so,  with  this  loud  explosion,  the  noise  of  War  has  ceased  ; 
an  Age  of  Benevolence  may  hope,  for  ever.  Our  noble  volunteers 
of  Freedom  have  returned,  to  be  her  missionaries.  Lafayette,  as 
the  matchless  of  his  time,  glitters  in  the  Versailles  CEil-de-Boeuf ; 
has  his  Bust  set  up  in  the  Paris  Hotel-de-Ville.  Democracy 
stands  inexpugnable,  immeasurable,  in  her  New  World  ;  has  even 
a  foot  lifted  towards  the  Old  ;— and  our  French  Finances,  little 
strengthened  by  such  work,  are  in  no  healthy  way. 

What  to  do  with  the  Finance?  This  indeed  is  the  great  ques- 
tion :  a  small  but  most  black  weather-symptom,  which  no  radiance 
of  universal  hope  can  cover.  We  saw  Turgot  cast  forth  from  the 
Controllership,  with  shrieks,— for  want  of  a  Fortunatus'  Purse.  As 
little  coukl  M.  de  Clugny  manage  the  duty  ;  or  indeed  do  any- 
thing, but  consume  his  wages  ;  attain  '  a  place  in  History,'  where 
as  an  ineffectual  shadow  thou  beholdest  him  still  lingering  ;— and 
let  the  duty  manage  itself  Did  Genevese  Necker  possess  such  a 
Purse,  then?  He  possessed  banker's  skill,  banker's  honesty; 
credit  of  all  kinds,  for  he  had  written  Academic  Prize  Essays, 
struggled  for  India  Companies,  given  dinners  to  Philosophes,  and 
*reaUsed  a  f^^rtune  in  twenty  years.'  He  possessed,  further,  a  taci- 
turnity and  solemnity  ;  of  depth,  or  else  of  dulness.  How  singular 
for  Celadon  Gibbon,  false  swain  as  he  had  proved  ;  whose  father, 
keeping  most  probably  his  own  gig,  '  would  not  hear  of  such  a 
union,'— to  find  now  his  forsaken  Demoiselle  Curchod  sitting  in  the 
high  places  of  the  world,  as  Minister's  Madame,  and  '  Necker 

not  jealous  !  'J  ,     r       -.  ^v/r  j 

A  new  young  Demoiselle,  one  day  to  be  famed  as  a  Madame 
and  De  Stacl,  was  romping  about  the  knees  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  :  the  lady  Necker  founds  Hospitals  ;  gives  solemn  Philosophe 
dinner-parties,  to  cheer  her  exhausted  Controller-General.  Strange 

*  August  ist,  178^.  '  ^,^..1-0 

A7i7iual  Re^isier  (Dodsloy's).  xxv.  258-267.   SepUmber,  October,  1782. 
I  Gibbon's  Letters:  date,  i6th  Iutip  ?.777,  &c. 


ASTRAL  A  REIHJX  WITHOUT  CASH.  43 


things  have  happened  :  b\  chimour  of  Philosophism,. management 
of  Marquis  de  Pezav,  and'  Poverty  constraining  even  Kings.  And 
so  Necker,  Atlas-like,  sustains  the  burden  of  the  Finances,  for  five 
years  long  ?*  Without  wages,  for  he  refused  such  ;  cheered  only  by 
Public  Opinion,  and  the  ministering  of  his  noble  Wife.  With 
manv  thoughts  m  him,  it  is  hoped  ;— which,  however,  he  is  shy  of 
uttering.  His  Compte  Rendu,  pubhshed  by  the  royal  permission, 
fresh  sign  of  a  New  Era,  shows  wonders  ;— which  what  but  the 
genius  of  some  Atlas-Necker  can  prevent  from  becoming  portents  ? 
In  Necker's  head  too  there  is  a  whole  pacific  French  Revolution, 
of  its  kind  ;  and  in  that  taciturn  dull  depth,  or  deep  dulness, 
ambition  enough. 

Meanwhile,  alas,  his  Fortunatus'  Purse  turns  out  to  be  httle 
other  than  the  old  '  vectigal  of  Parsimony.'  Nay,  he  too  has  to 
produce  his  scheme  of  taxing  :  Clergy,  Noblesse  to  be  taxed  ; 
Provincial  Assemblies,  and  the  rest,— like  a  mere  Turgot  !  The 
expiring  M.  de  Maurepas  must  gyrate  one  other  time.  Let  Necker 
also  depart  ;  not  unlamented. 

Great  in  a  private  station,  Necker  looks  on  from  the  distance  ; 
abiding  his  time.  '  Eighty  thousand  copies '  of  his  new  Book, 
which  he  calls  Administration  des  Finances^  will  be  sold  in  few 
days.  He  is  gone  ;  but  shall  return,  and  that  more  than  once, 
borne  by  a  whole  shouting  Nation.  Singular  Controller- General 
of  the  Finances  ;  once  Clerk  in  Thelusson's  Bank  ! 


CHAPTER  VL 

WINDBAGS. 

So  marches  the  world,  in  this  its  Paper  Age,  or  Era  of  Hope. 
Not  without  obstructions,  war-explosions  ;  which,  however,  heard 
from  such  distance,  are  little  other  that  a  cheerful  marching-music. 
If  indeed  that  dark  living  chaos  of  Ignorance  and  Hunger,  five- 
and-twenty  million  strong,  under  your  feet, —  were  to  begin  playing ! 

For  the  present,  however,  consider  Longchamp  ;  now  when  Lent 
is  ending,  and  the  glory  of  Paris  and  France  has  gone  forth,  as  in 
annual  wont.  Not  to  assist  at  Teiiebris  Masses,  but  to  sun 
itself  and  show  itself,  and  salute  the  Young  Spring.f  Manifold, 
bright-tinted,  glittering  with  gold ;  all  through  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne,  in  longdrawn  variegated  rows  ; — like  longdrawn  living 
flower-borders,  tuhps,  dahlias,  lilies  of  the  valley  ;  all  in  their 
moving  flower-pots  (of  new-gilt  carriages)  :  pleasure  of  the  eye, 
and  pride  of  life  !  So  rolls  and  dances  the  Procession  :  steady, 
of  firm  assurance,  as  if  it  rolled  on  adamant  and  the  foundation^ 

*  Till  May,  1781. 

t  Mercier^  Tableau  dc  Paris^  ii.  51.    Louvet,  Roman  de  Fauhlas^  &c. 


44 


THE  PAPER  AGE, 


of  the  world  ;  not  on  mere  heraldic  parchment,-~under  which 
smoulders  a  lake  of  fire.  Dance  on,  ye  foolish  ones  :  ye  sought 
not  wisdom,  neither  have  ye  found  it.  Ye  and  your  fathers  have 
sown  the  wind,  ye  shall  reap  the  whirlwind.  Was  it  not,  from  of 
old,  written  :  The  wages  of  sin  is  death  ? 

But  at  Longchamp,  as  elsewhere,  we  remark  for  one  thinR,  that 
dame  and  cavalier  are  waited  on  each  by  a  kind  of  human  familiar, 
n^m^^^  jokei  Little  elf,  or  imp  ;  though  young,  already  withered  ; 
with  Its  withered  air  of  premature  vice,  of  knowingness,  of  com- 
pleted elf-hood  :  useful  in  various  emergencies.  The  name  jokei 
(jockey)  comes  from  the  English ;  as  the  thing  also  fancies  that 
It  does.  Our  Anglomania,  in  fact,  is  grown  considerable  ;  pro- 
phetic of  much.  If  France  is  to  be  free,  why  shall  she  not,  now 
when  mad  war  is  hushed,  love  neighbouring  Freedom  ?  Cultivated 
men  your  Dukes  de  Liancouft,  de  la  Rochefoucault  admire  the 
English  Constitution,  the  English  National  Character:  would 
import  what  of  it  they  can. 

Of  what  is  lighter,  especially  if  it  be  light  as  wind,  how  much  easier 
the  freightage  !  Non- Admiral  Duke  de  Chartres  (not  yet  d'Orleans 
or  Egahte)  flies  to  and  fro  across  the  Strait  ;  importing  English 
1^  ashions  ;  this  he,  as  hand-and-glove  with  an  English  Prince  of 
Wales,  IS  surely  qualified  to  do.  Carriages  and  saddles  ;  top- 
boots  and  redingotes,  as  we  call  riding-coats.  Nay  the  very  mode 
of  riding  :  for  now  no  man  on  a  level  with  his  age  but  will  trot 
a  PAnglaise,  rising  in  the  stirrups  ;  scornful  of  the  old  sitfast 
method,  m  which,  according  to  Shakspeare,  '  butter  and  eggs '  go 
to  market.  Also,  he  can  urge  the  fervid  wheels,  this  brave 
Chartres  of  ours  ;  no  whip  in  Paris  is  rasher  and  surer  than  the 
unprofessional  one  of  Monseigneur. 

YAiJokeis,  we  have  seen  ;  but  see  now  real  Yorkshire  jockeys, 
and  what  they  ride  on,  and  train  :  English  racers  for  French 
Races.  These  likewise  we  ov/e  first  (under  the  Providence  of  the 
Devil)  to  Monseigneur.  Prince  d'Artois  also  has  his  stud  of 
racers.  Prince  d'Artois  has  withal  the  strangest  horseleech  :  a 
moonstruck,  much-enduring  individual,  of  Neuchatel  in  Switzer- 
land,—named /^^;»^  Paul  Marat  A  problematic  Chevalier  d'Eon, 
now  in  petticoats,  now  in  breeches,  is  no  less  problematic  in 
London  thnn  in  Paris  ;  and  causes  bets  and  lawsuits.  Beautiful 
days  of  international  communion  !  Swindlery  and  Blackguardism 
have  stretched  hands  across  the  Channel,  and  saluted  mutually  : 
on  the  racecourse  of  Vincennes  or  Sablons,  behold  in  English 
curricle-and-four,  wafted  glorious  among  the  principalities  and 
rascalities,  an  English  Dr.  Dodd,*— for  whom  also  the  too  early 
gallows  gapes. 

Duke  de  Chartres  was  a  young  Prince  of  great  promise,  as 
young  Prmces  often  are  ;  which  promise  unfortunately  has  behed 
Itself    With  the  huge  Orleans  Property,  with  Duke  de  Penthi^vre 
(and  now  the  young  Brother-in  law  Lamballe 
killed  by  excesses),— he  will  one  day  be  the  richest  man  in  France. 
*  Adelung,  Gcschichte  dcr  Menschlicheii  Narrheit,  §  Dodd. 


WINDBAGS. 


45 


Meanwhile,  '  his  hair  is  all  falling  out,  his  blood  is  quite  spoiled/ — 
by  early  transcendentalism  of  debauchery.  Carbuncles  stud  his 
face  ;  dark  studs  on  a  ground  of  burnished  copper.  A  most  signal 
failure,  this  young  Prince!  The  stuff  prematurely  burnt  out  of 
him  :  httle  left  but  foul  smoke  and  ashes  of  expiring  sensualities  : 
what  might  have  been  Thought,  Insight,  and  even  Conduct,  gone 
now,  or  fast  going, — to  confused  darkness,  broken  by  bev/ildering 
dazzlements  ;  to  obstreperous  crotchets  ;  to  activities  which  you 
may  call  semi-delirious,  or  even  semi-galvanic  !  Paris  affects  to 
laugh  at  his  charioteering  ;  but  he  heeds  not  such  laughter. 

On  the  other  hand,  what  a  day^  not  of  laughter,  was  that,  when 
he  threatened,  for  lucre's  sake,  to  lay  sacrilegious  hand  on  the 
Palais-Royal  Garden  !^  The  flower-parterres  shall  be  riven  up  ; 
the  Chestnut  Avenues  shall  fall :  time-honoured  boscages,  under 
which  the  Opera  Hamadryads  were  wont  to  wander,  not  inexorable 
to  men.  Paris  moans  aloud.  Philidor,  from  his  Cafe  de  la 
Regence,  shall  no  longer  look  on  greenness  ;  the  loungers  and 
losels  of  the  world,  where  now  shall  they  haunt?  In  vain  is 
moaning.  The  axe  glitters  ;  the  sacred  groves  fall  crashing,— for 
indeed  Monseigneur  was  short  of  money  :  the  Opera  Hamadryads 
fly  with  shrieks.  Shriek  not,  ye  Opera  Hamadryads  ;  or  not  as 
those  that  have  no  comfort.  He  will  surround  your  Garden  with 
new  edifices  and  piazzas  :  though  narrowed,  it  shall  be  replanted  ; 
dizened  with  hydraulic  jets,  cannon  which  the  sun  fires  at  noon  ; 
things  bodily,  things  spiritual,  such  as  man  has  not  imagined  ;— 
and  in  the  Palais-Royal  shall  again,  and  more  than  ever,  be  the 
Sorcerer's  Sabbath  and  Satan-at-Home  of  our  Planet. 

What  will  not  mortals  attempt  ?  From  remote  Annonay  in  the 
Vivarais,  the  Brothers  Montgolfier  send  up  their  paper-dome, 
filled  with  the  smoke  of  burnt  wool.f  The  Vivarais  Provincial 
Assembly  is  to  be  prorogued  this  same  day  :  Vivarais  Assembly- 
rnembers  applaud,  and  the  shouts  of  congregated  men.  Will 
victorious  Analysis  scale  the  very  Heavens,  then  ? 

Paris  hears  with  eager  wonder  ;  Paris  shall  ere  long  see.  From 
Rdveilion's  Paper-warehouse  there,  in  the  Rue  St.  Antoine  (a 
noted  Warehouse),— the  new  Mongolfier  air-ship  launches  itself. 
Ducks  and  poultry  are  borne  skyward  :  but  now  shall  men  be 
borne.J:  Nay,  Chemist  Charles  thinks  of  hydrogen  and  glazed 
silk.  Chemist  Charles  will  himself  ascend,  from  the  Tuileries 
Garden  ;  Montgolfier  solemnly  cutting  the  cord.  By  Heaven,  he 
also  mounts,  he  and  another?  Ten  times  ten  thousand  hearts  go 
palpitating ;  all  tongues  are  mute  with  wonder  and  fear ;  till  a 
shout,  like  the  voice  of  seas,  rolls  after  him,  on  his  wild  way.  He 
soars,  he  dwindles  upwards  ;  has  become  a  mere  gleaming  circlet, 
—like  some  Turgotine  snuff-box,  what  we  call  '  Turootine 
Platitude  ; '  like  some  new  daylight  Moon  !  Finally  he  descends  ; 
welcomed  by  the  universe.  Duchess  Polignac,  with  a  party,  is  in 
the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  waiting  ;  though  it  is  drizzly  winter,  the  isk 
*  1781-82.    (Dulaure,  viii.  423.) 

t  5th  June,  1783.  %  October  and  November,  1783. 


46 


THE  PAPER  AGE. 


of  Decsmber  1783,  The  whole  chivalry  of  France,  Duke  de 
Chartres  foremost,  gallops  to  receive  him.* 

Beautiful  invention ;  mounting  heavenward,  so  beautifully, — so 
unguidably  !  Emblem  of  much,  and  of  our  Age  of  Hope  itself ; 
which  shall  mount,  specifically-light,  majestically  in  this  same 
manner ;  and  hover, — tumbling  whither  Fate  will.  Well  if  it  do 
not.  Pilatre-like,  explode  ;  and  <^<?mount  all  the  more  tragically  ! — 
So,  riding  on  windbags,  will  men  scale  the  Empyrean. 

Or  observe  Herr  Doctor  Mesmer,  in  his  spacious  Magnetic 
Halls.  Long-stoled  he  walks  ;  reverend,  glancing  upwards,  as  in 
rapt  commerce  ;  an  Antique  Egyptian  Hierophant  in  this  new 
age.  Soft  music  flits  ;  breaking  fitfully  the  sacred  stillness. 
Round  their  Magnetic  Mystery,  which  to  the  eye  is  mere  tubs  with 
water, — sit  breathless,  rod  in  hand,  the  circles  of  Beauty  and 
Fashion,  each  circle  a  living  circular  Passion- Elower :  expecting 
the  magnetic  afflatus,  and  new-manufactured  Heaven-on-Earth. 
O  women,  O  men,  great  is  your  infidel-faith  !  A  Parlemicntary 
Duport,  a  Bergasse,  D^Espremenil  we  notice  there  ;  Chemist 
Berthollet  too, — on  the  part  of  Monseigneur  de  Chartres. 

Had  not  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  with  its  Baillys,  Franklins, 
Lavoisiers,  interfered  !  But  it  did  interfere.*'^  Mesmer  may  pocket 
his  hard  money,  and  withdraw.  Let  him  walk  silent  by  the  shore 
of  the  Bodensee,  by  the  ancient  town  of  Constance  meditating 
on  much.  For  so,  under  the  strangest  new  vesture,  the  old  great 
truth  (since  no  vesture  can  hide  it)  begins  again  to  be  revealed  : 
That  man  is  v/hat  we  call  a  miraculous  creature,  with  miraculous 
power  over  men  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  with  such  a  Life  in  him,  and 
such  a  World  round  him,  as  victorious  Analysis,  with  her  Physio- 
logies, Nervous-systems,  Physic  and  Metaphysic,  will  never  com- 
pletely na7ne,  to  say  nothing  of  explaining.  Wherein  also  the 
Quack  shall,  in  all  ages,  come  in  for  his  share. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONTRAT  SOCIAL. 

In  such  succession  of  singular  prismatic  tints,  flush  after  flush 
suffusing  our  horizon,  does  the  Era  of  Hope  dawn  on  towards  ful- 
filment. Questionable  !  As  indeed,  with  an  Era  of  Hope  that 
rests  on  mere  universal  Benevolence,  victorious  Analysis,  Vice 
cured  of  its  deformity  ;  and,  in  the  long  run,  on  Twenty-five  dark 
savage  Millions,  looking  up,  in  hunger  and  weariness,  to  that 
Ec:cc-s2gnu7n  of  theirs  *  forty  feet  high,'--how  could  it  but  be 
'iuestionablc  ? 


*  LacretcUe,  i2>mc  SUclc,  iii.  258. 


t  August,  1784. 


CONTRA  T  SOCIAL. 


47 


Through  all  time,  if  we  read  aright,  sin  was/  is,  will  be,  the 
parent  of  misery.  This  land  calls  itself  most  Christian,  and  has 
crosses  and  cathedrals ;  but  its  High-priest  is  some  Roche- Aymon, 
some  Necklace-Cardinal  Louis  de  Rohan.  The  voice  of  the  poor, 
through  long  years,  ascends  inarticulate,  in  Jacqtieries^mt^l'mobs,; 
low-whimpering  of  infinite  moan  :  unheeded  of  the  Earth  ;  not 
unheeded  of  Heaven.  Always  moreover  where  the  Millions  are 
wretched,  there  are  the  Thousands  straitened,  unhappy  ;  only  the 
Units  can  flourish  ;  or  say  rather,  be  ruined  the  last.  Industry, 
all  noosed  and  haltered,  as  if  it  too  were  some  beast  of  chase  for 
the  mighty  hunters  of  this  world  to  bait,  and  cut  slices  from, — 
cries  passionately  to  these  its  well-paid  guides  and  watchers,  not, 
Guide  inej  but,  Laissez  /aire,  Leave  me  alone  of  yotcr  guidance  ! 
What  market  has  Industry  in  this  France  ?  For  two  things  there 
may  be  market  and  demand  :  for  the  coarser  kind  of  field-fruits, 
since  the  MilHons  will  live  :  for  the  fine  kinds  of  luxury  and 
spicery, — of  multiform  taste,  from  opera-melodies  down  to  racers 
and  courtesans  ;  since  the  Units  will  be  amused.  It  is  at  bottom 
but  a  mad  state  of  things. 

To  mend  and  remake  all  which  we  have,  indeed,  victorious 
Analysis.  Honour  to  victorious  Analysis  ;  nevertheless,  out  of  the 
Workshop  and  Laboratory,  what  thing  was  victorious  Analysis  yet 
known  to  make^?  Detection  of  incoherences,  mainly  ;  destruction 
of  the  incoherent.  From  of  old,  Doubt  was  but  half  a  magiqian  ; 
she  evokes  the  spectres  which  she  cannot  quell.  We  shall  have 
*  endless  vortices  of  froth-logic  ; '  whereon  first  words,  and  then 
things,  are  whirled  and  swallowed.  Rem^ark,  accordingly,  as 
acknowledged  grounds  of  Hope,  at  bottom  mere  precursors  of 
Despair,  this  perpetual  theorising  about  Man,  the  Mind  of  Man, 
Philosophy  of  Government,  Progress  of  the  Species  and  such-like; 
the  main  thinking  furniture  of  every  head.  Time,  and  so  m.any 
Montesquieus,  Mablys,  spokesmen  of  Time,  have  discovered  in- 
numerable things  :  and  now  has  not  Jean  Jacques  promulgated 
his  new  Evangel  of  a  Contrat  Social;  explaining  the  whole 
mystery  of  Government,  and  how  it  is  contracted  and  bargained 
for, — to  universal  satisfaction  ?  Theories  of  Government  !  Such 
have  been,  and  will  be  ;  in  ages  of  decadence.  Acknowledge 
them  in  their  degree  ;  as  processes  of  Nature,  who  does  nothing  in 
vain  ;  as  steps  in  her  great  process.  Meanwhile,  what  theory  is 
so  certain  as  this,  That  all  theories,  were  they  never  so  earnest, 
painfully  elaborated,  are,  and,  by  the  very  conditions  of  them, 
must  be  incomplete,  questionable,  and  even  false  ?  Thou  'shalt 
know  that  this  Universe  is,  what  it  professes  to  be,  an  infinite  one. 
Attempt  not  to  swallow  2/,  for  thy  logical  digestion  ;  be  thankful, 
if  skilfully  planting  down  this  and  the  other  fixed  pillar  in  the 
chaos,  thou  prevent  its  swallowing  thee.  That  a  new  young  gener- 
ation has  exchanged  the  Sceptic  Creed,  What  shall  I  believe  ?  for 
passionate  Faith  in  this  Gospel  according  to  Jean  Jacques  is  a 
further  step  in  the  business  ;  and  betokens  much. 

Blessed  also  is  Hope  ;  and  always  from  the  beginning  there  was 
some  Millennium  prophesied  ;  Millennium  of  Holiness  ;  but  (what 


THE  PAPER  AGE, 


is  notable)  never  till  this  new  Era,  any  Millennium  of  mere  Ease 
and  plentiful  Supply.    In  such  prophesied  Lubberland,  of  Happi- 
ness, Benevolence,  and  Vice  cured  of  its  deformity,  trust  not,  my  '\ 
friends  !    Man  is  not  what  one  calls  a  happy  animal  ;  his  appetite  j 
for  sweet  victual  is  so  enormous.    How,  in  this  wild  Universe,  \ 
which  storms  in  on  him,  infinite,  vague-menacing,  shall  poor  man 
find,  say  not  happiness,  but  existence,  and  footing  to  stand  on,  if  \ 
it  be  not  by  girding  himself  together  for  continual  endeavour  and  \ 
endurance  ?    Woe,  if  in  his  heart  there  dwelt  no  devout  Faith  ;  if 
the  word  Duty  had  lost  its  meaning  for  him  !    For  as  to  this  of  ' 
Sentimentalism,  so  useful  for  weeping  with  over  romances  and  on 
pathetic  occasions,  it  otherwise  verily  will  avail  nothing  ;  nay  less. 
The  healthy  heart  that  said  to  itself,  '  How  healthy  am  I  was 
already  fallen  into  the  fatalest  sort  of  disease.  Is  not  Sentimental- 
ism twin-sister  to  Cant,  if  not  one  and  the  same  with  it?    Is  not 
Cant  the  materia  prima  of  the  Devil  ;  from  which  all  falsehoods, 
imbecilities,  abominations  body  themselves  ;  from  which  no  true 
thing  can  come  ?    For  Cant  is  itself  properly  a  double-distilled 
Lie  ;  the  second-power  of  a  Lie. 

And  now  if  a  whole  Nation  fall  into  that?  In  such  case,  I 
answer,  infallibly  they  will  return  out  of  it  !  For  life  is  no  cun- 
ningly-devised deception  or  self-deception  :  it  is  a  great  truth  that 
thou  art  alive,  that  thou  hast  desires,  necessities;  neither  can 
these  subsist  and  satisfy  themselves  on  delusions,  but  on  fact.  To 
fact,  depend  on  it,  we  shall  come  back  :  to  such  fact,  blessed  or 
cursed,  as  we  have  wisdom  for.  The  lowest,  least  blessed  fact  one 
knows  of,  on  which  necessitous  mortals  have  ever  based  them- 
selves, seems  to  be  the  primitive  one  of  Cannibalism  :  That  /can 
devour  Thee.  What  if  such  Primitive  Fact  were  precisely  the  one 
we  had  (with  our  improved  methods)  to  revert  to,  and  begin  anew 
from  ! 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

PRINTED  PAPER. 

In  such  a  practical  France,  let  the  theory  of  Perfectibility  say 
what  it  will,  discontents  cannot  be  wanting  :  your  promised  Re- 
formation is  so  indespensable  ;  yet  it  comes  not ;  who  will  begin 
it — with  himself?  Discontent  with  what  is  around  us,  still  more 
with  what  is  above  us,  goes  on  increasing  ;  seeking  ever  new 
vents. 

Of  Street  Ballads,  of  Epigrams  that  from  of  old  tempered  Des- 

!)otism,  we  need  not  speak.  Nor  of  Manuscript  Newspapers, 
Nenvelles  d  la  main)  do  we  speak.  Bachaumont  and  his  jpur-[ 
neymen  and  followers  may  close  those  '  thirty  volumes  oi  scur- ^ 
*riIous  eaves-dropping,'  and  quit  that  trade ;  tor  at  length  if  npt  ^ 


PRINTED  PAPER. 


49 


liberty  of  the  Press,  there  is  Hcense.  Pamphlets  can  be  surrepti- 
titiously  vended  and  read  in  Paris,  did  they  even  bear  to  be 

*  Printed  at  Pekin.'  We  have  a  Coiirrier  cie  V Europe  in  those 
years,  regularly  published  at  London  ;  by  a  De  Morande,  whom 
the  guillotine  has  not  yet  devoured.  There  too  an  unruly  Linguet, 
still  unguillotined,  when  his  own  country  has  become  too  hot  for 
him,  and  his  brother  Advocates  have  cast  him  out,  can  emit  his 
hoarse  wailings,  and  Bastille  Devoilee  (Bastille  unveiled).  Loqua- 
cious Abbe  Raynal,  at  length,  has  his  wish  ;  sees  the  Histoire 
Philosophique^  with  its  '  lubricity/  unveracity,  loose  loud  eleuthero- 
maniac  rant  (contributed,  they  say,  by  Philosophedom  at  large, 
though  in  the  Abbe's  name,  and  to  his  glory),  burnt  by  the  com- 
mon hangman  ; — and  sets  out  on  his  travels  as  a  martyr.  It  was  the 
edition  of  1781  ;  perhaps  the  last  notable  book  that  had  such  fire- 
beatitude, — the  hangman  discovering  now  that  it  did  not  serve. 

Again,  in  Courts  of  Law,  with  their  money-quarrels,  divorce- 
cases,  wheresoever  a  glimpse  into  the  household  existence  can  be 
had,  what  indications  !  The  Parlements  of  Besangon  and  Aix 
ring,  audible  to  all  France,  with  the  amours  and  destinies  of  a 
young  Mirabeau.  He,  under  the  nurture  of  a  ^  Friend  of  Men,'  has, 
in  State  Prisons,  in  marching  Regiments,  Dutch  Authors'- garrets, 
and  quite  other  scenes,  '  been  for  twenty  years  learning  to  resist 

*  despotism  :'  despotism  of  men,  and  alas  also  of  gods.  How, 
beneath  this  rose-coloured  veil  of  Universal  Benevolence  and 
Astrcea  Rediix^  is  the  sanctuary  of  Home  so  often  a  dreary  void, 
or  a  dark  contentious  Hell-on-Earth  !  The  old  Friend  of  Men 
has  his  own  divorce  case  too  ;  and  at  times,  '  his  Avhole  family 
'but  one'  under  lock  and  key  :  he  writes  much  about  reforming 
and  enfranchising  the  world  ;  and  for  his  own  private  behoof  he 
has  needed  sixty  Lettres-de-Cachet.  A  man  of  insight  too  ;  with 
resolution,  even  with  manful  principle  :  but  in  such  an  element, 

•  inward  and  outward  ;  which  he  could  not  rule,  but  only  madden. 
Edacity,  rapacity  ; — quite  contrary  to  the  finer  sensibilities  of  the 

'  heart  !  Fools,  that  expect  your  verdant  Millennium,  and  nothing 
but  Love  and  Abundance,  brooks  running  wine,  winds  whispering 
music, — with  the  whole  ground  and  basis  of  your  existence 
champed  into  a  mud  of  Sensuality  ;  which,  daily  growing  deeper, 
will  soon  have  no  bottom  but  the  Abyss  ! 

Or  consider  that  unutterable  business  of  the  Diamond  Neck- 
lace. Red-hatted  Cardinal  Louis  de  Rohan  ;  Sicilian  jail-bird 
Balsamo  Cagliostro  ;  milliner  Dame  de  Lamotte,  *  with  a  face  of 

. ,  *  some  piquancy the  highest  Church  Dignitaries  waltzing,  in 
Waipurgis  Dance,  with  quack-prophets,  pickpurses  and  public 
women  ; — a  whole  Satan's  Invisible  World  displayed  ;  working 
there  continually  under  the  daylight  visible  one  ;  the  smoke  of  its 
torment  going  up  for  ever  !  The  Throne  has  been  brought  into 
scandalous  collision  v/ith  the  Treadmill.  Astonished  Europe  rings 
with  the  mystery  for  ten  months  ;  sees  only  lie  unfold  itself  fr<  iTi 
lie  ;  corruption  among  the  lofty  and  the  low,  gulosity,  credulity, 
imbecility,  strength  nowhere  but  in  the  hunger.  Weep,  fair 
Queen,  thy  first  tears  of  unmixed  wretchedness  1    Thy  fair  name 


THE  PAPER  AGE, 


has  been  tarnished  by  foul  breath  ;  irremediably  while  life  lasts- 
No  more  shalt  thou  be  loved  and  pitied  by  living  hearts,  till  a  new 
generation  has  been  born,  and  thy  own  heart  lies  cold,  cured  of 
all  its  sorrows. — The  Epigrams  henceforth  become,  not  sharp  and 
bitter:  but  cruel,  atrocious,  unmentionable.  On  that  31st  of  May, 
1786,  a  miserable  Cardinal  Grand- Almoner  Rohan,  on  issuing 
from  his  Bastille,  is  escorted  by  hurrahing  crowds  :  unloved  he, 
and  worthy  of  no  love  ;  but  important  since  the  Court  and  Queen 
are  his  enemies.^ 

How  is  our  bright  Era  of  Hope  dimmed  ;  and  the  whole  sky 
growing  bleak  with  signs  of  hurricane  and  earthquake  !  It  is  a 
doomed  world  :  gone  all  '  obedience  that  made  men  free  ;  ^  fast 
going  the  obedience  that  made  men  slaves, — at  least  to  one 
another.  Slaves  only  of  their  own  lusts  they  now  are,  and  will  be. 
Slaves  of  sin  ;  inevitably  also  of  sorrow.  Behold  the  m^ouldering 
mass  of  Sensuality  and  Falsehood  ;  round  which  plays  foolishly, 
itself  a  corrupt  phosphorescence,  some  glimmer  of  Sentimentalism; 
— and  over  all,  rising,  as  Ark  of  their  Covenant,  the  grim  Pati- 
bulary  Fork  '  forty  feet  high  ; '  which  also  is  now  nigh  rotted.  Add 
only  that  the  French  Nation  distinguishes  itself  among  Nations  by 
the  characteristic  of  ExcitabiUty  ;  with  the  gpod,  but  also  with  the 
perilous  evil,  which  belongs  to  that.  RebeUion,  explosion,  of 
unknown  extent  is  to  be  calculated  on.  There  are,  as  Chesterfield 
wrote,  'all  the  symptoms  I  have  ever  met  with  in  History 

Shall  we  say,  then  :  Wo  to  Philosophism,  that  it  destroyed 
Religion,  what  it  called  '  extinguishing  the  abomination  {ecrascr 
'  riTifdme) '  ?  Wo  rather  to  those  that  made  the  Holy  an  abomina- 
tion, and  extinguishable  ;  wo  to  all  men  that  live  in  such  a  time 
of  world-abomination  and  world-destruction  !  Nay,  answer  the 
Courtiers,  it  was  Turgot,  it  was  Necker,  with  their  mad  innovating; 
it  was  the  Queen's  want  of  etiquette  ;  it  w^as  he,  it  was  she,  it  was 
that.  Friends  !  it  was  every  scoundrel  that  had  lived,  and  quack- 
like pretended  to  be  doing,  and  been  only  eating  and  ;;//^doing,  in 
all  provinces  of  life,  as  Shoeblack  or  as  Sovereign  Lord,  each  in 
his  degree,  from  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  earlier.  All  this 
(for  be  sure  no  falsehood  perishes,  but  is  as  seed  sown  out  to  grow) 
has  been  storing  itself  for  thousands  of  years  ;  and  now  the 
account-day  has  come.  And  rude  will  the  settlement  be  :  of  wrath 
laid  up  against  the  day  of  wrath.  O  my  Brother,  be  not  thou  a 
Quack  !  Die  rather,  if  thou  wilt  take  counsel  ;  'tis  but  dying  once, 
and  thou  art  quit  of  it  for  ever.  Cursed  is  that  trade  ;  and  bears 
curses,  thou  knowest  not  how,  long  ages  after  thou  art  departed, 
and  the  wages  thou  hadst  are  all  consumed  ;  nay,  as  the  ancient 
wise  have  written, — through  Eternity  itself,  and  is  verily  marked 
in  the  Doom-Book  of  a  God  ! 

Hope  deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick.  And  yet,  as  wc  said, 
Hope  is  but  deferred  ;  not  abolished,  not  a])olishable.  It  is  very 
/lotablc,  and  touching,  how  this  same  Hope  does  still  light  onwards 
the  French  Nation  through  all  its  wild  destinies.  For  we  shall 
Fils  Adoptif,  Ahimoircs  dc  Mirabcaiit  iv.  325. 


PRINTED  PAPER. 


51 


#till  find  Hope  shining,  be  it  for  fond  invitation,  be  it  for  anger  and 
menace  ;  as  a  mild  heavenly  light  it  shone  ;  as  a  red  conflagration 
it  shines  :  burning  sulphurous  blue,  through  darkest  regions  of 
Terror,  it  still  shines  ;  and  goes  not  out  at  all,  since  Desperation 
itself  is  a  kind  of  Hope.  Thus  is  our  Era  still  to  be  named  of 
Hope,  though  in  the  saddest  sense,— when  there  is  nothing  left 
but  Hope. 

But  if  any  one  would  know  summarily  what  a  Pandora's  Box  lies 
there  for  the  opening,  he  may  see  it  in  what  by  its  nature  is  the 
symptom  of  all  symptoms,  the  surviving  Literature  of  the  Period. 
Abbe  Raynal,  with  his  lubricity  and  loud  loose  rant,  has  spoken 
his  word  ;  and  already  the  fast-hastening  generation  responds  to 
another.  Glance  at  Beaumarchais'  Mariage  de  E'igaro ;  which 
now  (in  1784),  after  difficulty  enough,  has  issued  on  the  stage  ;  and 
'  runs  its  hundred  nights,'  to  the  admiration  of  all  men.  By  what 
virtue  or  internal  vigour  it  so  ran,  the  reader  of  our  day  will  rather 
wonder  : — and  indeed  will  know  so  much  the  better  that  it  flattered 
some  pruriency  of  the  time  ;  that  it  spoke  what  all  were  feeling, 
and  longing  to  speak.  Small  substance  in  that  Figaro  :  thin  wire- 
drawn intrigues,  thin  wiredrawn  sentiments  and  sarcasms  ;  a  thing 
leai},  barren;  yet  which  winds  and  whisks  itself,  as  through  a 
VvhoUy  mad  universe,  adroitly,  with  a  high-sniffing  air  :  wherein 
each,  as  was  hinted,  which  is  the  grand  secret,  may  see  some 
image  of  himself,  and  of  his  own  state  and  ways.  So  it  runs  its 
hundred  nights,  and  all  France  runs  with  it ;  laughing  applause. 
If  the  soliloquising  Barber  ask:  ''What  has  your  Lordship  done 
to  earn  all  this  ? and  can  only  answer  :  "  You  took  the  trouble  to 
be  born  {Vous  voiis  etes  domte  la  peine  de  naitre)"  all  men  must 
laugh  :  and  a  gay  horse-racing  Anglomaniac  Noblesse  loudest  of 
all.  For  how  can  small  books  have  a  great  danger  in  them  ?  asks 
the  Sieur  Caron  ;  and  fancies  his  thin  epigram  may  be  a  kind  of 
reason.  Conqueror  of  a  golden  fleece,  by  giant  smuggling  ;  tamer 
of  hell-dogs,  in  the  Parlement  Maupeou  ;  and  finally  crowned 
Orpheus  in  the  Theatre  Francais,  Beaumarchais  has  now  cul- 
minated, and  unites  the  attributes  of  several  demigods.  We  shall 
meet  him  once  again,  in  the  course  of  his  decline. 

Still  more  significant  are  two  Books  produced  on  the  eve  of 
tlie  ever-memorable  Explosion  itself,  and  read  eagerly  by  all  the 
world  :  Saint-Pierre's  Paul  et  Virginie,  and  Louvet's  Chevalier  de 
Faublas.  Noteworthy  Books  ;  which  may  be  considered  as  the 
last  speech  of  old  Feudal  France.  In  the  first  there  rises  melodi- 
ously, as  it  were,  the  wail  of  a  moribund  world  :  everywhere 
wholesome  Nature  in  unequal  conflict  with  diseased  perfidious 
Art  ;  cannot  escape  from  it  in  the  lowest  hut,  in  the  remotest 
island  of  the  sea.  Ruin  and  death  must  strike  down  the  loved 
one  :  and,  what  is  most  significant  of  all,  death  even  here  not  by 
necessity,  but  by  etiquette.  What  a  world  of  prurient  corruption 
lies  visible  in  that  super-sublime  of  modesty  ?  Yet,  on  the  whole, 
our  good  Saint-Pierre  is  musical,  poetical  though  most  morbid  s 
we  will  call  his  Book  the  swan-song  of  old  dying  France. 


S2  THE  PAPER  AGE, 


Louvets,  again,  let  no  man  account  musical.  Truly  if  this 
wretched  i^^z^^/^i- is  a  death-speech,  it  is  one  under  the  Wllows 
and  by  a  felon  that  does  not  repent.  Wretched  cloaca  of  a  Book  ' 
without  depth  even  as  a  cloaca!  What  '  picture  of  French  society' 
IS  here  ?  Picture  properly  of  nothing,  if  not  of  the  mind  that 
gave  It  out  as  some  sort  of  picture.  Yet  symptom  of  much: 
above  aU,  of  the  world  that  could  nourish  itself  tUrcon. 


53 


BOOK  THIRD. 

THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DISHONOURED  BILLS. 

Whil^  the  unspeakable  confusion  is  every  where  weltering  within, 
and  through  so  many  cracks  in  the  surface  sulphur-smoke  is 
issuing,  the  question  arises  :  Through  what  crevice  will  the  main 
Explosion  carry  itself?  Through  which  of  the  old  craters  or 
chimneys  ;  or  must  it,  at  once,  form  a  new  crater  for  itself?  In 
every  Society  are  such  chimneys,  are  Institutions  serving  as  such  : 
even  Constantinople  is  not  without  its  safety-valves  ;  there  too 
Discontent  can  vent  itself, — in  material  fire  ;  by  the  number  of 
nocturnal  conflagrations,  or  of  hanged  bakers,  the  Reigning 
Power  can  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  change  course  accord- 
ing to  these. 

We  may  say  that  this  French  Explosion  will  doubtless  first  try 
all  the  old  Institutions  oF  escape  ;  for  by  each  of  these  there  is, 
or  at  least  there  used  to  be,  some  communication  with  the  interior 
deep  ;  they  are  national  Institutions  in  virtue  of  that.  Had  they 
even  become  personal  Institutions,  and  what  we  can  call  choked 
up  from  their  original  uses,  there  nevertheless  must  the  impedi- 
ment be  weaker  than  elsewhere.  Through  which  of  them  then  ? 
An  observer  might  have  guessed  :  Through  the  Law  Parlements  ; 
above  all,  through  the  Parlement  of  Paris. 

Men,  though  never  so  thickly  clad  in  dignities,  sit  not  inacces- 
sible to  the  influences  of  their  time  ;  especially  men  whose  life  is 
business  ;  who  at  all  turns,  were  it  even  from  behind  judgment- 
seats,  have  come  in  contact  with  the  actual  workings  of  the  world. 
The  Counsellor  of  Parlement,  the  President  himself,  who  has 
bought  his  place  with  hard  money  that  he  might  be  looked  up  to 
by  his  fellow-creatures,  how  shall  he,  in  all  Philosophe-soirees, 
and  saloons  of  elegant  culture,  become  notable  as  a  Friend  of 
Darkness  ?  Among  the  Paris  Long  -robes  there  may  be  more  than 
one  patriotic  Malesherbes,  whose  rule  is  conscience  and  the  public 
good  ;  there  are  clearly  more  than  one  hotheaded  D'Espremenilj 


54 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS, 


to  whose  confused  thought  any  loud  reputation  of  the  Brutus  sort 
may  seem  glorious.  The  Lepelletiers,  Lamoignons  have  titles 
and  wealth  ;  yet,  at  Court,  are  only  styled  '  Noblesse  of  the  Robe.' 
There  are  Duports  of  deep  scheme ;  Freteaus,  Sabatiers,  of  in- 
contment  tongue  :  all  nursed  more  or  less  on  the  milk  of  the 
Contrat  Social.  Nay,  for  the  whole  Body,  is  not  this  patriotic 
opposition  also  a  fighting  for  oneself?  Awake,  Parlement  of  Paris^ 
renew  thy  long  warfare  !  Was  not  the  Parlement  Maupeou 
abolished  with  ignominy  ?  Not  now  hast  thou  to  dread  a  Louis 
XIV.,  with  the  crack  of  his  whip,  and  his  Olympian  looks  ;  not 
now  a  Richelieu  and  Bastilles  :  no,  the  whole  Nation  is  behind  thee. 
Thou  too  (O  heavens  !)  mayest  become  a  Pohtical  Power  ;  and 
with  the  shakings  of  thy  horse-hair  wig  shake  principalities  and 
dynasties,  like  a  very  Jove  with  his  ambrosial  curls  ! 

Light  old  M.  de  Maurepas,  since  the  end  of  1781,  has  been 
fixed  in  the  frost  of  death  :  "  Never  more,''  said  the  good  Louis. 
"  shall  I  hear  his  step  overhead  ;  "  his  light  jestings  and  gyratings 
are  at  an  end.  No  more  can  the  importunate  reality  be  hidden  by 
pleasant  wit,  and  today's  evil  be  deftly  rolled  over  upon  tomorrow. 
The  morrow  itself  has  arrived  ;  and  now  nothmg  but  a  solid 
phlegmatic  M.  de  Vergennes  sits  there,  in  dull  matter  of  fact,  iiks 
some  dull  punctual  Clerk  (which  he  originally  was)  ;  admits  what 
cannot  be  denied,  let  the  remedy  come  whence  it  will.  In  him  is 
no  remedy  ;  only  clerklike  '  despatch  of  business '  according  to 
routine.  The  poor  King,  grown  older  yet  hardly  more  experienced, 
must  himself,  with  such  no-faculty  as  he  has,  begin  governing ; 
wherein  also  his  Queen  will  give  help.  Bright  Queen,  with  her 
quick  clear  glances  and  impulses  ;  clear,  and  even  noble  ;  but  all 
too  superficial,  vehement-shallow,  for  that  work  !  To  govern 
France  were  such  a  problem  ;  and  now  it  has  grown  well-nigh  too 
hard  to  govern  even  the  CEil-de-Boeuf.  For  if  a  distressed  People 
has  its  cry,  so  likewise,  and  more  audibly,  has  a  bereaved  Court. 
To  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  it  remains  inconceivable  how,  in  a  France  of 
such  resources,  the  Horn  of  Plenty  should  run  dry  :  did  it  not  use 
to  flow  ?  Nevertheless  Necker,  with  his  revenue  of  parsimony, 
has  '  suppressed  above  six  hundred  places,'  before  the  Courtiers 
could  oust  him  ;  parsimonious  finance-pedant  as  he  was.  Again, 
a  military  pedant,  Saint-Germain,  with  his  Prussian  manoeuvres  ; 
with  his  Prussian  notions,  as  if  merit  and  not  coat-of-arms  should 
be  the  rule  of  promotion,  has  disaffected  military  men  ;  the  Mous- 
quetaires,  with  much  else  are  suppressed  :  for  he  too  was  one  of 
your  suppressors  ;  and  unsettling  and  oversetting,  did  mere 
mischief— to  the  OEil-de-Bocuf.  Complaints  abound  ;  scarcity, 
anxiety  :  it  is  a  changed  CEil-de-Boeuf.  Besenval  says,  already  in 
these  years  (1781)  there  was  such  a  melancholy  (such  a  iristcsse) 
about  Court,  compared  with  former  days,  as  made  it  quite  dispirit- 
ing to  look  upon. 

No  wonder  that  the  CEil-de-Bceuf  feels  melancholy,  when  you  are 
suppressing  its  places  !  Not  a  place  can  be  suppressed,  but  some 
purse  is  the  lighter  for  it ;  and  more  than  one  heart  the  heavier; 


DISHONOURED  BILLS. 


55 


For  did  it  not  employ  the  working-clafeses  too, — manufacturers, 
male  and  female,  of  laces,  essences  ;  of  Pleasure  generally,  who- 
soever could  manufacture  Pleasure  ?  Miserable  economies  ;  never 
felt  over  Twenty-five  MilHons  !  So,  however,  it  goes  on  :  and  is 
not  yet  ended.  Few  years  more  and  the  Wolf-hounds  shall  fall 
suppressed,  the  Bear-hounds,  the  Falconry ;  places  shall  fall,  thick 
as  autumnal  leaves.  Duke  de  Polignac  demonstrates,  to  the 
complete  silencing  of  ministerial  logic,  that  his  place  cannot  be 
abolished  ;  then  gallantly,  turning  to  the  Queen,  surrenders  it, 
since  her  Majesty  so  wishes.  Less  chivalrous  was  Duke  de 
Coigny,  and  yet  not  luckier  :  "  We  got  into  a  real  quarrel,  Coigny 
and  I,"  said  King  Louis  ;  but  if  he  had  even  struck  me,  I  could 
not  have  blamed  him."^  In  regard  to  such  matters  there  can  be 
but  one  opinion.  Baron  Besenval,  with  that  frankness  of  speech 
which  stamps  the  independent  man,  plainly  assures  her  Majesty 
that  it  is  frightful  {affreiix)  ;  "  you  go  to  bed,  and  are  not  sure  but 
you  shall  rise  impoverished  on  the  morrow  :  one  might  as  well  be 
in  Turkey."    It  is  indeed  a  dog's  life. 

How  singular  this  perpetual  distress  of  the  royal  treasury  \ 
And  yet  it  is  a  thing  not  more  incredible  than  undeniable.  A 
thing  mournfully  true  :  the  stumbling-block  on  which  all  Ministers 
successively  stumble,  and  fall.  Be  it  '  want  of  fiscal  genius,'  or 
some  far  other  want,  there  is  the  palpablest  discrepancy  between 
Revenue  and  Expenditure  ;  a  Deficit  of  the  Revenue  :  you  niust 
^  choke  {combler)  the  Deficit/  or  else  it  will  swallow  you  !  This  is 
the  stern  problem  ;  hopeless  seemingly  as  squaring  of  the  circle. 
Controller  Joly  de  Fleury,  who  succeeded  Necker,  could  do  no- 
thing with  it  ;  nothing  but  propose  loans,  which  were  tardily  filled 
up  ;  impose  new  taxes,  unproductive  of  money,  productive  of 
clamour  and  discontent.  As  little  could  Controller  d'Ormesson 
do,  or  even  less  ;  for  if  Joly  maintained  himself  beyond  year  and 
day,  d'Ormesson  reckons  only  by  months  :  till  '  the  King  purchased 
Rambouillet  without  consulting  him,'  which  he  took  as  a  hint  to 
withdraw.  And  so,  towards  the  end  of  1783,  matters  threaten  to 
come  to  still-stand.  Vain  seems  human  ingenuity.  In  vain  has 
our  newly-devised  '  Council  of  Finances'  struggled,  our  Intendants 
of  Finance,  Controller-General  of  Finances  :  there  are  unhappily 
no  Finances  to  control.  Fatal  paralysis  invades  the  social  move- 
ment ;  clouds,  of  bhndness  or  of  blackness,  envelop  us  :  are  we 
breaking  down,  then,  into  the  black  horrors  of  National  Bank- 
ruptcy ? 

Great  is  Bankruptcy  :  the  great  bottomless  gulf  into  which  all 
Falsehoods,  public  and  private,  do  sink,  disappearing  ;  whither, 
from  the  first  origin  of  them,  they  were  all  doomed.  For  Nature 
is  true  and  not  a  lie.  No  lie  you  can  speak  or  act  but  it  will 
come,  after  longer  or  shorter  circulation,  like  a  Bill  drawn  on 
Nature's  Reality,  and  be  presented  there  for  payment, — with  the 
answer.  No  effects.  Pity  only  that  it  often  had  so  long  a  circula- 
tion :  that  the  original  forger  were  so  seldom  he  who  bore  the  final 
smart  of  it !  *  Lies,  and  the  burden  of  evil  they  bring,  are  passed 
*  Besenval,  iii.  255-58, 


56  THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 

on  ;  shifted  from  back  to  back,  and  from  rank  to  rank  •  and 
land  ultmiately  on  the  dumb  lowest  rank,  who  wkh  spade  and 

^h  real,;" T^''  ^^''^  ^"""^  '^^^2% 

witn  reality,  and  can  pass  the  cheat  no  further. 

Observe  nevertheless  how,  by  a  just  compensating  taw  if  the 
he  with  Its  burden  (in  this  confused  whirlpool  of  See W)  sinks 
and  IS  shifted  ever  downwards,  then  in  return  the  distress  of  k 
rises  ever  upwards  and  upwards.  Whereby,  after  the  long  pinTng  and 
demi-starvat.on  of  those  Twenty  Millions  a  Duke  de  Co  gnv  and 
f.t  *?^^^'\t'°"'"  *°  ^^^^  their 'rekl  quarrel.'  Sufh  lslhe 
onTvtv^  RLk^'"f  '  long  intervals,  and  wer;  k 

only  by  Bankruptcy,  matters  round  again  to  the  mark 

But  with  a  f  ortunatus'  Purse  in  his  pocket,  through  what  length 
of  time  might  not  almost  any  Falsehood  last  !  Your  Society  your 
Household,  practical  or  spiritual  Arrangement,  is  untrue  Sst 
offensive  to  the  eye  of  God  and  man.  NcN  ertheless  its  hearth  k 
warm,  its  larder  well  replenished:  the  innuSe  SwTss  o 

?v  nlmAhlp.  ^^"""^  °^  ^'^y^''^'  gather  round  it  ;  will  prove 

by  pamphleteering,  musketeenng,  that  it  is  a  truth  ;  or  if  not  an 

atTrZi.T""'''^'^'""P?^""^)  T™*'  '^'^  better,  a  wLlesomel^ 
Q^Z^^i^l'i^V"''^'''  lamb),  and  works  welL 

Changed  outlook,  however,  when  purse  and  larder  grow  empty  ' 
"glll^^^ .^^l^^Z^^^r^t  so  true,  so  accordant  to  Nature's  ways! 
then  how,  m  the  name  of  wonder,  has  Nature,  with  her  infinite 
wome^a'.T'n'°H-  r^  it.  famishing  there.?  To  all  men,  to  all 
women  and  a  1  children,  it  is  now  indutiable  that  your  Arrangement 
\  Bankruptcy  ;  ever  right'^ous  on  thi  grea 
scale,  though  m  detail  it  is  so  cruel  !  Under  all  Falsehoods  it 
works,  unweariedly  mming.  No  Falsehood,  did  i  t  rise  heaven- 
high  and  cover  the  world,  but  Bankruptcy,  one  day,  will  sweep  it 
down,  and  make  us  free  of  it,  '^^^^11. 


CHAPTER  11. 

CONTROLLER  CALONNE. 

Under  such  circumstances  of  tristesse,  obstruction  and  sick 
Jangour,  when  to  an  exasperated  Court  it  seems  as  if  fiscal  genius 
ftad  departed  from  among  men,  what  apparition  could  be  welcome! 
than  that  of  M.  de  Calonne?  Calonne,  a  mA  of  indisputable 
genius  ;  even  fiscal  gennis,  more  or  less;  of  experience  both  in 
managing  Finance  and  Parlements,  for  he  has  been  Intendant  at 
Metz,  at  Lille  ;  King's  Procureur  at  Douai.  A  man  of  weight 
connected  with  the  moneyed  classes  :  of  unstained  name -if  it 
^^!a^  ""n  peccadillo  (of  showing  a  Client's  Letter)  in  that  old 
U  Aigiullon-Lachalotais  business,  as  good  as  forgotten  now,  He 


CONTROLLER  CALONNE. 


57 


has  kinsmen  of  heavy  purse,  felt  on  the  Stock  Exchange.  Our 
Foulons,  Berthiers  intrigue  for  him  : — old  Foulon,  who  has  now 
nothing  to  do  but  intrigue  ;  who  is  known  and  even  seen  to  be 
what  they  call  a  scoundrel ;  but  of  unmeasured  wealth  ;  who,  from 
Commissariat-clerk  which  he  once  was,  may  hope,  some  think,  if 
the  game  go  right,  to  be  Minister  himself  one  day. 

Such  propping  and  backing  has  M.  de  Calonne ;  and  then 
intrinsically  such  quahties  !  Hope  radiates  from  his  face ; 
persuasion  hangs  on  his  tongue.  For  all  straits  he  has  present  | 
remedy,  and  will  make  the  world  roll  on  wheels  before  him.  On 
the  3d  of  November  1783,  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  rejoices  in  its  new 
Controller-General.  Calonne  also  shall  have  trial ;  Calonne  also, 
in  his  way,  as  Turgot  and  Neckerhad  done  in  theirs,  shall  forward 
the  consummation  ;  suffuse,  with  one  other  flush  of  brilliancy,  our 
now  too  leaden-coloured  Era  of  Hope,  and  wind  it  up— into  fulfil- 
ment. 

Great,  in  any  case,  is  the  felicity  of  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  Stingi- 
ness has  fled  from  these  royal  abodes  :  suppression  ceases  ;  your 
Besenval  may  go  peaceably  to  sleep,  sure  that  he  shall  awake 
iinplundered.  Smiling  Plenty,  as  if  conjured  by  some  enchanter, 
has  returned  ;  scatters  contentment  from  her  new-flowing  horn. 
And  mark  what  suavity  of  manners  1  A  bland  smile  distinguishes 
our  Controller  :  to  all  men  he  listens  with  an  air  of  interest, 
nay  of  anticipation  ;  makes  their  own  wish  clear  to  themselves, 
and  grants  it  ;  or  at  least,  grants  .conditional  promise  of  it."  "  I 
fear  this  is  a  matter  of  difficulty,''  said  her  Majesty.—"  Madame," 
answered  the  Controller,  'Sf  it  is  but  difficult,  it  is  done  ;  if  it  is 
impossible,  it  shall  be  done  {se /era):'  A  man  of  such  'facility' 
withal.  To  observe  him  in  the  pleasure-vortex  of  society,  which 
none  partakes  of  with  more  gusto,  you  might  ask.  When  does  he 
work  ?  And  yet  his  work,  as  we  see,  is  never  behindhand  ;  above 
all,  the  fruit  of  his  work  :  ready-money.  Truly  a  man  of  incredible 
facility  ;  facile  action,  facile  elocution,  facile  thought :  how,  in 
mild  suasion,  philosophic  depth  sparkles  up  from  him,  as  mere 
wit  and  lambent  sprightliness  ;  and  in  her  Majesty's  Soirees,  with 
the  weight  of  a  world  lying  on  him,  he  is  the  delight  of  men  and 
women  !    By  what  magic  does  he  accomphsh  miracles?    By  the 

-  only  true  magic,  that  of  genius.    Men  name  him  '  the  Minister  ; ' 
as  indeed,  when  was  there  another  such      Crooked  things  are  j 
become  straight  by  him,  rough  places  plain  ;  and  over  the  (Eil- 

;  de-Boeuf  there  rests  an  unspeakable  sunshine. 

Nay,  in  seriousness,  let  no  man  say  that  Calonne  had  not 
genius  :  genius  for  Persuading  ;  before  all  things,  for  Borrowing. 
With  the  skilfulest  judicious  appliances  of  underhand  money,  he 
keeps  the  Stock-Exchanges  flourishing  ;  so  that  Loan  after  Loan 
is  filled  up  as  soon  as  opened.  '  Calculators  likely  to  know'*  have 
*  calculated  that  he  spent,  in  extraordinaries,  '  at  the  rate  of  one 
'  million  daily  ; '  which  indeed  is  some  fifty  thousand  pounds 
Sterling  ;  but  did  he  not  procure  something  with  it ;  namely  peace 
*  Besenval,  iii.  216. 


5B 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS, 


asid  prosperity,  for  the  time  being  ?  Philosophedom  grumbles  and 
croaks  ;  buys,  as  we  said,  80,000  copies  of  Necker's  new  Book  : 
but  Nonpareil  Calonne,  in  her  Majesty's  Apartment,  with  the 
glittering  retinue  of  Dukes,  Duchesses,  and  mere  happy  admiring 
faces,  can  let  Necker  and  Philosophedom  croak. 

The  misery  is,  such  a  time  cannot  last  !  Squandering,  and 
Payment  by  Loan  is  no  way  to  choke  a  Deficit.  Neither  is  oil 
the  substance  for  quenching  conflagrations ; — but,  only  for 
assuaging  them,  not  permanently  !  To  the  Nonpareil  himself, 
ivlio  wanted  not  insight,  it  is  clear  at  intervals,  and  dimly  certain 
at  all  times,  that  his  trade  is  by  nature  temporary,  growing  daily 
more  difficult  ;  that  changes  incalculable  lie  at  no  great  distance. 
Apart  from  financial  Deficit,  the  world  is  wholly  in  such  a  new- 
fangled humour  ;  all  things  working  loose  from  their  old  fastenings, 
towards  new  issues  and  combinations.  There  is  not  a  dwarf  jokei^ 
a  cropt  Brutus'-head,  or  Anglomaniac  horseman  rising  on  his 
stirrups,  that  does  not  betoken  change.  But  what  then  ?  The 
day,  in  any  case,  passes  pleasantly  ;  for  the  morrow,  if  the 
morrow  come,  there  shall  be  counsel  too.  Once  mounted  (by 
munfficence,  suasion,  magic  of  genius)  high  enough  in  favour  with 
the  CEil-de-Bceuf,  with  the  King,  Queen,  Stock-Exchange,  and  so 
far  as  possible  with  all  men,  a  Nonpareil  Controller  may  hope  to 
go  careering  through  the  Inevitable,  in  some  unimagined  way,  as 
handsomely  as  another. 

At  all  events,  for  these  three  miraculous  years,  it  has  been 
expedient  heaped  on  expedient  ;  till  now,  with  such  cumulation 
and  height,  the  pile  topples  perilous.  And  here  has  this  world's- 
wonder  of  a  Diamond  Necklace  brought  it  at  last  to  the  clear 
verge  of  tumbhng.  Genius  in  that  direction  can  no  more  ; 
mounted  high  enough,  or  not  mounted,  we  must  fare  forth. 
Hardly  is  poor  Rohan,  the  Necklace-Cardinal,  safely  bestowed  in 
the  Auvergne  Mountains,  Dame  de  Lamotte  (unsafely)  in  the 
Salpetriere,  and  that  mournful  business  hushed  up,  when  our 
sanguine  Controller  once  more  astonishes  the  world.  An  expe- 
dient, unheard  of  for  these  hundred  and  sixty  years,  has  been 
propounded  ;  and,  by  dint  of  suasion  (for  his  light  audacity,  his 
hope  and  eloquence  are  matchless)  has  been  got  adopted,— 
Convocation  of  the  Notables. 

Let  notable  persons,  the  actual  or  virtual  rulers  of  their  districts, 
be  summoned  from  all  sides  of  France  :  let  a  true  tale,  of  his 
Majesty's  patriotic  purposes  and  wretched  pecuniary  impossibili- 
ties, be  suasively  told  them  ;  and  then  the  question  put :  What 
are  we  to  do  ?  \Surely  to  adopt  healing  measures  ;  such  as  the 
magic  of  genius  will  unfold  ;  such  as,  once  san  -^tioned  by  Notables, 
all  Parlements  and  all  men  must,  with  more  or  less  reluctance^ 
submit  to. 


THE  NOTABLES. 


59 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  NOTABLES. 

Here,  then,  is  verily  a  sign  and  wonder  ;  visible  to  the  whole 
world  ;  bodeful  of  much.  The  CEil-de-Boeuf  dolorously  grumbles  ; 
were  we  not  well  as  we  stood —quenching  conflagrations  by  oil? 
Constitutional  Philosophedom  starts  with  joyful  surprise  ;  stares 
eao-erly  what  the  result  will  be.  The  public  creditor,  the  public 
debtor,  the  whole  thinking  and  thoughtless  public  have  their 
several  surprises,  joyful  or  sorrowful.  Count  Mirabeau,  who  has 
got  his  matrimonial  and  other  Lawsuits  huddled  up,  better  or 
worse  ;  and  works  now  in  the  dimmest  element  at  Berlin  ;  com- 
pihng  ^Prussian  MonarcJiies,  Pamphlets  On  Cagliostro;  writing, 
with  pay,  but  not  with  honourable  recognition,  innumerable 
Despatches  for  his  Government,— scents  or  descries  richer  quarry 
from  afar.  He,  like  an  eagle  or  vulture,  or  mixture  of  both,  preens 
his  wings  for  flight  homewards.* 

M.  de  Calonne  has  stretched  out  an  Aaron's  Rod  over  France  ; 
miraculous  ;  and  is  summoning  quite  unexpected  things.  Auda- 
city and  hope  alternate  in  him  with  misgivings  ;  though  the 
sanguine-valiant  side  carries  it.  Anon  he  writes  to  an  mtimate 
friend,  "  Je  me  fais  pitie  a  moi-mhne  (I  am  an  object  of  pity  to 
myself)  ; "  anon,  invites  some  dedicating  Poet  or  Poetaster  to 
sing  '  this  Assembly  of  the  Notables  and  the  Revolution  that  is 
'preparing.'t  Preparing  indeed  ;  and  a  matter  to  be  sung,— only 
not  till  we  have  seen  it,  and  what  the  issue  of  it  is.  In  deep 
obscure  unrest,  all  things  have  so  long  gone  rocking  and  swaying  : 
will  M.  de  Calonne,  with  this  his  alchemy  of  the  Notables,  fasten 
aU  together  again,  and  get  new  revenues  ?  Or  wrench  all  asunder  ; 
so  that  it  go^no  longer  rocking  and  swaying,  but  clashing  and 

colliding?  ^  ,  ,   u  c 

Be  this  as  it  may,  in  the  bleak  short  days,  we  behold  men  of 
weight  and  influence  threading  the  great  vortex  of  French  Loco- 
motion, each  on  his  several  line,  from  all  sides  of  France  towards 
the  Chateau  of  Versailles  :  summoned  thither  de  par  le  rot.  There, 
on  the  22d  day  of  February  1787,  they  have  met,  and  got  installed  : 
Notables  to  the  number  of  a  Hundred  and  Thirty-seven,  as  we 
count  them  name  by  name  :J  add  Seven  Princes  of  the  Blood,  it 
makes  the  round  Gross  of  Notables.  Men  of  the  sword,  men  of 
the  robe ;  Peers,  dignified  Clergy,  Parlementary  Presidents  : 
divided  into  Seven  Boards  {Bureaux)  ;  under  our  Seven  Prmces 
of  the  Blood,  Monsieur,  D  Artois,  Penthievre,  and  the  rest ;  among 
whom  let  not  our  new  Duke  d'Orleans  (for,  since  1785,  he  is 
Chartres  no  longer)  be  forgotten.    Never  yet  made  Admiral,  and 

*  Fils  Adoptif,  Memoires  de  Mirabeau,  t.  iv.  livv.  4  et  $. 

t  Biographie  Universelle,  §  C\^lonne  {by  Guizot). 
X  Lacretelle,  iii.  286.  ^  Montgaillard,  i.  347. 


6o 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


now  turning  the  corner  of  his  fortieth  year,  with  spoiled  blood  and 
prospects  ;  half-weary  of  a  world  which  is  more  than  half-weary  of 
him,  Monseigneur's  future  is  most  questionable.  Not  in  illumina- 
tion and  insight,  not  even  in  conflagration  ;  but,  as  was  said,  '  in 
'  dull  smoke  and  ashes  of  outburnt  sensualities,'  does  he  live  and 
digest.  Sumptuosity  and  sordidness  ;  revenge,  life-weariness, 
ambition,  darkness,  putrescence  ;  and,  say,  in  sterling  money, 
three  hundred  thousand  a  year,- were  this  poor  Prince  once  to 
burst  loose  from  his  Court-moorings,  to  what  regions,  with  what 
phenomena,  might  he  not  sail  and  drift  !  Happily  as  yet  he 
*  affects  to  hunt  daily  ; '  sits  there,  since  he  must  sit,  presiding  i 
that  Bureau  of  his,  with  dull  moon-visage,  dull  glassy  eyes,  as  if  ' 
it  were  a  mere  tedium  to  him. 

We  observe  finally,  that  Count  Mirabeau  has  actually  arrived. 
He  descends  from  Berlin,  on  the  scene  of  action  ;  glares  into  it 
with  flashing  sun-glance  ;  discerns  that  it  will  do  nothing  for  him. 
He  had  hoped  these  Notables  might  need  a  Secretary.  They  do 
need  one ;  but  have  fixed  on  Dupont  de  Nemours  ;  a  man  of 
smaller  fame,  but  then  of  better  ;— who  indeed,  as  his  friends  often 
hear,  labours  under  this  complaint,  surely  not  a  universal  one,  of 
having  '  five  kings  to  correspond  with.'*  The  pen  of  a  Mirabeau 
cannot  become  an  official  one  ;  nevertheless  it  remains  a  pen.  In 
defect  of  Secretaryship,  he  sets  to  denouncing  Stock-brokerage 
{Denonciation  de  V Agiotage)  ;  testifying,  as  his  wont  is,  by  loud 
bruit,  that  he  is  present  and  busy  ;— till,  warned  by  friend  Talley- 
rand, and  even  by  Calonne  himself  underhand,  that  '  a  seventeenth 
Lettre-de-Cachet  m?iyh&  launched  against  him,' he  tirnefully  flits 
over  the  marches. 

And  now,  in  stately  royal  apartments,  as  Pictures  of  that  time 
still  represent  them,  our  hundred  and  forty-four  Notables  sit 
organised;  ready  to  hear  and  consider.  Controller  Calonne  is 
dreadfully  behindhand  with  his  speeches,  his  preparatives  ;  how- 
ever, the  man's  '  facility  of  work '  is  known  to  us.  For  freshness  of 
style,  lucidity,  ingenuity,  largeness  of  view,  that  opening  Harangue 
of  his  was  unsurpassable  :— had  not  the  subject-matter  been  .so 
appalling.  A  Deficit,  concerning  which  accounts  vary,  and  the 
Controller's  own  account  is  not  unquestioned  ;  but  which  all 
accounts  agree  in  representing  as  '  enormous.'  This  is  the  epitome 
of  our  Controller's  difficulties  :  and  then  his  means  }  Mere  Tur-  ^ 
gotism  ;  for  thither,  it  seems,  we  must  come  at  last  :  Provincial 
Assemblies  ;  new  Taxation  ;  nay,  strangest  of  all,  new  Land-tax, 
what  he  calls  Subventlo7t  Terrztoriale,  from  which  neither  Privi- 
ledged  nor  Unprivileged,  Noblemen,  Clergy,  nor  Parlementeers, 
shall  be  exempt  ! 

Foolish  enough  !  These  Privileged  Classes  have  been  used  to 
tax  ;  levying  toll,  tribute  and  custom,  at  all  hands,  while  a  penny- 
was  left :  but  to  Ido  themselves  taxed  Of  such  Privileged  persons, 
meanwhile,  do  these  Notables,  all  but  the  merest  fraction,  consist 
Headlong  Calonne  had  given  no  heed  to  the  '  composition,'  or 
judicious  packing  of  them ;  but  chosen  such  Notables  as  were 
*  Dumont,  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau  (Pans,  1832),  p.  20, 


THE  NOTABLES. 


6i 


really  notable  ;  trusting  for  the  issue  to  off-hand  ingenuity,  good 
fortune,  and  eloquence  that  never  yet  failed.  Headlong  Controller- 
General  !  Eloquence  can  do  much,  but  not  all.  Orpheus,  with 
eloquence  grown  rhythmic,  musical  (what  we  call  Poetry),  drew 
iron  tears  from  the  cheek  of  Pluto  :  but  by  what  witchery  of  rhyme 
or  prose  wilt  thou  from  the  pocket  of  Plutus  draw  gold  1 

Accordingly,  the  storm  that  now  rose  and  began  to  whistle  round 
Calonne,  first  in  these  Seven  Bureaus,  and  then  on  the  outside  of 
them,  awakened  by  them,  spreading  wider  and  wider  over  all 
France,  threatens  to  become  unappeasable.  A  Deficit  so  enormous  ! 
Mismanagement,  profusion  is  too  clear.  Peculation  itself  is  hinted 
at  ;  nay,  Lafayette  and  others  go  so  far  as  to  speak  it  out,  with 
attempts  at  proof.  The  blame  of  his  Deficit  our  brave  Calonne,  as 
was  natural,  had  endeavoured  to  shift  from  himself  on  his  prede- 
cessors ;  not  excepting  even  Necker.  But  now  Necker  vehemently 
denies  ;  whereupon  an  ^  angry  Correspondence,'  which  also  finds 
its  way  into  print.  ^ 

In  the  GEil-de-Boeuf,  and  her  Majesty's  private  Apartments,  an 
eloquent  Controller,  with  his  "  Madame,  if  it  is  but  difficult,"  had 
been  persuasive  :  but,  alas,  the  cause  is  now  carried  elsewhither. 
Behold  him,  one  of  these  sad  days,  in  Monsieur's  Bureau  ;  to  which 
all  the  other  Bureaus  have  sent  deputies.  He  is  standing  at  bay  : 
alone  ;  exposed  to  an  incessant  fire  of  questions,  interpellations, 
objurgations,  from  those  '  hundred  and  thirty-seven  '  pieces  of 
logic-ordnance, — what  we  may  well  call  douches  a  feu,  fire-mouths 
literally  !  Never,  according  to  Besenval,  or  hardly  ever,  had  such 
display  of  intellect,  dexterity,  coolness,  suasive  eloquence,  been 
made  by  man.  To  the  raging  play  of  so  many  fire-mouths  he 
opposes  nothing  angrier  than  light-beams,  self-possession  and 
fatherly  smiles.  With  the  imperturbablest  bland  clearness,  he,  for 
five  hours  long,  keeps  answering  the  incessant  volley  of  fiery  cap- 
tious questions,  reproachful  interpellations  ;  in  words  prompt  as 
lightning,  quiet  as  light.  Nay,  the  cross-fire  too  :  such  side 
questions  and  incidental  interpellations  as,  in  the  heat  of  the  main- 
battle,  he  (having  only  one  tongue)  could  not  get  answered  ;  these 
also  he  takes  up  at  the  first  slake  ;  answers  even  these.*  Could 
blandest  suasive  eloquence  have  saved  France,  she  were  saved. 

Heavy-laden  Controller  !  In  the  Seven  Bureaus  seems  nothing 
but  hindrance  :  in  Monsieur's  Bureau,  a  Lomenie  de  Brienne, 
Archbishop  of  Toulouse,  with  an  eye  himself  to  the  Controller- 
ship,  stirs  up  the  Clergy;  there  are  meetings,  underground 
intrigues.  Neither  from  without  anywhere  comes  sign  of  help  or 
hope.  For  the  Nation  (where  Mirabeau  is  now,  with  stentor-lungs, 
'  denouncing  Agio')  the  Controller  has  hitherto  done  nothing,  or 
less.  For  Philosophedom  he  has  done  as  good  as  nothing,— sent 
out  some  scientific  Laperouse,  or  the  like  :  and  is  he  not  in  '  angry 
correspondence'  with  its  Necker?  The  very  (Eil-de-Boeuf  looks 
questionable  ;  a  falling  Controller  has  no  friends.  Solid  M.  de 
Vergennes,  who  with  his  phlegmatic  judicious  punctuality  might 
kave  kept  down  many  things,  died  the  very  week  before  these 
*  Besenval,  iii.  196. 


62 


sorrowful  Notables  met.  And  now  a  Seal-keeper,  Garcic-dcs- 
Sceaux  Mironienii  is  thought  to  be  playing  the  traitor  :  spinning 
plots  for  Lomenie-Brienne  !  Queen's- Reader  Abbe  de  Vermond, 
unloved  individual,  was  Brienne's  creature,  the  work  of  his  hands 
from  the  first  :  it  may  be  feared  the  backstairs  passage  is  open,  the 
ground  getting  mined  under  our  feet.  Treacherous  Garde-des- 
Sceaux  Miromenil,  at  least,  should  be  dismissed  ;  Lamoignon, 
the  eloquent  Notable,  a  stanch  man,  with  connections,  and  even 
ideas,  Parlement-President  yet  intent  on  reforming  Parlements^ 
were  not  he  the  right  Keeper  ?  So,  for  one,  thinks  busy  Besenval  ; 
and,  at  dinner-table,  rounds  the  same  into  the  Controller's  ear, — 
who  always,  in  the  intervals  of  landlord-duties,  listens  to  him  aa 
with  charmed  look,  but  answers  nothing  positive."^ 

Alas,  what  to  answer  ?  The  force  of  private  intrigue,  and  then 
also  the  force  of  public  opinion,  grows  so  dangerous,  confused  1 
Philosophedom  sneers  aloud,  as  if  its  Ne^^-er  already  triumphed. 
The  gaping  populace  gapes  over  Wood-cuts  or  Copper-cuts  ; 
where,  for  example,  a  Rustic  is  represented  convoking  the  Poultry 
of  his  barnyard,  with  this  opening  address  :  "  Dear  animals,  1 
"  have  assembled  you  to  advise  me  what  sauce  I  shall  dress  you 
"with; ''to  which  a  Cock  responding,  ''We  don't  want  to  be 
"  eaten,"  is  checked  by  ''  You  wander  from  the  point  ( Vous  vous 
"  ecartez  de  la  qucstioii)r\  Laughter  and  logic  ;  ballad-singer, 
pamphleteer ;  epigram  and  caricature :  what  wind  of  public 
opinion  is  this,— as  if  the  Cave  of  the  Winds  were  bursting  loose  ! 
At  nightfall.  President  Lamoignon  steals  over  to  the  Controller's  ; 
finds  him  '  walking  with  large  strides  in  his  chamber,  like  one  out 
'  of  himself. 'J  With  rapid  confused  speech  the  Controller  begs  M. 
de  Lamoignon  to  give  him  '  an  advice.'  Lamoignon  candidly 
answers  that,  except  in  regard  to  his  own  anticipated  Keepership, 
unless  that  would  prove  remedial,  he  really  cannot  take  upon  him 
to  advise. 

[  On  the  Monday  after  Easter,'  the  9th  of  April  1787,  a  date  one 
rejoices  to  verify,  tor  nothing  can  excel  the  indolent  falsehood  of 
these  Histoircs  and  Me  moires^ — '  On  the  Monday  after  Easter,  as 
'  I,  Besenval,  was  riding  towards  Romainville  to'the  Marechal  de 
'  Segur's,  I  met  a  friend  on  the  Boulevards,  who  told  me  that  M. 
'  de  Calonne  was  out  A  little  further  on  came  M.  tlie  Duke 
'  d'Orleans,  dashing  towards  me,  head  to  the  wind'  (trotting  d 
VAnglaise)^ '  and  confirmed  the  news.'§  It  is  true  news.  Treacher- 
ous Garde-des-Sceaux  Miromenil  is  gone,  and  Lamoignon  is 
appointed  in  his  room  :  1)';!  appointed  for  his  own  profit  only,  not 
for  the  Controller's:  'next  dny'  the  Controller  also  has  had  to 
move.  A  little  longer  he  may  linger  near  ;  be  seen  among  the 
money  changers,  and  even  'working  in  the  Controller's  office,' 
where  much  lies  unfinished  :  l)ut  neither  will  that  hold.  Too 
strong  blows  and  beats  tliis  tempest  of  public  opinion,  of  private 
intrigue,  as  from  the  Cave  of  all  the  Winds  ;  and  blows  him 

*  Besenval,  iii.  203. 

t  Republished  in  the  Musde  dc  la  Caricature  (Paris,  1834). 
j  Besenval,  iii.  209.  §  lb.  iii.  2n. 


THE  NOTABLES. 


€3 


(higher  Authority  giving  sign)  out  of  Paris  and  France, — over  the 
horizon,  into  Invisibihty,  or  uuter  Darkness. 

Such  destiny  the  magic  of  genius  could  not  forever  avert. 
Ungrateful  CEil-de-Boeuf  1  did  he  not  miraculously  rain  gold 
manna  on  you  ;  so  that,  as  a  Courtier  said,  "  All  the  world  held 
out  its  hand,  and  I  held  out  my  hat," — for  a  time  ?  Himself  is 
poor  ;  penniless,  had  not  a  '  Financier's  widow  in  Lorraine'  offered 
him,  though  he  was  turned  of  fifty,  her  hand  and  the  rich  purse  it 
held.  Dim  henceforth  shall  be  his  activity,  though  unwearied  : 
Letters  to  the  King,  Appeals,  Prognostications  ;  Pamphlets  (from 
London),  written  with  the  old  suasive  facility  ;  which  however  do 
not  persuade.  Luckily  his  widow's  purse  fails  not.  Once,  in  a 
year  or  two,  some  shadow  of  him  shall  be  seen  hovering  on  the 
Northern  Border,  seeking*  election  as  National  Deputy  ;  but  be 
sternly  beckoned  away.  Dimmer  then,  far-borne  over  utmost 
European  lands,  in  uncertain  twilight  of  diplomacy,  he  shall  hover, 
intriguing  for  ^  Exiled  Princes,'  and  have  adventures  ;  be  overset 
into  the  Rhine  stream  and  half-drowned,  nevertheless  save  his 
papers  dry.  Unwearied,  but  in  vain  !  In  France  he  works 
miracles  no  more  ;  shall  hardly  return  thither  to  find  a  grave. 
Farewell,  thou  facile  sanguine  Controller-General,  with  thy  light 
rash  hand,  thy  suasive  mouth  of  gold  :  worse  men  there  have 
been,  and  better  ;  but  to  thee  also  was  allotted  a  task, — of  raising 
the  wind,  and  the  winds  ;  and  thou  hast  done  it. 

But  now,  while  Ex- Controller  Calonne  flies  storm-driven  over 
the  horizon,  in  this  singular  way,  what  has  become  of  the  Con- 
trollership  It  hangs  vacant,  one  may  say  ;  extinct,  like  the 
Moon  in  her  vacant  interlunar  cave.  Two  prehminary  shadows, 
poor  M.  Fourqueux,  poor  M.  Villedeuil,  do  hold  in  quick  succession 
some  simulacrum  of  it,*— as  the  new  Moon  will  sometimes  shine 
out  with  a  dim  preliminary  old  one  in  her  arms.  Be  patient,  ye 
Notables  !  An  actual  new  Controller  is  certain,  and  even  ready  ; 
were  the  indispensable  manoeuvres  but  gone  through.  Long- 
headed Lamoignon,  with  Home  Secretary  Breteuil,  and  Foreign 
Secretary  Montmorin  have  exchanged  looks  ;  let  these  three  once 
meet  and  speak.  Who  is  it  that  is  strong  in  the  Queen's  favour, 
and  the  Abbe  de  Vermond's  ?  That  is  a  man  of  great  capacity  1 
Or  at  least  that  has  struggled,  these  fifty  years,  to  have  it  thought 
great  ;  now,  in  the  Clergy's  name,  demanding  to  have  Protestant 
death-penalties  ^  put  in  execution  ; '  no  flaunting  it  in  the  OEil-de- 
Boeuf,  as  the  gayest  man-pleaser  and  woman-pleaser  ;  gleaning 
even  a  good  word  from  Philosophedom  and  your  Voltaires  and 
D'Alemberts  ?  With  a  party  ready-made  for  him  in  the  Notables 
— Lomenie  de  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse  !  answer  all  the 
three,  with  the  clearest  instantaneous  concord  ;  and  rush  off  to 
propose  him  to  the  King  ;  *  in  such  haste,'  says  Besenval,  '  that 
M.  de  Lamoignon  bad  to  borrow  a  simarre;  seemingly  some  kind 
«f  cloth  apparatus  necessary  for  that.f 

Lomdnie-Brienne,  who  had  all  his  hfe  '  felt  a  kind  of  predestin- 
*  Besenval,  iii.  225.  f  lb.  iii.  224, 


64 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS, 


'  ation  for  the  highest  offices,'  has  now  therefore  obtained  them. 
He  presides  over  the  Finances  ;  he  shall  have  the  title  of  Prime 
Minister  itself,  and  the  effort  of  his  long  life  be  reahsed.  Un- 
happy only  that  it  took  such  talent  and  industry  to  gain  the 
place  ;  that  to  qualify  for  it  hardly  any  talent  or  industry  was  left 
disposable  !  Looking  now  into  his  inner  man,  what  qualification 
he  may  have,  Lomenie  beholds,  not  without  astonishment,  next  to 
nothing  but  vacuity  and  possibihty.  ^  Principles  or  methods, 
acquirement  outward  or  inward  (for  his  very  body  is  wasted,  by- 
hard  tear  and  wear)  he  finds  none  ;  not  so  much  as  a  plan,  even 
an  unwise  one.  Lucky,in  these  circumstances,  that  Calonne  has 
had  a  plan  !  Calonne's  plan  was  gathered  from  Turgofs  and 
Necker's  by  compilation  ;  shall  become  Lomenie's  by  adoption. 
Not  in  vain  has  Lomenie  studied  the  working  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution ;  for  he  professes  to  have  some  Anglomania,  of  a  sort. 
Why,  in  that  free  country,  does  one  Minister,  driven  out  by 
Parliament,  vanish  from  his  King's  presence,  and  another  enter, 
borne  in  by  Parliament  ?^  Surely  not  for  mere  change  (which  is 
ever  wasteful)  ;  but  that  all  men  may  have  share  of  what  is 
going  ;  and  so  the  strife  of  Freedom  indefinitely  prolong  itself, 
and  no  harm  be  done. 

The  Notables,  mollified  by  Easter  festivities,  by  the  sacrifice  of 
Calonne,  are  not  in  the  worst  humour.  Already  his  Maje^y, 
while  the  '  interlunar  shadows '  were  in  office,  had  held  session  pt 
Notables  ;  and  from  his  throne  delivered  promissory  concihatory 
eloquence  :  '  the  Queen  stood  waiting  at  a  window,  till  his  carriage 
'  came  back  ;  and  Monsieur  from  afar  clapped  hands  to  her,'  in 
sign  that  all  was  well.f  It  has  had  the  best  effect ;  if  such  do  but 
last.  Leading  Notables  meanwhile  can  be  '  caressed  ;'  Brienne's 
new  gloss,  Lamoignon's  long  head  will  profit  somewhat  ;  con- 
ciliatory eloquence  shall  not  be  wanting.  On  the  whole,  however, 
is  it  not  undeniable  that  this  of  ousting  Calonne  and  adopting 
the  plans  of  Calonne,  is  a  measure  which,  to  produce  its  best 
effect,  should  be  looked  at  from  a  certain  distance^  cursorily  ; 
not  dwelt  on  with  minute  near  scrutiny.  In  a  word,  that  no 
service  the  Notables  could  now  do  were  so  obliging  as, 
in  some  handsome  manner,  to— take  themselves  away  !  Theit 
'  Six  Propositions '  about  Provisional  Assemblies,  suppression 
of  Corvees  and  suchlike,  can  be  accepted  without  criticism. 
The  Subvention  on  Land-tax,  and  much  else,  one  must  glide 
hastily  over  ;  safe  nowhere  but  in  flourishes  of  conciliatory  elo- 
quence. Till  at  length,  on  this  25th  of  May,  year  1787,  in  solemn 
final  session,  there  bursts  forth  what  we  can  call  an  explosion 
of  eloquence  ;  King,  Lomenie,  Lamoignon  and  retinue  taking  up 
the  successrve  strain  ;  in  harranguesto  the  number  of  ten,  besides 
his  Majesty's,  which  last  the  livelong  day  --whereby,  as  in  a  kind 
of  choral  anthem,  or  bravura  peal,  of  thanks,  praises,  promises, 
the  Notables  are,  so  to  speak,  organed  out,  and  dismissed  to  their 
respective  places  of  abode.    They  had  sat,  and  talked,  $ome  nme 

♦  Montgaillard,  Histoire  de  France,  i.  4io-i7, 
\  Jesenval,  iii.  220. 


THE  NOTABLES.  65 


weeks  :  they  were  the  first  Notables  since  Richeheu's,  in  the  year 
1626.  ^ 

By  some  Historians,  sitting  much  at  their  ease,  in  the  safe  dis- 
tanca,  Lomenie  has  been  blamed  for  this  dismissal  of  his  Notables : 
nevertheless  it  was  clearly  time.  There  are  things,  as  we  said, 
which  should  not  be  dwelt  on  with  minute  close  scrutiny  :  over  hot 
coals  you  cannot  glide  too  fast.  In  these  Seven  Bureaus,  where 
no  w^ork  could  be  done,  unless  talk  were  work,  the  questionablest 
matters  were  coming  up.  Lafayette,  for  example,  in  Monseigneur 
d'Artois'  Bureau,  took  upon  him  to  set  forth  more  than  one  depre- 
catory oration  about  Lettres-de-Cachet,  Liberty  of  the  Subject, 
Agio,  and  suchlike  ;  w^hich  Monseigneur  endeavouring  to  repress, 
was  answered  that  a  Notable  being  summoned  to  speak  his  opinion 
must  speak  it.*^ 

Thus  too  his  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Aix  perorating  once,  with 
a  plamtive  pulpit,  tone,  in  these  words  ?  "  Tithe,  that  free-will  offer- 
mg  of  the  piety  of  Christians  "  Tithe,"  interrupted  Duke  la 
P.ochefoucault,  with  the  cold  business-manner  he  has  learned  from 
the  English,  "  that  free-will  offering  of  the  piety  of  Christians  ;  on 
which  there  are  now  forty-thousand  lawsuits  in  this  realm."  f 
Nay,  Lafayette,  bound  to  speak  his  opinion,  went  the  length,  one 
day,  of  proposing  to  convoke  a  '  National  Assembly.'  You  de- 
mand States-General?"  asked  Monseigneur  with  an  air  of  mina- 
tory surprise.—"  Yes,  Monseigneur  ;  and  even  better  than  that.'' 
— Write  it,"  said  Monsiegneur  to  the  Clerks.J— Written  accord- 
ingly it  is  ;  and  what  is  more,  will  be  acted  by  and  by. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

lomenie's  edicts. 

Thus,  then,  have  the  Notables  returned  home  ;  carrying  to  all 
quarters  of  France,  such  notions  of  deficit,  decrepitude,  distraction; 
and  that  States-General  will  cure  it,  or  will  not  cure  it  but  kill  it. 
Each  Notable,  we  may  fancy,  is  as  a  funeral  torch  ;  disclosing 
hideous  abysses,  better  left  hid  !  The  unquietest  humour  pos- 
sesses  all  men  ;  ferments,  seeks  issue,  in  pamphleteering,  carica- 
turing, projecting,  declaiming  ;  vain  jangling  of  thought,  word  and 
deed. 

It  is  Spiritual  Bankruptcy,  long  tolerated  ;  verging  now  towards 
Economical  Bankruptcy,  and  become  intolerable.    For  from  the 
*  Montgaillard,  i.  360. 

t  Dumont,  Souve7iirs  sur  Mirabeau,  p.  21. 

t  Toulongeon,  Histoire  de  France  depuis  la  Revolution  de  1780  (Paris 
1803),  1.  app.  4.  J  ^  \  ^ 


66 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


lowest  dumb  rank,  the  inevitable  misery,  as  was  predicted,  has 
spread  upwards.  In  every  man  is  some  obscure  feeiing  that  his 
position,  oppressive  or  else  oppressed,  is  a  false  one  :  all  men,  in 
one  or  the  other  acrid  dialect,  as  assaulters  or  as  defenders,  must 
give  vent  to  the  unrest  that  is  in  them.  Of  such  stuff  national 
well-being,  and  the  glory  of  rulers,  is  not  made.  O  Lomenie,  what 
a  wild-heaving,  waste-looking,  hungry  and  angry  world  hast  thou, 
after  lifelong  effort,  got  promoted  to  take  charge  of ! 

Lomenie's  first  Edicts  are  mere  soothing  ones  :  creation  of  Pro- 
vincial Assemblies,  ^  for  apportioning  the  imposts,'  when  we  get 
any  ;  suppression  of  Corvees  or  statute-labour ;  alleviation  of 
Gabelle.  Soothing  measures,  recommended  by  the  Notables  ; 
long  clamoured  for  by  all  liberal  men.  Oil  cast  on  the  waters  has 
been  known  to  produce  a  good  effect.  Before  venturing  with  great 
essential  measures,  Lomenie  will  see  this  singular  '  swell  of  the 
public  mind  '  abate  somewhat. 

Most  proper,  surely.  But  what  if  it  were  not  a  swell  of  the 
abating  kind  ?  There  are  swells  that  come  of  upper  tempest  and 
wind-gust.  But  again  there  are  swells  that  come  of  subterranean 
pent  wind,  some  say  ;  and  even  of  inward  decomposion,  of  decay 
that  has  become  self-combustion  : — as  when,  according  to  Neptuno- 
Plutonic  Geology,  the  World  is  all  decayed  down  into  due  attritus 
of  this  sort ;  and  shall  now  be  exploded,  and  new-made  !  These 
latter  abate  not  by  oil. — The  fool  says  in  his  heart,  How  shall  not 
tomorrov/  be  as  yesterday  ;  as  all  days, — which  were  once  to- 
morrows The  wise  man,  looking  on  this  France,  moral,  intel- 
lectual, economical,  sees,  '  in  short,  ail  the  symptoms  he  has  ever 
met  with  in  history,' — 2^;^abatable  by  soothing  Edicts.  . 

Meanwhile,  abate  or  not,  cash  must  be  had  ;  and  for  that  quite 
another  sort  of  Edicts,  namely  '  bursal'  or  fiscal  ones.  How  easy 
were  fiscal  Edicts,  did  you  know  for  certain  that  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  would  what  they  call  ^  register '  them  !  Such  right  of  register- 
ing, properly  of  mere  writing  down,  the  Parlement  has  got  by  old 
wont  ;  and,  though  but  a  Law- Court,  can  remonstrate,  and  higgle 
considerably  about  the  same.  Hence  many  quarrels  ;  desperate 
Maupeou  devices,  and  victory  and  defeat ;— a  quarrel  now  near 
forty  years  long.  Hence  fiscal  Edicts,  which  otherwise  were  easy 
enough,  become  such  problems.  For  example,  is  there  not 
Calonne's  Stibvejttion  Territoriale,  universal,  unexempting  Land- 
tax  ;  the  sheet-anchor  of  Finance?  Or,  to  show,  so  far  as  possible, 
that  one  is  not  without  original  finance  talent,  Lomenie  himself  can 
devise  an  Edit  du  Ti7?tbre  or  Stamp-tax, — borrowed  also,  it  is  true; 
but  then  from  America  :  may  it  prove  luckier  in  France  than 
there  ! 

France  has  her  resources  :  nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  denied,  the 
aspect  of  that  Parlement  is  questionable.  ^  Already  among  the 
Notables,  in  that  final  symphony  of  dismissal,  the  Paris  .President 
had  an  ominous  tone.  Adrien  Duport,  quitting  magnetic  sleep,  in 
this  agitation  of  the  world,  threatens  to  rouse  himself  into  ipreter- 


LOMENIE'S  EDICTS, 


67 


natural  wakefulness.  Shallower  but  also  louder,  there  is  inagnelic 
D'Espremenil,  with  his  tropical  heat  (he  was  born  at  Madras);  with 
his  dusky  confused  violence  ;  holding  of  Illumination,  Animal 
Magnetism,  Public  Opinion,  Adam  Weisshaupt,  Harmodius  and 
Aristogiton,  and  all  manner  of  confused  violent  things  :  of  whom 
can  come  no  good.  The  very  Peerage  is  infected  with  the  leaven. 
Our  Peers  have,  in  too  many  cases,  laid  aside  their  frogs,  laces, 
bagvv'igs  ;  and  go  about  in  English  costume,  or  ride  rising  in  their 
stirrups, — in  the  most  headlong  manner  ;  nothing  but  insubordina- 
tion, eleutheromania,  confused  unhmited  opposition  in  their  heads. 
Questionable  :  not  to  be  ventured  upon,  if  we  had  a  Fortunatus' 
Purse  !  But  Lomenie  has  waited  all  June,  casting  on  the  waters 
what  oil  he  had  ;  and  now,  betide  as  it  may,  the  two  Finance 
Edicts  must  out.  On  the  6th  of  July,  he  forwards  his  proposed 
Stamp-tax  and  Land-tax  to  the  Parlement  of  Paris  ;  and,  as  if  put- 
ting his  own  leg  foremost,  not  his  borrowed  Calonne's-leg,  places 
the  Stamp-  tax  first  in  order. 

Alas,  the  Parlement  will  not  register  :  the  Parlement  demands 
instead  a  '  state  of  the  expenditure,'  a  '  state  of  the  contemplated 
reductions  ;'  ^states'  enough  ;  which  his  Majesty  must  dechne  to 
furnish  !  Discussions  arise  ;  patriotic  eloquence  :  the  Peers  are 
summoned.  Does  the  Nemean  Lion  begin  to  bristle  1  Here  surely 
is  a  duel,  which  France  and  the  Universe  may  look  upon  :  with 
prayers  ;  at  lowest,  with  curiosity  and  bets.  Paris  stirs  with  new 
animation.  The  outer  courts  of  the  Palais  de  Justice  roll  with 
unusual  crowds,  coming  and  going ;  their  huge  outer  hum  mingles 
with  the  clang  of  patriotic  eloquence  within,  and  gives  vigour  to  it. 
Poor  Lomenie  gazes  from  the  distance,  little  comforted  ;  has  his 
invisible  emissaries  flying  to  and  fro,  assiduous,  without  result. 

So  pass  the  sultry  dog-days,  in  the  most  electric  manner  ;  and 
the  whole  month  of  July.  And  still,  in  the  Sanctuary  of  Justice, 
sounds  nothmg  but  Harmodius-Aristogiton  eloquence,  environed 
with  the  hum  of  crowding  Paris  ;  and  no  registering  accomplished, 
and  no  '  states  '  furnished.  "  States  ? said  a  lively  Parlementeer : 
"  Messieurs,  the  states  that  should  be  furnished  us,  in  my  opinion 
are  the  States-General."  On  which  timely  joke  there  follow 
cachmnatory  buzzes  of  approval.  What  a  word  to  be  spoken  in 
the  Palais  de  Justice  !  Old  D'Ormesson  (the  Ex-Controller's 
uncle)  shakes  his  judicious  head  ;  far  enough  from  laughing.  But 
the  outer  courts,  ^nd  Paris  and  France,  catch  the  glad  sound,  and 
repeat  it  ;  shall  repeat  it,  and  re-echo  and  reverberate  it,  till  it 
grow  a  deafening  peal.  Clearly  enough  here  is  no  registering  to  be 
thought  of. 

The  pious  Proverb  says,  '  There  are  remedies  for  all  things  but 
death.'  When  a  Parlement  refuses  registering,  the  remedy,  by 
long  practice,  has  become  familiar  to  the  simplest  :  a  Bed  of 
Justice.  One  complete  month  this  Parlement  has  spent  in  mere 
idle  jargoning,  and  sound  and  fury  ;  the  7"/;;^^;-^  Edict  not  regis- 
tered, or  like  to  be  ;  the  Subvention  not  yet  so  much  as  spoken 
of.   On  the  6th  of  August  let  the  whole  refractory  Body  roll  ou^ 


68  7 HE  PARLEMENT  Ot  PARIS, ' 

 ;  —  — -.    ,     I  ..-hb 

in  wheeled  vehicles,  as  far  as  the  King's  Chateau  of  Versailles ; 
there  shall  the  King,  holding  his  Bed  of  Justice,  order  them,  by 
his  own  royal  lips,  to  register.  They  may  remonstrate,  in  an 
under  tone  ;  but  they  must  obey,  lest  a  worse  unknown  thing 
befall  them. 

It  is  done  :  the  Parlement  has  rolled  out,  on  royal  summons  ; 
has  heard  the  express  royal  order  to  register.  Whereupon  it  has 
rolled  back  again,  amid  the  hushed  expectancy  of  men.  And 
now,  behold,  on  the  morrow,  this  Parlement,  seated  once  more  in 
its  own  Palais,  with  '  crowds  inundating  the  outer  courts/  not 
only  does  not  register,  but  (O  portent  !)  declares  all  that  was  done 
on  the  prior  day  to  be  mill,  and  the  Bed  of  Justice  as  good  as  a 
futility!  In  the  1  .^tory  of  France  here  verily  is  a  new  feature. 
Nay  better  still,  our  heroic  Parlement,  getting  suddenly  en- 
lightened on  several  things,  declares  that,  for  its  part,  it  is  incom- 
petent to  register  Tax-edicts  at  all, — having  done  it  by  mistake^ 
during  these  late  centuries  ;  that  for  such  act  one  authority  only 
is  competent  :  the  assembled  Three  Estates  of  the  Realm  ! ' 

To  such  length  can  the  universal  spirit  of  a  Nation  penetrate 
the  most  isolated  Body-corporate  :  say  rather,  with  such  weapons, 
homicidal  and  suicidal,  in  exasperated  political  duel,  will  Bodies- 
corporate  fight  !  But,  in  any  case,  is  not  this  the  real  death' 
grapple  of  wm  and  internecine  duel,  Greek  meeting  Greek ; 
whereon  men,  had  they  even  no  interest  in  it,  might  look  with 
interest  unspeakable  ?  Crowds,  as  was  said,  inundate  the  outei 
courts  :  inundation  of  young  eleutheromaniac  Noblemen  in  English 
costume,  uttering  audacious  speeches  ;  of  Procureurs,  Basoche- 
Clerks,  who  are  idle  in  these  days  ;  of  Loungers,  Newsmongers 
and  other  nondescript  classes, — rolls  tumultuous  there.  '  From 
three  to  four  thousand  persons,'  w^aiting  eagerly  to  hear  the 
Arretes  (Resolutions)  you  arrive  at  within ;  applauding  with 
bravos,  with  the  clapping  of  from  six  to  eight  thousand  hands  \ 
Sweet  also  is  the  meed  of  patriotic  eloquence,  when  your  D'Es- 
premenil,  your  Frdteau,  or  Sabatier,  issuing  from  his  Demosthenic 
Olympus,  the  thunder  being  hushed  for  the  day,  is  welcomed,  in 
the  outer  courts,  with  a  shout  from  four  thousand  throats  ;  is 
borne  home  shoulder-high  ^with  benedictions,'  and  strikes  the 
stars  with  his  sublime  head. 


CHAPTER  V. 

LOMENIE'S  THUNDERBOLTS. 

Arise,  Lom^nie-Brienne :  here  is  no  case  for  'Letters  of 
Jussion  for  faltering  or  compromise.  Thou  seest  the  whole 
loose  fluent  population  of  Paris  (whatsoever  is  not  solid,  and  fixed 
to  work)  inundating  these  outer  courts,  like  a  loud  destructive 


 LOMENIE'S  THUNDERBOLTS,  69 

^cluge  ;  the  very  Basoche  of  Lawyers'  Clerks  talks  sedition.  The 
lower  classes,  in  this  duel  of  Authority  with  Authority,  Greek 
throttling  Greek,  have  ceased  to  respect  the  City- Watch  Pohce- 
satelhtes  are  marked  on  the  back  with  chalk  (the  M  signifies 
mouchard,  spy) ;  they  are  hustled,  hunted  like  feres  natures  Sub- 
ordmate  rural  Tribunals  send  messengers  of  congratulation,  of 
adherence.  Their  Fountain  of  Justice  is  becoming  a  Fountain  of 
Revolt  The  Provincial  Parlements  look  on,  with  intent  eye,  with 
breathless  wishes,  while  their  elder  sister  of  Paris  does  battle  • 
the  whole  Twelve  are  of  one  blood  and  temper  :  the  victory  of 
one  is  that  of  all.  ^ 

Ever  worse  it  grows  :  on  the  loth  of  August,  there  is  '  Plainte' 
emitted  touching  the  ^prodigalities  of  Calonne,' and  permission 
to  proceed  against  him.  No  registering,  but  instead  of  it  de- 
nouncing :  of  dilapidation,  peculation ;  and  ever  the  burden  of 

tl^ll^l  .t!^^^'"^??^'^].'  ^^^^  ^^y^^  armories  no  thunder- 
bolt, that  thou  couldst,  O  Lomenie,  with  red  right-hand,  launch  it 
among  these  Demosthenic  theatrical  thunder-barrels,  mere  resin 
and  noise  for  most  part ;— and  shatter,  and  smite  them  silent? 
On  the  night  of  the  14th  of  August,  Lomenie  launches  his  thun- 
derbolt, or  handful  of  them.  Letters  named  of  the  Seal  {de  Cachet) 
as  JTiany  as  needful,  some  sixscore  and  odd,  are  delivered  over- 
night. And  so  next  day  betimes,  the  whole  Parlement,  once 
more  set  on  wheels,  is  rolling  incessantly  towards  Troyes  in 
Champagne;  ' escorted,' says  History,  '  with  the  blessings  of  all 
people  ;  the  v6ry  innkeepers  and  postillions  looking  gratuitously 
reverent.^    This  is  the  15th  of  August  1787.  ^  tuirousiy 

What  will  not  people  bless  ;  in  their  extreme  need  }  Seldom 
had  the  Parlement  of  Paris  deserved  much  blessing,  or  received 
f'vr  .c'^^i^^olated  Body- corporate,  which,  out  of  old  confusions 
1  while  the  Sceptre  of  the  Sword  was  confusedly  stru^Hine  to 
become  a  Sceptre  of  the  Pen),  had  got  itself  together,  bitter  and 
worse,  as  BDdies-corporate  do,  to  satisfy  some  dim  desire  of  the 
world,  and  many  clear  desires  of  individuals  ;  and  so  had  grown 
in  the  course  of  centuries,  on  concession,  on  acquirement  and 
usurpation  to  be  what  we  see  it:  a  prosperous  social  Anomaly, 
deciding  Lawsuits,  sanctioning  or  rejec'ting  Laws  ;  and  withal 
disposing  of  Its  places  and  offices  by  sale  for  ready  money,-which 
method  sleek  President  Renault,  after  meditation,  will  demonstrate 
to  be  the  mdifterent-best.f 

^Jm^'^'^^u  ^"""^y'  existing  by  purchase  for  ready-money,  there 
could  not  be  excess  of  public  spirit  ;  there  might  well  be  excess 
d  vfdfrrf  to  divide  the  public  spoil.  Men  in  helmets  have 
divided  that,  Willi  swords  ;  men  in  wigs,  with  quill  and  inkhorn, 
.hK  T""  1''  '''^'^  ""^^'^  hatefully  these  latter,  if  more  peace- 
aoiy  ;  tor  the  wig-method  is  at  once  ifresistibler  and  baser.  By 
long  experience,  says  Besenval,  it  has  been  found  useless  to  sue 
a  Parlementeer  at  law  ;  no  Officer  of  Justice  will  serve  a  writ  or 

+  ^"/^J^T^^^'  ^^'^^^'^^  I'AssembUe  Co7istituante  (Int.  70). 
T  AOrdgd  Chronologi(2ne,  p.  97^  ^ 

VOL.  I.  ^ 


yo  THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


one  ;  his  wig  and  gown  are  his  Vulcan's-panoply,  his  enchanted 
cloak-of-darkness. 

The  Parlement  of  Paris  may  count  itself  an  unloved  body  \ 
mean,  not  magnanimous,  on  the  political  side.  Were  the  King 
weak,  always  (as  now)  has  his  Parlement  barked,  cur-like  at  his 
heels  ;  with  what  popular  cry  there  might  be.  Were  he  strong,  it 
barked  before  his  face  ;  hunting  for  him  as  his  alert  beagle.  An 
unjust  Body  ;  where  foul  influences  have  m.ore  than  once  worked 
shameful  perversion  of  judgment.  Does  not,  in  these  very  days, 
the  blood  of  murdered  Lally  cry  aloud  for  vengeance  ?  Baited, 
circumvented,  driven  mad  like  the  snared  lion,  Valour  had  to  sink 
extinguished  under  vindictive  Chicane.  Behold  him,  that  hapless 
Lally,  his  wild  dark  soul  looking  through  his  wild  dark  face  ; 
trailed  on  the  ignominious  death  hurdle  ;  the  voice  of  his  despair 
choked  by  a  wooden  gag  !  The  wild  fire-soul  that  has  known 
only  peril  and  toil  ;  and,  for  threescore  years,  has  buffeted 
against  Fate's  obstruction  and  men's  perfidy,  like  genius  and 
courage  amid  poltroonery,  dishonesty  and  commonplace  ;  faith- 
fully enduring  and  endeavouring, — O  Parlement  of  Paris,  dost 
thou  reward  it  v/ith  a  gibbet  and  a  gag  The  dying  Lally  be- 
queathed his  memory  to  his  boy ;  a  young  Lally  has  arisen, 
demanding  redress  in  the  name  of  God  and  man.  The  Parlement 
of  Paris  does  its  utmost  to  defend  the  indefensible,  abominable  ; 
nay,  what  is  singular,  dusky-glowing  Aristogiton  d'Espremenii  is 
the  man  chosen  to  be  its  spokesman  in  that. 

Such  Social  Anomaly  is  it  that  France  now  blesses.  An  unclean 
Social  Anomaly  ;  but  in  duel  against  another  worse !  The  exiled 
ParlemxCnt  is  felt  to  have  '  covered  itself  with  glory.'  There  are 
quarrels  in  which  even  Satan,  bringing  help,  were  not  unwelcome  ; 
even  Satan,  fighting  stiffly,  might  cover  himself  with  glory, — of  a 
temporary  sort. 

But  what  a  stir  in  the  outer  courts  of  the  Palais,  when-  Paris 
finds  its 'Parlement  trundled  off  to  Troyes  in  Champagne  ;  and 
nothing  left  but  a  few  mute  Keepers  of  Records  ;  the  Demos- 
thenic thunder  become  extinct,  the  martyrs  of  liberty  clean  gone  ! 
Confused  wail  and  menace  rises  from  the  four  thousand  throats 
o"  Procureurs,  Basoche- Clerks,  Nondescripts,  and  Anglomaniac 
Noblesse  ;  ever  new  idlers  crowd  to  see  and  hear ;  Rascality, 
with  increasing  numbers  and  vigour,  hunts  7nouchards.  Loud 
whirlpool  rolls  through  these  spaces  ;  the  rest  of  the  City,  fixed 
to  its  work,  cannot  yet  go  rolling.  Audacious  placards  ar^  legible, 
in  and  about  the  Palais,  the  speeches  are  as  good  as  seditious. 
Surely. the  temper  of  Paris  is  much  changed.  On  the  third  day 
of  this  business  (i8th  of  August),  Monsieur  and  Monseigneur 
d'Artois,  coming  in  stiite-carriages,  according  to  use  and  wont, 
to  have  these  late  obnoxious  Arrcft's  and  protests  ^expunged' 
from  the  Records,  are  received  in  tlie  most  marked  mnnnen 
Monsieur,  who  is  thouglU  to  be  in  opposition,  is  met  with  vivats 
and  strewed  llowcrs  ;  Monseigneur,  on  the  otlier  hand,  with 
*  gtli  May,  17OO  :  JJio^raplUc  ljulvcncilc,  §  Lally. 


LOMENIE'S  THUNDERBOLTS. 


71 


silence  ;  with  murmurs,  which  rise  to  hisses  and  groans  ;  nay,  ar? 
irreverent  Rascahty  presses  towards  hmi  in  floods,  with  such  hiss^ 
ing  vehemence,  that  the  Captain  of  the  Guards  has  to  give  order, 
"  Haiti  les  arm-s  (Handle  arms)  !  " — at  which  thunder-word, 
indeed,  and  the  flash  of  the  clear  iron,  the  Rascal-flood  recoils, 
through  all  avenues,  fast  enough."'^*  New  features  these.  Indeed,, 
as  good  M.  de  Malesherbes  pertinently  remarks,  it  is  a  quite 
new  kind  of  contest  this  with  the  Parlement  : "  no  transitory 
sputter,  as  from  collision  of  hard  bodies  ;  but  more  like  "  the  first 
sparks  of  what,  if  not  quenched,  may  become  a  great  conflagra- 
tion/^t 

This  good  Malesherbes  sees  himself  now  again  in  the  King's 
Council,  after  an  absence  of  ten  years  :  Lomenie  would  profit  if 
not  by  the  faculties  of  the  man,  yet  by  the  name  he  has.  As  for 
the  man's  opinion,  it  is  not  listened  to  ; — wherefore  he  will  soon 
withdraw,  a  second  time ,;  back  to  his  books  and  his  trees.  In 
such  King's  Council  what  can  a  good  man  profit  Turgot  tries  it 
not  a  second  time  :  Turgot  has  quitted  France  and  this  Earth, 
some  years  ago  ;  and  now  cares  for  none  of  these  things.  Singu- 
lar enough  :  Turgot,  this  same  Lomenie,  and  the  Abbe  Morellet 
were  once  a  trio  of  young  friends  ;  fellow-scholars  in  the  Sor- 
bonne.    Forty  new  years  have  carried  them  severally  thus  far. 

Meanwhile  the  Parlement  sits  daily  at  Troyes,  calling  cases  ; 
and  daily  adjourns,  no  Procureur  making  his  appearance  to  plead. 
Troyes  is  as  hospitable  as  could  be  looked  for  :  nevertheless  one 
has  comparatively  a  dull  life.  No  crowds  now  to  carry  you, 
shoulder-high,  to  the  imm^ortal  gods  ;  scarcely  a  Patriot  or  two 
wiirdrive  out  so  far,  and  bid  you  be  of  firm  courage.  You  are  in 
furnished  lodgings,  far  from  home  and  domestic  comfort :  little  to 
do,  but  wander  over  the  unlovely  Champagne  fields  ;  seeing  the 
grapes  ripen ;  taking  counsel  about  the  thousand-times  con- 
sulted :  a  prey  to  tedium  ;  in  danger  even  that  Paris  may  forget 
you.  Messengers  come  and  go  :  pacific  Lomenie  is  not  slack  in 
negotiating,  promising  ;  D'Ormesson  and  the  prudent  elder  Mem- 
bers see  no  good  in  strife. 

After  a  dull  month,  the  Parlement,  yielding  and  retaining, 
makes  truce,  as  all  Parlements  must.  The  Stamp-tax  is  with- 
drawn :  the  Siibventioji  Land-tax  is  also  withdrawn  ;  but,  in  its 
stead,  there  is  granted,  what  they  call  a  '  Prorogation  of  the  Second 
Twentieth,' — itself  a  kind  of  Land-tax,  but  not  so  oppressive  tc 
the  Influential  classes  ;  which  lies  mainly  on  the  Dumb  class. 
Moreover,  secret  promises  exist  (on  the  part  of  the  Elders),  that 
finances  may  be  raised  by  Loan.  Of  the  ugly  word  States-Gene- 
ral there  shall  be  no  mention. 

And  so,  on  the  20th  of  September,  our  exiled  Parlement  returns  : 
D'Espremenil  said,  '  it  went  out  covered  with  glory,  but  had  come 
back  covered  with  mud  {dc  bou.e)J  Not  so,  Aristogiton  ;  or  if  so, 
thou  surely  art  the  man  to  clean  it. 


*  Montgaillard,  i.  369.    Beseiival,  &c. 


t  Montgaillard,  i.  373. 


72 


THE  PARLE  ME  NT  OF  PARIS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
lomenie's  plots. 

Was  ever  unfortunate  Chief  Minister  so  bested  as  Lomenie- 
Brienne  ?  The  reins  of  the  State  fairly  in  his  hand  these  six 
months  ;  and  not  the  smallest  motive-power  (of  Finance)  to  stir 
from  the  spot  with,  this  way  or  that  !  He  flourishes  his  whip, 
but  advances  not.  Instead  of  ready-money,  there  is  nothing  but 
reberiious  debating  and  recalcitrating.        ,      ^  . 

Far  is  the  public  mind  from  having  calmed  ;  it  goes  ciiahng 
and  fuming  ever  worse  :  and  in  the  royal  coffers,  with  such  yearly 
Deficit  running  on,  there  is  hardly  the  colour  of  coin.  Ominous 
prognostics  1  Malesherbes,  seeing  an  exhaiisted,  exasperated 
France  grow  hotter  and  hotter,  talks  of  '  conflagration  : '  Mira- 
b^au  without  talk,  has,  as  we  perceive,  descended  on  Paris  again, 
close  on  the  rear  of  the  Parlement,^— not  to  quit  his  native  soil 

^^Over^he  Frontiers,  behold  Holland  invaded  by  Prussia  ;+  the 
French  party  oppressed,  England  and  the  Stadtholder  triumph- 
ing •  to  the  sorrow  of  War-Secretary  Montmorin  and  all  men. 
But  without  money,  sinews  of  war,  as  of  work,  and  of  existence 
itself  what  can  a  Chief  Minister  do  ?  Taxes  profit  httle  :  this 
of  the  Second  Twentieth  falls  not  due  till  next  year  ;  and  will 
then  with  its  '  strict  valuation/  produce  more  controversy  than 
cash  Taxes  un  the  Privileged  Clas.ses  cannot  be  got  regis- 
tered •  are  intolerable  to  our  supporters  themselves  :  taxes  on 
the  Unprivileged  yield  nothing,— as  from  a  thing  drained  dry 
more  cannot  be  drawn.    Hope  is  nowhere,  if  not  m  the  old  refuge 

^^To^Tomenie,  aided  by  the  long  head  of  Lamoignon  deeply 
pondering  this  sea  of  troubles,  the  thought  suggested  itself :  Why 
not  have  a  Successive  Loan  {Enipnmt  S?icccsstf),  or  Loan  that 
went  on  lending,  year  after  year,  as  much  as  needful  ;  say,  till 
I7Q^  ^  The  trouble  of  registering  such  L6an  were  the  same  :  we 
had  then  breathing  time  ;  money  to  wor..  with,  at  least  to  subsist 
on  Edict  of  a  Successive  Loan,  must  be  proposed.  To  concili- 
ate the  Philosophes,  let  a  liberal  Edict  w^dk  in  front  o.  it,  for 
emancipation  of  Protestants  ;  let  a  liberal  Promise  guard  the  rear 
of  it,  that  when  our  Loan  ends,  in  that  final  1792,  the  States- 
General  shall  be  convoked.  .     .       ,     .      ,  . 

Such  liberal  Edict  of  Protestant  Emancipation,  the  time  having 
come  for  it,  shall  cost  a  Lomenie  as  little  as  the  '  Death-penalties 
to  be  put  in  execution  '  did.  As  for  the  liberal  Promise,  of  States- 
(;eneral,  it  can  be  fulfilled  or  not  :  the  fulfilment  is  five  good  years 
uff;  in  five  years  much  intervenes.    But  the  registering?  Ah, 

*  Fils  Adoptif,  Mirahcau,  iv.  1.  5.         '  ... 

t  October,  1787.    Montgaillard,  i.  374.    Beseaval,  m.  283. 


LOMENIES  PLOTS. 


7fs 


truly,  there  is  the  difficulty  ! — However^  we  have  that  promise  of 
the  Elders,  given  secretly  at  Troyes.  Judicious  gratuities,  cajol- 
eries, underground  intrigues,  with  old  Foulon,  named  'Ante 
damnee,  Familiar-demon,  of  the  Parlement,'  may  perhaps  do  the 
rest.  At  worst  and  lowest,  the  Royal  Authority  has  resources, — 
which  ought  it  not  to  put  forth  ?  If  it  cannot  realise  money,  the 
Royal  Authority  is  as  good  as  dead  ;  dead  of  that  surest  and 
miserablest  death,  inanition.  Risk  and  win  ;  without  risk  all  is 
already  lost !  For  the  rest,  as  in  enterprises  of  pith,  a  touch  of 
stratagem  often  proves  furthersome,  his  Majesty  announces  a 
Royal  Hunt,  for  the  iQth  of  November  next ;  and  all  whom  it 
concerns  are  joyfully  getting  their  gear  ready. 

Royal  Hunt  indeed  ;  but  of  tv/o-legged  unfeathered  game  !  At 
eleven  in  the  morning  of  that  Royal-Hunt  day,  19th  of  November 
1787,  unexpected  blare  of  trumpctting,  tumult  oi  charioteering  and 
cavalcading  disturbs  the  Seat  of  Justice  :  his  Majesty  is  come, 
with  Garde-des-Sceaux  Lamoignon,  and  Peers  and  retinue,  to 
hold  Royal  Session  and  have  Edicts  registered.  What  a  change, 
since  Louis  XIV.  entered  here,  in  boots  ;  and,  whip  in  hand, 
ordered  his  registering  to  be  done,— with  an  Olympian  look,  which 
none  durst  gainsay  ;  and  did,  without  stratagem,  in  such  uncere- 
monious fashion,  hunt  as  well  as  register  !  ^'  For  Louis  XVI.,  on 
this  day,  the  Registering  will  be  enough  ;  if  indeed  he  and  the 
day  suffice  for  it. 

Meanwhile,  with  fit  ceremonial  words,  the  purpose  of  the  j  ^yal 
breast  is  signified :-— Two  Edicts^  for  Protestant  Emancipation,  for 
Successive  Loan  :  of  both  which  Edicts  our  trusty  Garde-des- 
Sceaux  Lamoignon  will  explain  the  purport  ;  on  both  which  a 
trusty  Parlement  is  requested  to  deliver  its  opinion,  each  member 
having  free  privilege  of  speech.  And  so,  Lamoignon  too  having 
perorated  not  amiss,  and  wound  up  with  that  Promise  of  States- 
General,— the  Sphere-music  of  Parlementary  eloquence  begins. 
Explosive,  responsive,  sphere  answering  sphere,  it  waxes  louder 
and  louder.  The  Peers  sit  attentive  ;  of  diverse  sentiment:  un- 
friendly to  States- General  ;  unfriendly  to  Despotism,  which  cannot 
reward  merit,  and  is  suppressing  places.  But  what  agitates  his 
Highness  d'Orleans  ?  The  rubicund  moon-head  goes  wagging  ; 
darker  beams  the  copper  visage,  like  unscoured  copper  ;  in  the 
glazed  eye  is  disquietude ;  he  roils  uneasy  m  his  seat,  as  if  he 
meant  something.  Amid  unutterable  satiety,  has  sudden  new 
appetite,  for  new  forbidden  fruit,  been  vouchsafed  him  ?  Disgust 
and  edacity;  laziness  that  cannot  rest;  futile  ambition,  revenee, 
non-admiralship  :— O,  within  that  carbuncled  skin  what  a  confusion 
of  confusions  sits  bottled  ! 

'Eight  Couriers,'  in  the  course  of  the  day,  gallop  from  Ver- 
sailles, v/here  Lomenie  waits  palpitating ;  and  gallop  back  again, 
not  with  the  best  news.  In  the  outer  Courts  of  the  Palais,  huge 
buzz  of  expectation  reigns  ;  it  is  whispered  the  Chief  Minister  has 
lost  six  votes  overnight.  And  from  within,  resounds  nothing  but 
forensic  eloqutn^^,  pathetic  and  even  indignant ;  heartrending 
*  Dulaure,  vi.  306. 


74 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARTS, 


appeals  to  the  royal  clemency,  that  his  Majesty  would  please  to 
summon  States-General  forthwith,  and  be  the  Saviour  of  France 
wherein  dusky-glowing  D'Espremenil,  but  still  more  Sabatier  de 
Cabre,  and  Freteau,  since  named  Co7ii7iic7'e  Freteau  (Goody 
Freteau),  are  among  the  loudest.  For  six  mortal  hours  it  lasts,  in 
this  manner ;  the  infinite  hubbub  unslackened. 

And  so  now,  wlien  brown  dusk  is  falling  through  the  windows, 
and  no  end  visible,  his  Majesty,  on  hint  of  Garde-des-Sceaux, 
Lamoignon,  opens  his  royal  lips  once  more  to  say,  in  brief  That 
he  must  have  his  Loan-Edict  registered. — Momentary  deep 
pause  ! — See !  Monseigneur  d'Orleans  rises  ;  with  moon-visage 
turned  towards  the  royal  platform,  he  asks,  with  a  delicate 
graciosity  of  manner  covering  unutterable  things  :  ^'  Whether  it 
is  a  Bed  of  Justice,  then  ;  or  a  Royal  Session  ? "  Fire  flashes  on 
him  from  the  throne  and  neighbourhood  :  surly  answer  that  "  it 
is  a  Session."  In  that  case,  Monseigneur  will  crave  leave  to 
remark  that  Edicts  cannot  be  registered  by  order  in  a  Session  ; 
and  indeed  to  enter,  against  such  registry,  his  individual  humble 
Protest.  "  Vo7is  etes  Men  le  Diaitre  (You  will  do  your  pleasure)," 
answers  the  King  ;  and  .thereupon,  in  high  state,  marches  out, 
escorted  by  his  Court-retinue  ;  D'Orleans  himself,  as  in  duty 
bound,  escorting  him,  but  only  to  the  gate.  Which  duty  done, 
D'Orleans  returns  in  from  the  gate ;  redacts  his  Protest,  in  the 
face  of  an  applauding  Parlement,  an  applauding  France  ;  and  so 
— has  cut  his  Court-moorings,  shall  we  say  And  will  now  sail 
and  drift,  fast  enough,  towards  Chaos  ? 

Thou  foolish  D'Orleans  ;  Equality  that  art  to  be  !  Is  Royalty 
grown  a  mere  wooden  Scarecrow ;  whereon  thou,  pert  scald- 
headed  crow,  mayest  alight  at  pleasure,  and  peck?  Not  yet 
wholly. 

Next  day,  a  Lettre-de- Cachet  sends  D'Orleans  to  bethink  him- 
self in  his  Chateau  of  Villers-Cotterets,  where,  alas,  is  no  Paris 
with  its  joyous  necessaries  of  hfe  ;  no  fascinating  indispensable 
Madame  de  Buffon, — light  wife  of  a  great  Naturalist  much  too  old 
for  her.  M  onseigneur,  it  is  said,  does  nothing  but  walk  distractedly, 
at  Villers-Cotterets  ;  cursing  his  stars.  Versailles  itself  shall  hear 
penitent  wail  from  him,  so  hard  is  his  doom.  By  a  second,  simul- 
taneous Lettre-de-Cachet,  Goody  Freteau  is  hurled  into  the  Strong- 
hold of  Ham,  amid  the  Norman  marshes  ;  by  a  third,  Sabatier 
de  Cabre  into  Mont  St.  Michel,  amid  the  Norman  quicksands. 
As  for  the  Parlement,  it  must,  on  summons,  travel  out  to  Versailles, 
v/ith  its  Register-Book  under  its  arm,  to  have  the  Protest  biffe 
(expunged)  ;  not  without  admonition,  and  even  rebuke.  A  stroke 
of  authority  which,  one  might  have  hoped,  would  quiet  matters. 

Unhappily,  no  :  it  is  a  mere  taste  of  the  whip  to  rearing 
coursers,  which  makes  them  rear  worse  !  When  a  team  of 
Twenty-five  Millions  begins  rearmg,  what  is  Lomenie's  whip? 
The  Pnrlement  will  nowise  acquiesce  meekly  ;  and  set  to  register 
the  Protestant  ICdict,  and  do  its  other  work,  in  salutary  fear  ol 
these  three  Lettrcs-dc-G<irhet.    Far  from  that,  it  begins  question- 


INTERNECINE 


75 


ing  Lettres-de- Cachet  generally,  their  legality,  endurability ;  emits 
dolorous  objurgation,  petition  on  petition  to  have  its  three  Martyrs 
deUvered  ;  cannot,  till  that  be  complied  with,  so  much  as  think 
of  examining  the  Piotestant  Edict,  but  puts  it  off  always  '  till  this 
day  week/  * 

In  which  objurgatory  strain  Paris  and  France  joins  it,  or  rather 
has  preceded  it  ;  making  fearful  chorus.  And  now  also  the  other 
Farlements,  at  length  opening  their  mouths,  begin  to  join  ;  some 
of  them,  as  at  Grenoble  and  at  Rennes,  with  portentous  emphasis, 
— threatening,  by  way  of  reprisal,  to  interdict  the  very  Tax- 
gatherer,  f  "  In  all  former  contests,'^  as  Malesherbes  remarks, 
"  It  was  the  Parlement  that  excited  the  Public  ;  but  here  it  is  the 
Public  that  excites  the  Parlement.,'' 


CHAPTER  VIL 

INTERNECINE. 

What  a  France,  through  these  winter  months  of  the  year  1787  f 
The  very  Oiil-de-Boeuf  is  doleful,  uncertain  ;  with  a  general  feel- 
ing among  the  Suppressed,  that  it  were  better  to  be  in  Turkey. 
The  Wolf-hounds  are  suppressed,  the  Bear-hounds,  Duke  de 
Coigny,  Duke  de  Polignac  :  in  the  Trianon  little-heaven,  her 
Majesty,  one  evening,  takes  BesenvaFs  arm  ;  asks  his  candid 
opmion.  The  intrepid  Besenval,— having,  as  he  hopes,  nothing  of 
the  sycophant  in  /^/;;^,~ plainly  signifies  that,  with  a  Parlement  in 
rebellion,  and  an  (Eii-de-Boeuf  in  suppression,  the  King's  Crown 
IS  in  danger  ;— whereupon,  singular  to  say,  her  Majesty^  as  if  hurt, 
changed  the  subject,  et  ne  7ne  parla  phis  de  rie7i  /  % 

To  whom,  indeed,  can  this  poor  Queen  speak?  In  need  of 
wise  counsel,  if  ever  mortal  was  ;  yet  beset  here  only  by  the 
hubbub  of  chaos  !  Her  dwelling-place  is  so  bright  to  the  eye, 
and  confusion  and  black  care  darkens  it  all.  Sorrows  of  the 
Sovereign,  sorrows  of  the  woman,  thick-coming  sorrows  environ 
her  more  and  more.  Lamotte,  the  Necklace-Countess,  has  in 
these  late  months  escaped,  perhaps  been  suffered  to  escape,  from 
the  Salpetriere.  Vain  was  the  hope  that  Paris  might  thereby 
forget  her  ;  and  this  ever-widening-He,  and  heap  of  lies,  subside. 
The  Lamotte,  with  a  V  (for  Volcitse,  Thief)  branded  on  both 
shoulders,  ha  s  got  to  England  ;  and  will  therefrom  emit  lie  on  lie ; 
defihng  the  highest  queenly  name  :  mere  distracted  lies  ;§  which, 
m  Its  present  humour,  France  will  greedily  believe. 

*  Besenval,  iii.  309.  f  Weber,  i.  266.  +  Besenval.  iii.  264. 

^  M^moires  jti^iijicatifs  de  la  Comtesse  de  Lamotte  (London,  1788).  Vic  dt 
teanfiede  St,  Remi,  Comtesse  de  Lamotte,  &c.  &c.  See  Diamoiid  Necklace 
lut  supr^). 


76 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


For  the  rest,  it  is  too  clear  our  Successive  Loan  is  not  filling. 
As  indeed,  in  such  circumstances,  a  Loan  registered  by  expunging 
of  Protests  was  not  the  likeliest  to  fill.  Denunciation  of  Lettres- 
de- Cachet,  of  Despotism  generally,  abates  not :  the  Twelve  Parle- 
ments  are  busy  ;  the  Twelve  hundred  Placard.ers,  Balladsingers, 
Pamphleteers.  Paris  is  what,  in  figurative  speech,  they  call 
'  flooded  with  pamphlets  {regorge  de  brochures)  ; '  flooded  and 
eddying  again.  Hot  deluge, — from  so  many  Patriot  ready- writers, 
all  at  the  fervid  or  boiling  point ;  each  ready-writer,  now  in  the 
hour  of  eruption,  going  like  an  Iceland  Geyser  !  Against  which 
what  can  a  judicious  friend  Morellet  do  ;  a  Rivarol,  an  unruly 
Linguet  (well  paid  for  it), — spouting  cold  ! 

Now  also,  at  length,  does  come  discussion  of  the  Protestant 
Edict  :  but  only  for  new  embroilment  ;  in  pamphlet  and  counter- 
pamphlet,  increasing  the  madness  of  men.  Not  even  Orthodoxy, 
bedrid  as  she  seemed,  but  will  have  a  hand  in  this  confusion.  She, 
once  again  in  the  shape  of  Abb^  Lenfant,  '  whom  Prelates  drive 
to  visit  and  congratulate,'— raises  audible  sound  from  her  pulpit- 
drum."^  Or  mark  how  D'Espremenil,  who  has  his  own  confused 
way  in  all  things,  produces  at  the  right  moment  in  Parlementary 
harangue,  a  pocket  Crucifix,  with  the  apostrophe :  "  Will  ye  crucify 
him  afresh  ?  "  Him^  O  D'Espremenil,  without  scruple  ; — consider- 
ing what  poor  stufl",  of  ivory  and  filigree,  he  is  made  of ! 

To  all  which  add  only  that  poor  Brienne  has  fallen  sick ;  so 
hard  was  the  tear  and  wear  of  his  sinful  youth,  so  violent,  inces- 
sant is  this  agitation  of  his  foolish  old  age.  Baited,  bayed  at 
through  so  many  throats,  his  Grace,  growing  consumptive,  inflam- 
matory (with  humeur  de  dartre),  lies  reduced  to  milk  diet ;  in 
exasperation,  almost  in  desperation  ;  with  '  repose,'  precisely  the 
impossible  recipe,  prescribed  as  the  indispensable.f 

On  the  whole,  what  can  a  poor  Government  do,  but  once  more 
recoil  ineffectual  ?  The  King's  Treasury  is  running  towards  the 
lees  ;  and  Paris  '  eddies  with  a  flood  of  pamphlets.'  At  all  rates, 
let  the  latter  subside  a  little  !  "  D'Orl^ans  gets  back  to  Raincy, 
which  is  nearer  Paris  and  the  fair  frail  Buflbh  ;  finally  to  Paris 
itself :  neither  are  Freteau  and  Sabatier  banished  forever.  The 
Protestant  Edict  is  registered  ;  to  the  joy  of  Boissy  d'Anglas  and 
good  Malesherbes:  Successive  Loan,  all  protests  expunged  or  else 
withdrawn,  remains  open, — the  rather  as  few  or  none  come  to  fill 
it.  States-General,  for  which  the  Parlement  has  clamoured,  and 
now  the  whole  Nation  clamours,  will  follow  *  in  five  years,' — if 
indeed  not  sooner.  O  Parlement  of  Paris,  what  a  clamour  was 
that  !  "  Messieurs,"  said  old  d'Ormesson,  "  you  will  get  States- 
General,  and  you  will  repent  it."  Like  the  Horse  in  the  Fable, 
who,  to  be  avenged  of  his  enemy,  applied  to  the  Man.  The  Man 
mounted  ;  did  Swift  execution  on  the  enemy ;  but,  unhappily, 
would  not  dismount  !  Instead  of  five  years,  let  three  years  pass, 
and  this  clamorous  Parlement  shall  have  both  seen  its  enemy 
hurled  prostrate,  and  been  itself  ridden  to  foundering  (say  rather, 
jugulated  for  hide  and  snocs),  and  lie  dead  in  the  ditch. 

*  Lacretelle,  iii.  343.    Montgaillard,  f  Bc5enval,  jii.  3I7«^  - 


INTERNECINE. 


77 


Under  such  omens,  however,  we  have  reached  the  spring  of 
1788.  By  no  path' can  the  King's  Government  lind  passage  for 
itself,  but  is  everywhere  shamefully  flung  back.  Beleaguered  by 
Twelve  rebellious  Parlements,  which  are  grown  to  be  the  organs 
of  an  angry  Nation,  it  can  advance  nowhither  ;  can  accomplish 
nothing,  obtain  nothing,  not  so  much  as  money  to  subsist  on  ;  but 
must  sit  there,  seemingly,  to  be  eaten  up  of  Deficit. 

The  measure  of  the  Iniquity,  then,  of  the  Falsehood  which  has 
been  gathering  through  long  centuries,  is  nearly  full  At  least, 
that  of  the  misery  is  !  From  the  hovels  of  the  Twenty-five  Millions, 
the  misery,  permeating  upwards  and  forwards,  as  its  law  is,  has 
got  so  far, — to  the  very  GEil-de-Boeuf  of  Versailles.  Man's  hand, 
in  this  blind  pain,  is  set  against  man  :  not  only  the  low  against 
the  higher,  but  the  higher  against  each  other ;  Provincial  Noblesse 
is  bitter  against  Court  Noblesse  ;  Robe  against  Sword  ;  Rochet 
against  Pen.  But  against  the  King's  Government  who  is  not 
bitter  ?  Not  even  Besenval,  in  these  days.  To  it  all  men  and 
bodies  of  men  are  become  as  enemies  ;  it  is  the  centre  whereon 
infinite  contentions  unite  and  clash.  What  new  universal  verti- 
ginous movement  is  this  ;  of  Institution,  social  Arrangements, 
individual  Minds,  which  once  worked  cooperative  ;  now  rolling 
and  grinding  in  distracted  collision  Inevitable  :  it  is  the  break- 
ing-up  of  a  World-Solecism,  worn  out  at  last,  down  even  to  bank- 
ruptcy of  money  !  And  so  this  poor  Versailles  Court,  as  the 
chief  or  central  Solecism,  finds  all  the  other  Solecisms  arrayed 
against  it.  Most  natural  !  For  your  human  Solecism,  be  it  Per- 
son or  Combination  of  Persons,  is  ever,  bylaw  of  Nature,  uneasy  ; 
if  verging  towards  bankruptcy,  it  is  even  miserable : — and  when- 
would  the  meanest  Solecism  consent  to  blame  or  amend  itself^ 
while  there  remained  another  to  amend  ? 

These  threatening  signs  do  not  terrify  Lomenie,  much  less 
teach  him.  Lomenie,  though  of  light  nature,  is  not  without  cour- 
age, of  a  sort.  Nay,  have  we  not  read  of  lightest  creatures, 
trained  Canary-birds,  that  could  fly  cheerfully  with  lighted 
matches,  and  fire  cannon  ;  fire  whole  powder-magazines  ?  To 
sit  and  die  of  deficit  is  no  part  of  Lomenie's  plan.  The  evil  is 
considerable  ;  but  can  he  not  remove  it,  can  he  not  attack  it  ?  At 
lowest,  he  can  attack  the  symptom  of  it :  these  rebellious  Parle- 
ments he  can  attack,  and  perhaps  remove.  Much  is  dim  to 
Lomenie,  but  two  things  are  clear  :  that  such  Parlementary  duel 
with  Royalty  is  growing  perilous,  nay  internecine  ;  above  all,  that 
money  must  be  had.  Take  thought,  brave  Lomenie  ;  thou  Garde- 
des-Sceaux  Lamoignon,  who  hast  ideas  !  So  often  defeated, 
balked  cruelly  when  the  golden  fruit  seemed  within  clutch,  rally 
for  one  other  struggle.  To  tame  the  Parlement,  to  fill  the  King's 
coffers  :  these  are  now  life-and-death  questions. 

Parlements  have  been  tamed,  more  than  once.  Set  to  perch 
^  on  the  peaks  of  rocks  inaccessible  except  by  litters,'  a  Parlement 
grows  reasonable..  O  Maupeou,  thou  bold  bad  man,  had  we  left 
thy  work  where  it  was  ! — But  apart  from  exile,  or  other  violent 
methods,  is  there  not  on^  method,  whereby  all  things  are  tamed, 


78 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


even  lions  ?  The  method  of  hunger !  What  if  the  Parlement's 
supphes  were  cut  off ;  namely  its  Lawsuits  ! 

Minor  Courts,  for  the  trying  of  innumerable  minor  causes, 
might  be  instituted  :  these  we  could  call  Grand  Bailliages. 
Whereon  the  Parlement,  shortened  of  its  prey,  would  look  with 
yellow  despair  ;  but  the  Public^  fond  of  cheap  justice,  with  fcivour 
and  hope.  Then  for  Finance,  for  registering  of  Edicts,  why  not, 
from  our  own  Oiil-de-Boeuf  Dignitaries,  our  1  rinces,  Dukes, 
Marshals,  make  a  thing  we  could  call  Plenary  Court;  and  there, 
so  to  speak,  do  our  registering  ourselves  ?  St.  Louis  had  his 
Plenary  Court,  of  Great  Barons  most  useful  to  him  :  our  Great 
Barons  are  still  here  (at  least  the  Name  of  them  is  still  here)  ; 
our  necessity  is  greater  than  his.  * 

Such  is  the  Lomenie-Lamoignon  device  ;  welcome  to  the  King's 
Council,  as  a  hght-beam  in  great  darkness.  The  device  seems 
feasible,  it  is  eminently  needful  :  be  it  once  well  executed,  great 
deliverance  is  wrought.  Silent,  then,  and  steady  ;  now  or  never  1 
—the  World  shall  see  one  other  Historical  Scene  ;  and  so  singular 
a  man  as  Lomenie  de  Brienne  still  the  Stage-manager  there. 

Behold,  accordingly,  a  Home-Secretary  Breteuil  ^beautifying 
Paris,' in  the  peaceablest  manner,  in  this  hopeful  spring  weather  of 
1788  ;  the  old  hovels  and  hutches  disappearing  from  our  Bridges  : 
as  if  for  the  State  too  there  were  halcyon  weather,  and  nothing 
to  do  but  beautify.  Parlement  seems  to  sit  acknowledged  victor. 
Brienne  says  nothing  of  Finance  ;  or  even  says,  and  prints,  that  it 
is  all  well.  How  is  this  ;  such  halcyon  quiet  ;  though  the  Sue- 
cessive  Loan  did  not  fill  ?  In  a  victorious  Parlement,  Counsellor 
Goeslard  de  Monsabert  even  denounces  that  Mevying  of  the 
Second  Twentieth  on  strict  valuation  and  gets  decree  that  the 
valuation  shall  not  be  strict,— not  on  the  privileged  classes. 
Nevertheless  Brienne  endures  it,  launches  no  Lettre-de-Cachet 
against  it.    How  is  this  1 

Smiling  is  such  vernal  weather  ;  but  treacherous,  sudden  !  ^  For 
one  thing,  we  hear  it  whispered,  'the  Intendants  of  Provinces 
*  have  all  got  order  to  be  at  their  posts  on  a  certain  day.'  Still 
more  singular,  what  incessant  Printing  is  this  that  goes  on  at  the 
King's  Chateau,  under  lock  and  key  Sentries  occupy  all  gates 
and  v/indows  ;  the  Printers  come  not  out ;  they  sleep  in  their 
workrooms  ;  their  very  food  is  handed  in  to  them  if  A  victorious 
Parlement  smells  new  danger.  D'Espremenil  has  ordered  horses 
to  Versailles  ;  prowls  round  that  guarded  Printing- Office  ;  prying, 
snuffing,  if  so  be  the  sagacity  and  ingenuity  of  man  may  penetrate 

it.  ,  , 

To  a  shower  of  gold  most  things  are  penetrable.  D'Espremenil 
descends  on  the  lap  of  a  Printer's  Danac,  in  the  shape  of  '  hve 
hundred  louis  d'or  : '  the  Danac's  HiiBband  smuggles  a  ball  of  clay 
to  her  ;  which  she  delivers  to  the  golden  Counsellor  of  Parlement. 
Kneaded  within  it,  their  stick  printed  ]»i oof-sheets  ;-by  Heaven  ! 
the  royal  Edict  of  that  snme  self  rc- ering  IHimary  Court;  of 


*  Montgaillard,  i.  405.  t  Weber,  i.  276. 


LOMENIE'S  DEATH-THROES. 


79 


those  Grand  Baillia^cs  that  shall  cut  short  our  Lawsuits  !  It  is  to 
be  promulgated  over  all  France  on  one  and  the  same  day. 

This,  then,  is  what  the  Intendants  were  bid  wait  for  at  their 
posts  :  this  is  what  the  Court  sat  hatching,  as  its  accursed  cocka- 
trice-egg ;  and  would  not  stir,  though  provoked,  till  the  brood 
were  out  !  Hie  with  it,  D'Espremenil,  home  to  Paris  ;  convoke 
instantaneous  Sessions  ;  let  the  Parlement,  and  the  Earth,  and  the 
Heavens  know  it. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 
lomenie's  death-throes. 

On  the  morrow,  which  is  the  3rd  of  May,  1788,  an  astonished 
Parlement  sits  convoked  ;  listens  speechless  to  the  speech  of  D'Es- 
premenil, unfolding  the  infinite  misdeed.  Deed  of  treachery  ;  of 
unhallowed  darkness,  such  as  Despotism  loves  !  Denounce  it,  O 
Parlement  of  Paris  ;  awaken  France  and  the  Universe  ;  roll  what 
thunder-barrels  of  forensic  eloquence  thou  hast  :  with  thee  too  it 
is  verliy  Now  or  never  ! 

The  Parlement  is  not  wanting,  at  such  juncture.  In  the  hour  of 
his  extreme  jeopardy,  the  lion  first  incites  himself  by  roaring,  by 
lashingjiis  sides.  So  here  the  Parlement  of  Paris.  On  the  motion 
of  D'Espremenil,  a  most  patriotic  Oath,  of  the  One-and-all  sort, 
is  sworn,  with  united  throat  ; — an  excellent  new-idea,  which,  in 
these  coming  years,  shall  not  remain  unimitated.  Next  comes 
indomitable  Declaration,  almost  of  the  rights  of  man,  at  least  of 
the  rights  of  Parlement  ;  Invocation  to  the  friends  of  French  Free- 
dom, in  this  and  in  subsequent  time.  All  which,  or  the  essence  of 
all  which,  is  brought  to  paper  ;  in  a  tone  wherein  something  of 
plaintiveness  blends  with,  and  tempers,  heroic  valour.  And  thus, 
having;  sounded  the  storm-bell, — which  Paris  hears,  which  all 
France  will  hear  ;  and  hurled  such  defiance  in  the  teeth  of  Lomenie 
and  Despotism,  the  Parlement  retires  as  from  a  tolerable  first  day's 
work. 

But  how  Lomenie  felt  to  see  his  cockatrice-egg  (so  essential  to 
the  salvation  of  France)  broken  in  this  premature  manner,  let 
readers  fancy  !  Indignant  he  clutches  at  his  thunderbolts  {de 
Cachet,  oi  the  Seal) ;  and  launches  two  of  them  :  a  bolt  for 
D'Espremenil ;  a  bolt  for  that  busy  Goeslard,  whose  service  in  the 
Second  Twentieth  and  '  strict  valuation '  is  not  forgotten.  Such 
bolts  clutched  promptly  overnight,  and  launched  with  the  early 
new  morning,  shall  strike  agitated  Paris  if  not  into  requiescence, 
yet  into  wholesome  astonishment. 

Ministerial  thunderbolts  may  be  launched  ;  but  if  they  do  not 
hit  ?  D'Espremenil  and  Goeslard,  warned,  both  of  them,  as  is 
thought,  by  the  singing  of  some  friendly  bird,  elude  the  Lomenie 


8o 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


Tipstaves ;  escape  disguised  through  skywindows,  over  roofs,  to 
their  own  Palais  de  Justice:  the  thunderbolts  have  -missed.  Paris  (for 
the  buzz  flies  abroad)  is  struck  into  aGtonishnient  not  whole- 
some. The  tv/o  Martyrs  of  Liberty  doff  their  disguises  ;  don  their 
long  gowns  ;  behold,  in  the  space  of  an  hour,  by  aid  of  ushers  and 
swift  runners,  the  Parlement,  with  its  Counsellors,  Presidents,  even 
Peers,  sits  anew  assembled.  The  assembled  Parlement  declares 
that  these  its  two  Martyrs  cannot  be  given  up,  to  any  sublunary 
authority  ;  moreover  that  the  '  session  is  permanent,'  admitti  g  of 
no  adjournment,  till  pursuit  of  them  has  been  relinquished. 

And  so,  with  forensic  eloquence,  denunciation  and  protest,  with 
couriers  going  and  returning,  the  Parlement,  in  this  state  of  con- 
tinual explosion  that  shall  cease  neittj(5r  night  nor  day,  w^aits  the 
issue.  Awakened  Paris  once  more  inundates  those  outer  courts  ; 
boils,  in  floods  wilder  than  ever,  through  all  avenues.  Dissonant 
hubbub  there  is  ;  jargon  as  <d{  Babel,  in  the  hour  when  they  were 
first  smitten  (as  here)  with  mutual  unintelligibihty,  and  the  people 
had  not  yet  dispersed  ! 

Paris  City  goes  through  its  diurnal  epochs,  of  working  and 
slumbering  ;  and  now,  for  the  second  time,  most  European  and 
African  mortals  are  asleep.  But  here,  in  this  Whirlpool  of  Words, 
sleep  falls  not  ;  the  Night  spreads  her  coverlid  of  Darkness  over 
it  in  vain.  Within  is  the  sound  of  mere  martyr  invincibihty  ; 
tempered  with  the  due  tone  of  plaintiveness.  Without  is  the 
infinite  expectant  hum,— growing  drowsier  a  little.  So  has  it  lasted 
for  six-and-thirty  hours. 

But  hark,  through  the  dead  of  midnight,  what  tramp  is  this  ? 
Tramp  as  of  armed  men,  foot  and  horse  ;  Gardes  Frangaises, 
Gardes  Suisses  :  marching  hither  ;  in  silent  regularity  ;  in  the  flare 
of  torchlight !  There  are  Sappers,  too,  with  axes  and  crowbars  : 
apparently,  if  the  doors  open  not,  they  will  be  forced!— It  is 
Captain  D'Agoust,  missioned  from  Versailles.  D'Agoust,  a  man 
of  known  firmness  ;— who  once  forced  Prince  Conde  himself,  by 
mere  incessant  looking  at  him,  to  give  satisfaction  and  fight  he 
now,  with  axes  and  torches  is  advancing  on  the  very  sanctuary  of 
Justice.  Sacrilegious  ;  yet  what  help  1  The  man  is  a  soldier  ; 
looks  merely  at  his  orders  ;  impassive,  moves  forward  like  an 
inanimate  engine. 

The  doors  open  on  summons,  there  need  no  axes  ;  door  after 
door.  And  now  the  innermost  door  opens  :  discloses  the  long- 
gowned  Senators  of  France  :  a  hundred  and  sixty-seven  by  tale, 
seventeen  of  them  Poers  ;  sitting  there,  majestic,  '  in  permanent 
session.'  Were  not  the  men  military,  and  of  cast-iron,  this  sight, 
this  silence  reechoing  the  clank  of  his  own  boots,  might  stagger 
him  !  For  the  hundred  and  sixty-seven  receive  him  in  perfect 
silence  ;  which  some  liken  to  that  of  the  Roman  Senate  overfallen 
by  Brennus  ;  some  to  that  of  a  nest  of  coiners  surprised  by  officers 
of  tl-ic  Police.f  Messieurs,  said  D'Agoust,  De  par  le  Roi!  Express 
order  has  charged  D'Agoust  with  the  sad  duty  of  arresting  two  in- 
dividuals :  M.  Duval  dT:spremenil  and  M.  Goeslard  de  Monsabert. 
*  Weber,  i.  283.  t  Besenval,  iii.  355. 


LOMENIE'S  DEATH-THROES. 


8i 


Which  respectable  individuals,  as  he  has  not  the  honour  of  know- 
ing them,  are  hereby  invited,  in  the  King's  name,  to  surrender 
themselves. — Profound  silence  !  Buzz,  which  grows  a  murmur  : 
"  We  are  all  D'Espremenils  ! "  ventures  a  voice  ;  which  other 
voices  repeat.  The  President  inquires,  Whether  he  will  employ- 
violence  ?  Captain  D'Agoust,  honoured  with  his  Majesty's  com- 
mission, has  to  execute  his  Majesty's  order  ;  would  so  gladly  do 
it  without  violence,  will  in  any  case  do  it ;  grants  an  august  Senate 
space  to  deliberate  which  method  they  prefer.  And  (hereupon 
D'Agoust,  with  grave  military  courtesy,  has  withdrawn  for  the 
moment. 

What  boots  it,  august  Senators  ?  All  avenues  are  closed  with 
fixed  bayonets.  Your  Courier  gallops  to  Versailles,  through  the 
dewy  Night  ;  but  also  gallops  back  again,  with  tidings  that  the 
order  is  authentic,  that  it  is  irrevocable.  The  outer  courts  simmer 
with  idle  population  ;  but  D'Agoust's  grenadier-ranks  stand  there 
as  immovable  floodgates  :  there  will  be  no  revolting  to  deliver  you. 
"  Messieurs  !  "  thus  spoke  D'Espremenil,  when  the  victorious 
Gauls '  entered  Rome,  which  they  had  carried  by  assault,  the 
Roman  Senators^  clothed  in  their  purple,  sat  there,  in  their  curule 
chairs,  with  a  proud  and  tranquil  countenance,  awaiting  slavery  or 
death.  Such  too  is  the  lofty  spectacle,  which  you,  in  this  hour, 
offer  to  the  universe  {a  Ihtnivers)^  after  having  generously  " — with 
much  more  of  the  like,  as  can  still  be  read.^ 

In  vain,  O  D'Espremenil  !  Here  is  this  cast-iron  Captain 
D'Agoust,  with  his  cast-iron  military  air,  come  back.  Despotism, 
constraint,  destruction  sit  waving  in  his  plumes.  D'Espremenil 
must  fall  silent ;  heroically  give  himself  up,  lest  worst  befall.  Him 
Goeslard  heroically  imitates.  With  spoken  and  speechless  emotion, 
they  fling  themselves  into  the  arms  of  their  Parlementary  brethren, 
for  a  last  embrace  :  and  so  amid  plaudits  and  plaints,  from  a 
hundred  and  sixty-five  throats  ;  amid  wavings,  sobbings,  a  whole 
forest-sigh  of  Parlementary  pathos,— they  are  led  through  winding 
passages,  to  the  rear-gate  ;  where,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  two 
Coaches  with  Exempts  stand  waiting.  There  must  the  victims 
mount ;  bayonets  menacing  behind.  D'Espremenil's  stern  ques- 
tion to  the  populace,  '  Whether  they  have  courage  ? '  is  answered  by 
silence.  They  mount,  and  roll ;  and  neither  the  rising  of  the  May 
sun  (it  is  the  6th  morning),  nor  its  setting  shall  lighten  their  heart: 
but  they  fare  forward  continually  ;  D'Espremenil  towards  the  ut- 
most Isles  of  Sainte  Marguerite,  or  Hieres  (supposed  by  some,  if 
that  is  any  comfort,  to  be  Calypso's  Island)  ;  Goeslard  towards  the 
land-fortress  of  Pierre-en  Cize,  extant  then,  near  the  City  of  Lyons. 

Captain  D'Agoust  may  now  therefore  look  forward  to  Majorship,  to 
Commandantship  of  the  Tuilleries  ;+ — and  withal  vanish .  from 
History  ;  where  nevertheless  he  has  been  fated  to  do  a  notable 
thing.  For  not  only  are  D'Espremenil  and  Goeslard  safe  whirling 
southward,  but  the  Pariement  itself  has  straightway  to  march  out: 
to  that  also  his  inexorable  order  reaches.  Gathering  up  their  long 
skirts,  they  file  out,  the  whole  Hundred  and  Sixty-five  of  them, 
*  ToulongeoD,  i.  App,  20.  f  Montgaillard,  i,  404* 


82 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


through  two  rows  of  unsympathetic  grenadiers  :  a  spectacle  to 
gods  and  men.  The  people  revolt  not ;  they  only  wonder  and 
grumble  :  also,  we  remark,  these  unsympathetic  grenadiers  are 
Gardes  Franqaises, — who,  one  day,  will  sympathise  !  In  a  word, 
the  Palais  de  Justice  is  swept  clear,  the  doors  of  it  are  locked ;  and 
D'Agoust  returns  to  Versailles  with  the  key  in  his  pocket,— having, 
as  was  said,  merited  preferment. 

As  for  this  Parlement  of  Paris,  now  turned  out  to  the  street,  we 
will  without  reluctance  leave  it  there.  The  Beds  of  Justice  it  had 
to  undergo,  in  the  coming  fortnight,  at  Versailles,  in  registering, 
or  rather  refusing  to  register,  those  new-hatched  Edicts  ;  and  how 
It  assembled  in  taverns  and  tap-rooms  there,  for  the  purpose  of 
Protesting,^  or  hovered  disconsolate,  with  outspread  skirts,  not 
knowing  where  to  assemble  ;  and  was  reduced  to  lodge  Protest 
'  with  a  Notary  and  in  the  end,  to  sit  still  (in  a  state  of  forced 
*  vacation  '),  and  do  nothing  ;  all  this,  natural  now,  as  the  burying 
of  the  dead  after  battle,  shall  not  concern  us.  The  Parlement  of 
Paris  has  as  good  as  performed  its  part ;  doing  and  misdoing,  so 
far,  but  hardly  further,  could  it  stir  the  world. 

Lomenie  has  removed  the  evil,  then  ?  Not  at  all  :  not  so  much 
as  the  symptom  of  the  evil  ;  scarcely  the  twelfth  part  of  the 
symptom,  and  exasperated  the  other  eleven  I  The  Intendants  of 
Provinces,  the  Mihtary  Commandants  are  at  their  posts,  on  the 
appointed  8th  of  May  :  but  in  no  Parlement,  if  not  in  the  single 
one  of  Douai,  can  these  new  Edicts  get  registered.  Not  peaceable 
signing  with  ink  ;  but  browbeating,  bloodshedding,  appeal  to 
primary  club-law  !  Against  these  Bailliages,  against  this  Plenary 
Court,  exasperated  Themis  everywhere  shows  face  of  battle  ;  the 
Provincial  Noblesse  are  of  her  party,  and  whoever  hates  Lomenie 
and  the  evil  time  ;  with  her  attorneys  and  Tipstaves,  she  enlists 
and  operates  down  even  to  the  populace.  At  Fvcnnes  in  Brittany, 
where  the  historical  Bertrand  de  Moleville  is  Intendant,  it  has 
passed  from  fatal  continual  duelling,  between  the  military  and 
t  gentry,  to  street-fighting ;  to  stone-volleys  and  musket-shot :  and 

still  the  Edicts  remained  unregistered.  The  afflicted  Bretons  send 
remonstrance  to  Lomenie,  by  a  Deputation  of  Twelve  ;  whom, 
however,  Lomenie,  having  neaYd  them,  shuts  up  in  the  Bas- 
tille. A  second  larger  deputation  he  meets,  by  his  scouts,  on 
the  road,  and  persuades  or  frightens  back.  But  now  a  third  largest 
Deputation  is  indignantly  sent  by  many  roads  :  refused  audience 
oji  arriving,  it  meets  to  take  council  ;  invites  Lafayette  and  all 
Patnot  Ih-etons  in  Paris  to  assist;  agitates  itself;  becomes  the 
Breton  Clith,  first  germ  of— the  Jacobins'  Society?[ 

So  many  as  eight  Parlements  get  exiled  otliers  might  need  that 
remedy,  but  it  is  one  not  always  easy  of  appliance.  At  Grenoble, 
for  instance,  where  a  Mounier,  a  Barnave  have  not  been  idle,  the 

*  Weber,  i.  299-303. 

t  A.  V.  de  Bertnind-Moleville,  Memoires  Particuliers  (Paris,  1816),  I.  ch.  i. 
Marmontel,  Mdmoires,  iv.  27. 
X  Montgaillard,  i.  308. 


LOMENIES  DEATH-THROES. 


83 


Parlement  had  ^MQOxA^x(\yy  Lettres-de-Cachet)  to  depart,  and  exile 
itself :  but  on  the  morrow,  instead  of  coaches  getting  yoked,  the 
alarm-bell  bursts  forth,  ominous  ;  and  peals  and  booms  all  day  : 
crowds  of  mountaineers  rush  down,  with  axes,  even  with  firelocks, — 
whom  (most  ominous  of  all  !)  the  soldiery  shows  no  eagerness  to 
deal  with.  '  Axe  over  head,'  the  poor  General  has  to  sign  capitu- 
lation ;  to  engage  that  the  Lcttres- de- Cachet  shsXl  remain  unexe- 
cuted, and  a  beloved  Parlement  stay  where  it  is.  Besan^on,  Dijon, 
Rouen,  Bourdeaux,  are  not  what  they  should  be  !  At  Pau  in 
Beam,  where  the  old  Commandant  had  failed,  the  new  one  (a 
Grammont,  native  to  them)  is  met  by  a  Procession  of  townsmen 
with  the  Cradle  of  Henri  Ouatre,  the  Palladium  of  their  Town  ;  is 
conjured  as  he  venerates  this  old  Tortoise-shell,  in  which  the  great 
Henri  was  rocked,  not  to  trample  on  Bearnese  liberty  ;  is  informed, 
withal,  that  his  Majesty's  cannon  are  all  safe— in  the  keeping  of 
his  Majesty's  faithful  Burghers  of  Pau,  and  do  now  lie  pointed  on 
the  walls  there  ;  ready  for  action 

At  this  rate,  your  Grand  Bailhages  are  like  to  have  a  stormy 
infancy.  As  for  the  Plenary  Court,  it  has  literally  expired  in  the 
birth.  The  very  Courtiers  looked  shy  at  it  ;  old  Marshal  Broglie 
declined  the  honour  of  sitting  therein.  Assaulted  by  a  universal 
storm  of  mingled  ridicule  and  execration,!  this  poor  Plenary 
Court  met  once,  and  never  any  second  time.  Distracted  country  ! 
Contention  hisses  up,  with  forked  hydra-tongues,  wheresoever  poor 
Lomenie  sets  his  'foot.  '  Let  a  Commandant,  a  Commissioner  of 
'  the  King,'  says  Weber,  '  enter  one  of  these  Parlements  to  have 
^an  Edict  registered,  the  whole  Tribunal  will  disappear,  and  leave 

*  the  Commandant  alone  with  the  Clerk  and  First  President.  The 

*  Edict  registered  and  the  Commandant  gone,  the  whole  Tribunal 
^hastens  back,  to  declare  such  registration  null.    The  highways 

*  are  covered  with  Grand  Deputatio7is  of  Parlements,  proceeding  to 

*  Versailles,  to  have  their  registers  expunged  by  the  King's  hand  ; 

*  or  returning  home,  to  cover  a  new  page  with  a  new  resolution  still 

*  more  audacious.'t 

Such  is  the  France  of  this  year  1788.  Not  now  a  Golden  or 
Paper  Age  of  Hope  ;  with  its  horse-racings,  balloon-flyings,  and 
finer  sensibilities  of  the  heart  :  ah,  gone  is  that ;  its  golden 
effulgence  paled,  be^arkened  in  tJiis  singular  manner,— brewing 
towards  preternatural  weather  1  For,  as  in  that  wreck-storm  of 
Paul  et  Virginie  and  Saint-Pierre, — '  One  huge  motionless  cloud' 
(say,  of  Sorrow  and  Indignation)  '  girdles  our  whole  horizon  ; 
'  streams  up,  hairy,  copper-edged,  over  a  sky  of  the  colour  of  lead.' 
Motionless  itself  -  but  ^  small  clouds'  (as  exiled  Parlements  and 
suchlike),  '  parting  from  it,  fly  over  the  zenith,  with  the  velocity  of 

*  Besenval,  iii.  348. 

t  La  Cour  PUniere,  heroi-tragi-comedie  en  trois  actes  et  en  prose  ;  jouee  le 
14  Juillet  1788,  par  une  soci6te  d'amateurs  dans  un  Chateau  aux  environs  de 
Versailles ;  par  M.  I'Abbe  de  Vermond,  Lecteur  de  la  Reine  :  A  Baville 
{Lamoignon  s  Country-house),  et  se  trouve  a  Paris,  clirz  la  Veuve  Liberte,  a 
Venseigne  de  la  Revolution,  1788.--/.^  Passion,  la  Mo>\'  et  la  Rcsarrcction 
du  Peuple  :  Imprime  a  Jerusalem.  <S:c.  &c. — See  jXIontgaiilard,  i.  407. 

X  Weber,  i.  275. 


84 


THE  PARLEMENT  OE  PARIS, 


'  birds  :  '—till  at  last,  vvith  one  loud  howl,  the  whole  Four  Winds  be 
dashed  together,  and  all  the  world  exclaim,  There  is  the  tornado  ! 
Tout  le  moude  s'^ecria,  Valid  rouragan  I 

For  the  rest,  in  such  circumstances,  the  Successive  Loan,  very 
naturally,  remains  unfilled  ;  neither,  indeed,  •  can  that  impost  of 
the  Second  Twentieth^  at  least  not  on  '  strict  valuation,'  be  levied 
to  good  purpose  :  '  Lenders,'  says  Weber,  in  his  hysterical  vehe- 
ment manner,  '  are  afraid  of  ruin  ;  tax-gatherers  of  hanging/ 
The  very  Clergy  turn  away  their  face  :  convoked  in  Extraordinary 
Assembly,  they  afford  no  gratuitous  gift  {do7i gratult) —\i  it  be  not 
that  of  advice ;  here  too  instead  of  cash  is  clamour  for  States- 
General.^ 

O  Lomenie-Brienne,  with  thy  poor  flimsy  mind  all  bewildered, 
and  now  '  three  actual  cauteries  '  on  rhy  worn-out  body  ;  who  art 
like  to  die  of  inflamation,  provocation,  milk-diet,  dartres  vives  and 
maladle—i^^^t  untranslated)  ;t  and  presidest  over  a  France  with 
innumerable  actual  cauteries,  which  also  is  dying  of  inflammation 
and  the  rest  !  Was  it  wise  to  quit  the  bosky  verdures  of  Brienne, 
and  thy  new  ashlar  Chateau  there,  and  what  it  held,  for  this  ? 
Soft  were  those  shades  and  lawns  ;  sweet  the  hymns  of  Poetasters, 
the  blandishments  of  high-rouged  Graces  :t  and  always  this  and 
the  other  Philosophe  Moreliet  (nothing  deeming  himself  or  thee  a 
questionable  Sham-Priest)  could  be  so  happy  in  making  happy : — 
and  also  (hadst  thou  known  it),  in  the  Military  School  hard  by 
there  sat,  studying  mathematics,  a  dusky-complexioned  taciturn 
Boy,  under  the  name  of:  Napoleon  Bonaparte  !— With  fifty 
years  of  effort,  and  one  final  dead-lift  struggle,  thou  hast^made  an 
exchange  !  Thou  hast  got  thy  robe  of  office,— as  Hercules  had 
his  Nessus'-shirt. 

On  the  13th  of  July  of  this  1788,  there  fell,  on  the  very  edge  of 
harvest,  the  most  frightful  hailstorm  ;  scattering  into  wild  waste 
the  Fruits  of  the  Year  ;  which  had  otherwise  suffered  grievously  by 
drought.  For  sixty  leagues  round  Paris  especially,  the  ruin  was 
almost  total. §  To  so  many  other  evils,  then,  there  is  to  be  added, 
that  of  dearth,  perhaps  of  famine. 

Some  days  before  this  hailstorm,  on  the  5th  of  July  ;  and 
still  more  decisively  some  days  after  it,  on  the  8th  of  August, — 
Lomenie  announces  that  the  States-General  are  actually  to  meet 
in  the  following  month  of  May.  Till  after  which  period,  this  of 
the  Plenary  Court,  and  the  rest,  shall  xemdim  postponed.  Fur- 
ther, as  in  Lomenie  there  is  no  plan  of  forming  or  holding  these 
most  desirable  States-General,  '  thinkers  are  invited '  to  furnish 
him  with  one, — through  the  medium  of  discussion  by  the  public 
press  ! 

What  could  a  poor  Minister  do  ?  There  are  still  ten  months 
of  respite  reserved  :  a  sinking  pilot  will  fling  out  all  things,  his 

*  Lameth,  Assemb,  Const.  (Introd.)  p.  87. 

f  Montgaillard,  i.  424.  J  See  Mdmoires  dc  Moreliet* 

§  Marmontel,  iv.  30. 


LOMENIES  DEATH-THROES.  85 


very  biscuit-bags,  lead,  log,  compass  and  quadrant,  before  flmgmg 
Zhilniself.  It  is  on  this  principle,  of  sinking,  and  the  incipient 
delirium  of  despair,  that  we  explain  likewise  the  almost  miraculous 
Sa^on  to  thinkers.'  Invitation  to  Chaos  to  be  so  kind  as 
build,  out  of  its  tumultuous  drift-wood,  an  Ark  of  Escape  for  him  ! 
In  these  cases,  not  invitation  but  command  has  usually  proved 
serviceable.-TheOueen  stood,  that  evening,  pensive  m  a  w-mdow 
t'^h  her  face  turned  towards  the  Garden  The  Cnef  dc  Gobelet 
had  followed  her  with  an  obsequious  cup  of  coffee  ,^and  then  re- 
tired till  it  were  sipped.  Her  Majesty  beckoned  Dame  Campan 
to  approach  :  "  GrZd  Die2C  murmured  she,  with  the  cup  in  her 
hand  "what  a  piece  of  news  will  be  made  pubhc  to-day  !  The 
S  prints  States-General."  Then  raising  her  eyes  to  Heaven 
ff  (!ampan  were  not  mistaken),  she  added:  -Tis  a  first  beat  of 
the  drum,  of  ill-omen  for  France.    This  Noblesse  will  ruin  us. 

Durin-  all  that  hatching  of  the  Plenary  Court,  while  Lamoignon 
looked  so  mysterious,  Besenval  had  kept  asking  him  one  question  : 
Whether  they  had  cash  ?  To  which  as  Lamoignon  always  ans- 
wered (on  the  faith  of  Lomenie)  that  the  cash  was  safe,  judicious 
Besenval  rejoined  that  then  all  was  safe.  Nevertheless,  the 
melancholy  efact  is,  that  the  royal  coffers  are  almost  getting 
literally  void  of  coin.  Indeed,  apart  from  all  other  things  this 
invitation  to  thinkers,'  and  the  great  change  now  at  hand  are 
enoueh  to  'arrest  the  circulation  of  capital,'  and  forward  only  that 
of  pamphlets.  A  few  thousand  gold  louis  are  now  all  of  money 
or  money's  worth  that  remains  in  the  King's  Treasury.  With 
another  movement  as  of  desperation,  Lomenie  invites  Necker  to 
come  and  be  Controller  of  Finances  !  Necker  has  other  work  m 
view  than  controlling  Finances  for  Lomenie:  with  a  dry  retusal 
he  stands  taciturn  ;  awaiting  his  time.       ,  ,         ,  ,  ^ 

What  shall  a  desperate  Prime  Minister  do  ?  He  has  grasped  at 
the  strongbox  of  the  King's  Theatre  :  some  Lottery  had  been  set 
on  foot  for  those  sufferers  by  the  hailstorm  ;  in  his  extreme  neces- 
sity Lomenie  lays  hands  even  on  this.f  To  make  provision  for 
the 'passing  day,  on  any  terms,  will  soon  be  impossible  —On  the 
i6th  of  August,  poor  Weber  heard,  at  Paris  and  Versailles, 
hawkers,  'with  a  hoarse  stifled  tone  of  no\z(^{voix  etoiiffee.sourde), 
drawling  and  snuffling,  through  the  streets,  an  Edict  concerning 
Payments  (such  was  the  soft  title  Rivarol  had  contrived  for  it)  : 
all  payments  at  the  Royal  Treasury  shall  be  made  henceforth, 
three-fifths  in  Cash,  and  the  remaining  two-fifths— m  Paper  bear- 
ing interest  !  Poor  Weber  almost  swooned  at  the  sound  of  these 
cracked  voices,  with  their  bodeful  raven-note  ;  and  will  never  forget 
the  effect  it  had  on  him.J 

But  the  effect  on  Paris,  on  the  world  generally  ?  From  the  dens 
of  Stock-brokerage,  from  the  heights  of  Pohtical  Economy,  of 
Neckerism  and  Philosophism  :  irom  all  articulate  and  inarticulate 
throats,  rise  hootings  and  howlin^s,  such  as  ear  had  not  yet  heard. 
Sedition  itself  may  be  imminent  1  Monseigneur  d'Artois,  moved 
by  Duchess  Polignac,  feels  called  to  wait  upon  her  Majesty ;  and 
;*  Campan,  iii.  104,  iii.         t  Besenval,  iii.  360.      J  Weber,  i.  339. 


ii6 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


explain  frankly  what  crisis  matters  stand  in.    '  The  Queen  wept 
Brienne  himself  wept for  it  is  now  visible  and  palpable  that  he 
must  go. 

Remains  only  that  the  Court,  to  whom  his  manners  and  garru- 
lities were  always  agreeable,  shall  make  liis  fall  soft.  The  grasp- 
ing old  man  has  already  got  his  Archbisliopship  of  Toulouse 
exchanged  for  the  richer  one  of  Sens  :  and  now,  in  this  hour  of 
pity,  he  shall  have  the  Coadjutorship  for  his  nephew  (hardly  yet  of 
due  age)  ;  a  Dameship  of  the  Palace  for  his  niece  ;  a  Regiment 
for  her  husband  ;  for  himself  a  red  Cardinal's-hat,  a  Coupe  de 
Bois  (cutting  from  the  royal  forests),  and  on  the  whole  '  from  five  i 
to  six  hundred  thousand  livres  of  revenue  :  '"^  finally,  his  Brother, 
the  Comte  de  Brienne,  shall  still  continue  War-minister.  Buckled- 
round  with  such  bolsters  and  huge  featherbeds  of  Promotion,  let 
him  now  fall  as  soft  as  he  can  !  ; 

And  so  Lomenie  departs  :  rich  if  Court-titles  and  Money-bonds 
can  enrich  him  ;  but  if  these  cannot,  perhaps  the  poorest  of  alt 
extant  men.    '  Hissed  at  by  the  people  of  Versailles,'  he  drives 
forth  to  Jardi  ;  southward  to  Brienne,— for  recoverv  of  health. 
Then  to  Nice,  to  Italy  ;  but  shall  return  ;  shall  glide  to  and  fro* 
iremulous,  faint-tvvinkhng,  fallen  on  awful  times  :  till  the  Guillo- 
tine—snuff out  his  weak  existence  ?    Alas,  worse  :  for  it  is  blow7t  i 
out,  or  choked  out,  foully,  i:itiably,  on  the  way  to  the  Guillotine  !  i 
In  his  Palace  of  Sens,  rude  Jacobin  fjaillfts  made  him  drink  with  i 
them  from  his  own  wine-cellars,  feast  with  them  from  his  own^  i 
larder  ;  and  on  the  morrow  morning,  the  miserable  old  man  lies  | 
dead.    This  is  the  end  of  Prime  Minister,  Cardinal  Archbishop  \ 
Lomenie  de  Brienne.    Flimsier  mortal  was  seldom  fated  to  do  as  ! 
weighty  a  mischief ;  to  have  a  life  as  despical^le-envied,  an  exit  as  ' 
frightful.    Fired,  as  the  phrase  is,  with  ambition  :  blov/n,  like  a  < 
kindled  rag,  the  sport  of  winds,  not  this  way,  not  that  way,  but  of  ' 
all  ways,  straight  towards  .f^/^//  a  powder-mine,— v/hich  he  kindled  ! 
Let  us  pity  the  hapless  Lomenie ;  and  forgive  him  ;  and,  as  soon 
as  possible,  forget  him. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

BURIAL  WITH  BONFIRE. 

Besenval,  during  these  extraordinary  operations,  of  Payment 
two-fifths  in  Paper,  and  change  of  Prime  Minister,  haa  been  out 
on  a  tour  through  his  District  of  Command  ;  and  indeed,  for  tlie 
last  months,  peacefully  drinking  the  waters  of  Contrexeville. 
Returning  now,  in  the  end  of  August,  towards  Moulins,  and 
^knowing  nothing,'  he  arrives  one  evening  nt  Langres  ;  finds  the 
whole  1  own  in  a  state  of  uproar  {<^7'a7ide  rinnein-^.  Doubtless 


*  Weber,  i.  341. 


BURIAL  WITH  BONFIRE. 


87 


some  sedition  ;  a  thing  too  common  in  these  days  !  He  ahghts 
nevertheless  ;  inquires  of  a  ^  man  tolerably  dressed/  what  the 
matter  is  ? — "  How  ?"  answers  the  man,  "you  have  not  heard  the 
news  ?  The  Archbishop  is  thrown  out,  and  M.  Necker  is  recalled ; 
and  all  is  going  to  go  well ! 

Such  7'2imcur  and  vociferous  acclaim  has  risen  round  M. 
Necker,  ever  from  '  that  day  when  he  issued  from  the  Queen's 
^Apartments,'  a  nominated  Minister.  It  was  on  the  24th  of  August : 
'the  galleries  of  the  Chateau,  the  courts,  the  streets  of  Versailles  ; 
*in  few  hours,  the  Capital;  and,  as  the  news  flew,  all  France, 

*  resounded  with  the  cry  of  Vive  le  Roi !    Vive  M.  Necker !i  In 

*  Paris  indeed  it  unfortunately  got  the  length  of  turbulence/ 
Petards,  rockets  go  off,  in  the  Place  Dauphine,  more  than  enough. 
A  '  wicker  Figure  {Mannequin  d^osier)^  in  Archbishop's  stole, 
made  emblematically,  three-fifths  of  it  satin,  two-fifths  of  it  paper, 
is  promenaded,  not  in  silence,  to  the  popular  judgment-bar  ;  is 
doomed  ;  shriven  by  a  mock  Abbe  de  Vermond  ;  then  solemnly 
consumed  by  fire,  at  the  foot  of  Henri's  Statue  on  the  Pont  Neuf ; 
— with  such  petarding  and  huzzaing  that  Chevalier  Dubois  and 
his  City-watch  see  good  finally  to  make  a  charge  (more  or  less 
ineffectual)  ;  and  there  wanted  not  burning  of  sentry-lDoxes,  forcing 
of  guard-houses,  and  also  '  dead  bodies  thrown  into  the  Seine 
over-night,'  to  avoid  new  effervescence.! 

Parlements  therefore  shall  return  from  exile  :  Plenary  Court, 
Payment  two-fifths  in  Paper  have  vanished  ;  gone  off  in  smoke, 
at  the  foot  of  Henri's  Statue.  States-General  (with  a  Political 
Millennium)  are  now  certain  ;  nay,  it  shall  be  announced,  in  our 
fond  haste,  for  January  next  :  and  all,  as  the  Langres  man  said,  is 
'  going  to  go.' 

To  the  prophetic  glance  of  Besenval,  one  other  thing  is  too 
apparent  :  that  Friend  Lamoignon  cannot  keep  his  Keepership. 
Neither  he  nor  War-minister  Comte  de  Brienne  !  Already  old 
Foulon,  with  an  eye  to  be  war-minister  himself,  is  making  under- 
ground movements.  This  is  that  same  Foulon  named  duie  damnee 
dii  Parlement ;  a  man  grown  gray  in  treachery,  in  griping,  pro- 
jecting, intriguing  and  iniquity  :  who  once  when  it  was  objected, 
to  some  finance-scheme  of  his,  What  will  the  people  do  ? " — 
made  answer,  in  the  fire  of  discussion,  "  The  people  may  eat 
grass  :  "  hasty  words,  which  fly  abroad  irrevocable, — and  will  send 
back  tidings  ! 

Foulon,  to  the  relief  of  the  world,  fails  on  this  occasion  ;  and 
will  always  fail.  Nevertheless  it  steads  not  M.  de  Lamoignon. 
It  steads  not  the  doomed  man  that  he  have  interviews  with  the 
King  ;  and  be  '  seen  to  return  i'adietix^  emitting  rays.  Lamoignon 
is  the  hated  of  Parlements  :  Comte  de  Brienne  is  Brother  to  the 
Cardinal  Archbishop.    The  24th  of  August  has  been  ;  and  the 

*  Besenval,  iii.  366.  f  Weber,  i.  342. 

Hlsioire  Parlcniep.iairc  de  la  Ri^volution  jFranqaise ;  on  'Journal  des 
Assemblees  Nationales  dcpitis  1789  (Paris,  1833  et  seqq.),  i.  253.  Lameth, 
AssembUe  Constituante,  i.  (Introd.)  p.  89. 


THE  PARLEMENT  OF  PARIS. 


14th  September  is  not  yet,  when  they  two,  as  their  great  Principal 
had  done,  descend, — made  to  fall  soft^  like  him. 

And  now,  as  if  the  last  burden  had  been  rolled  from  its  heart, 
and  assurance  were  at  length  perfect,  Paris  bursts  forth  anew  into 
extreme  jubilee.  The  Basoche  rejoices  aloud,  that  the  foe  of 
Parlements  is  fallen  ;  Ncbility,  Gentry,  Commonalty  have 
rejoiced  ;  and  rejoice.  Nay  now,  with  new  emphasis,  Rascality 
itself,  starting  suddenly  from  its  dim  depths,  will  arise  and  do  it, 
— for  down  even  thither  the  new  Political  Evangel,  in  some  rude 
version  or  other,  has  penetrated.  It  is  Monday,  t^--  14th  of  Sep- 
tember 1788  :  Rascality  assembles  anew,  in  great  force,  in  the 
Place  Dauphine  ;  lets  off  petards,  fires  blunderbusses,  to  an  in- 
credible extent,  without  interval,  for  eighteen  hours.  There  is 
again  a  wicker  Figure,  '  Ma?ineqitz}i  of  osier  the  centre  of  end- 
less bowlings.  Also  Necker's  Portrait  snatched,  or  purchased, 
from  some  Printshop,  is  borne  processionally,  aloft  on  a  perch, 
with  huzzas  ; — an  example  to  be  remembered. 

But  chiefly  on  the  Pont  Neuf,  where  the  Great  Henri,  in 
bronze,  rides  sublime  ;  there  do  the  crowds  gather.  All  passengers 
must  stop,  till  they  have  bowed  to  the  People's  King,  and  said 
audibly  :  Vive  Henri  Qiiatre  j  au  diable  La^noignon  /  No  car- 
riage but  must  stop  ;  not  even  that  of  his  Highness  d'Orleans. 
Your  coach-door3  are  opened  :  Monsieur  will  please  to  put  forth 
his  head  and  bow  ;  or  even,  if  refractory,  to  alight  altogether,  and 
kneel  :  from  Madame  a  wave  of  her  plumes,  a  smile  of  her  fair 
face,  there  where  she  sits,  shall  suffice  :— and  surely  a  coin  or 
two  (to  buy  fjisees)  were  not  unreasonable  from  the  Upper 
Classes,  friends  of  Liberty?  In  this  manner  it  proceeds  for 
days  ;  in  such  rude  horse-play, — not  without  kicks.  The  City- 
watch  can  do  nothing  ;  hardly  save  its  own  skin  :  for  the  last  twelve- 
month, as  we  have  sometimes  seen,  it  has  been  a  kind  of  pastime 
to  7^^/;^/ the  Watch.  Besenval  indeed  is  at  hand  with  soldiers  ; 
but  they  have  orders  to  avoid  firing,  and  are  not  prompt  to  stir. 

On  Monday  morning  the  explosion  of  petards  began  :  and  now 
it  is  near  midnight  of  Wednesday  ;  and  the  *  wicker  Mannequin"^ 
is  to  be  buried, — apparently  in  the  Antique  fashion.  Long  rows 
of  torches,  following  it,  move  towards  the  Hotel  Lamoignon  ;  but 
'  a  servant  of  mine'  (Besenval's)  has  run  to  give  warning,  and  there 
are  soldiers  come.  Gloomy  Lamoignon  is  not  to  die  by  con- 
flagration, or  this  night  ;  not  yet  for  a  year,  and  then  by  gunshot 
(suicidal  or  accidental  is  unknown).*^  Foiled  Rascality  burns  its 
'Mannikin  of  osier,'  under  his  windows;  ^  tears  up  the  sentry- 
box,'  and  rolls  off :  to  try  Brienne  ;  to  try  Dubois  Captain  of  the 
Watch.  Now,  however,  all  is  bestirring  itself ;  Gardes  Fran^aises, 
Invalides,  Horse-patrol  :  the  Torch  Procession  is  met  with  sharp 
shot,  with  the  thrusting  of  bayonets,  the  slashing  of  sabres.  Even 
Dubois  makes  a  charge,  with  that  Cavalry  of  his,  and  the  cruelest 
charge  of  all  :  *  there  are  a  great  many  killed  and  wounded.' 
Not  without  clangour,  complaint  ;  subsequent  criminal  trials,  and 
*  Histoire  de  la  Rdvolution,  par  Deux  Amis  de  la  Libert^,  i.  50. 


BURIAL  WITH  BONFIRE. 


89 


official  persons  dying  of  heartbreak  So,  however,  with  steel- 
besom,  Rascality  is  brushed  back  into  its  dim  depths,  and  the 
streets  are  swept  clear. 

Not  for  a  century  and  half  had  Rascality  ventured  to  step  forth 
in  this  fashion  ;  not  for  so  long,  showed  its  huge  rude  lineaments 
in  the  light  of  day.  A  Wonder  and  new  Thing  :  as  yet  gamboling 
merely^  in  awkward  Brobdignag  sport,  not  without  quaintness  ; 
hardly  in  anger  :  yet  in  its  huge  half-vacant  laugh  lurks  a  shade 
of  grimness, — which  could  unfold  itself  ! 

However,  the  thinkers  invited  by  Lomenie  are  now  far  on  with 
their  pamphlets  :  States- General,  on  one  plan  or  another,  will 
infallibly  meet  ;  if  not  in  January,  as  was  once  hoped,  yet  at 
latest  in  May.  Old  Duke  de  Richelieu,  moribund  in  these  autumn 
days,  opens  his  eyes  once  more,  murmuring,  "  What  would  Louis 
Fourteenth  (w^hom  he  remembers)  "  have  said  !  — then  closes 
them  again,  forever,  before  the  evil  time. 


*  Histoire  de  la  Revolution,  par  Deux  Amis  de  la  Liberie,  i.  58, 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

STATES  GENERAL. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NOTABLES  AGAIN. 

The  universal  prayer,  therefore,  is  to  be  fulfilled  !  Always  in 
days  of  national  perplexity,  when  wrong  abounded  and  help  was 
not,  this  remedy  of  States-General  was  called  for  ;  by  a  Male- 
sherbes,  nay  by  a  Fenelon  even  Parlements  calling  for  it  were 
'  escorted  with  blessings.'  And  now  behold  it  is  vouchsafed  us  ; 
States-General  shall  verily  be  ! 

To  say,  let  States-General  be,  was  easy  ;  to  say  in  what  manner 
they  shall  be,  is  not  so  easy.  Since  the  year  of  1614,  there  have  no 
States-General  met  in  France,  all  trace  of  them  has  vanished 
from  the  living  habits  of  men.  Their  structure,  powers,  methods 
of  procedure,  which  were  never  in  any  measure  fixed,  have  now 
become  wholly  a  vague  possibility.  Clay  which  the  potter  may 
shape,  this  way  or  that  :— say  rather,  the  twenty-five  millions  of 
potters  ;  for  so  many  have  now,  more  or  less,  a  vote  in  it  !  How 
to  shape  the  States-General?  There  is  a  problem.  Each  Body- 
corporate,  each  privileged,  each  organised  Class  has  secret  hopes 
of  its  own  in  that  matter ;  and  also  secret  misgivings  of  its  own, 
—for,  behold,  this  monstrous  twenty-milhon  Class,  hitherto  the 
dumb  sheep  which  these  others  had  to  agree  about  the  manner  of 
shearing,  is  now  also  arising  with  hopes  !  It  has  ceased  or  is 
ceasing  to  be  dumb  ;  it  speaks  through  Pamphlets,  or  at  least 
brays  and  growls  behind  them,  in  unison, — increasing  wonderfully 
their  volume  of  sound. 

As  for  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  it  has  at  once  declared  for  the 
'old  form  of  1614.'  Which  form  had  this  advantage,  that  the 
Tiers  Etat,  Third  Estate,  or  Commons,  figured  there  as  a  show 
mainly  :  whereby  the  Noblesse  and  Clergy  had  but  to  avoid 
quarrel  between  themselves,  and  decide  unobstructed  what  they 
thought  best.    Such  was  the  clearly  declared  opinion  of  the  Paris 


*  Moittgaillard,  i.  461. 


THE  NOTABLES  AGAIN, 


91 


Parlement.  But,  being  met  by  a  storm  of  mere  hooting  and  howl- 
ing from  all  men,  such  opinion  was  blown  straightway  to  the  winds  ; 
and  the  popularity  of  the  Parlement  along  with  it^ — never  to  re- 
turn. The  Parlements  part,  we  said  above,  was  as  good  as  played. 
Concerning  which,  however,  there  is  this  further  to  be  noted  : 
the  proximity  of  dates.  It  was  on  the  22nd  of  September  that  the 
Parlement  returned  from  'vacation'  or  '  exile  in  its  estates  to  be 
reinstalled  amid  boundless  jubilee  from  all  Paris.  Precisely  next 
day  it  was,  that  this  same  Parlement  came  to  its  '  clearly  declared 
*  opinion  : '  and  then  on  the  morrow  after  that,  you  behold  it 
^  covered  with  outrages  ; '  its  outer  court,  one  vast  sibilation,  and 
the  glory  departed  from  it  for  evermore.^  A  popularity  of  twenty- 
four  hours  was,  in  those  times,  no  uncommon  allowance. 

On  the  other  hand,  how  superfluous  was  that  invitation  oi 
Lomenie's  :  the  invitation  to  thinkers  !  Thinkers  and  unthinkers, 
by  the  million,  are  spontaneously  at  their  post,  doing  what  is  in 
them.  Clubs  labour  :  Societe  Pttblicole;  Breton  Club  ;  Enraged 
Club,  Club  des  Enrages.  Likewise  Dinner-parties  in  the  Palais 
Royal ;  your  Mirabeaus,  Talley rands  dining  there,  in  company 
with  Chamforts,  Morellets,  with  Duponts  and  hot  Parlementeers, 
not  without  object  !  For  a  certain  Nccker^dcW  Lion's-provider, 
whom  one  could  name,  assembles  them  there  ;+— or  even  their 
own  private  determination  to  have  dinner  does  it.  And  then  as  to 
Pamphlets-^-in  figurative  language,  '  it  is  a  sheer  snowing  of 
^pamphlets;  like  to  snow  up  the  Government  thoroughfares  l  ' 
Now  is  the  time  for  Friends  of  Freedom  ;  sane,  and  even  insane. 

Count,  or  self-styled  Count,  d'Aintrigues.  '  the  young  Langue- 
docian  gentleman,'  with  perhaps  Chamfort  the  Cynic  to  help  him, 
rises ^  into  furor  almost  Pythic  ;  highest,  where  many  are  high.  J 
Foolish  young  Languedocian  gentleman  ;  who  himself  so  soon, 
'emigratmg  among  the  foremost^'  must  fly  indignant  over  the 
marches,  with  the  Contrat  Social  in  his  pocket,— towards  outer 
darkness,  thankless  intriguings,  ignis-fattms  hoverings,  and  death 
by  the  stiletto  \  Abbe  Sieyes  has  left  Chartres  Cathedral,  and 
canonry  and  book-shelves  there  ;  has  let  his  tonsure  grow,  and 
come  to  Paris  with  a  secular  head,  of  the  most  irrefragable  sort,  to 
ask  three  questions,  and  answer  them  :  What  is  the  Third  Estate  ? 
AH.— What  has  it  hitherto  been  in  otir  f 07^711  of  ^ove?yt7nent  ? 
Nothing  — What  does  it  wa7it?    To  become  So77iethi7ig. 

D'Orleans,— for  be  sure  he,  on  his  way  to  Chaos,  is"  in  the  thick 
of  this,— promtflgates  his  Delibe7^ations  j%  fathered  by  him,  written 
by  Laclos  of  the  Liaisons  Da7igereiises.  The  result  of  which  comes 
out  simply  :  '  The  Third  Estate  is  the  Nation.'  On  the  other  hand, 
Monseigneur  d'Artois,  with  other  Princes  of  the  Blood,  pubhshes, 
m  solemn  Me77iorial  to  the  King,  that  if  such  things  be  hstened  to, 
Privflege,  Nobility,  Monarchy,  Church,  State  and  Strongbox  are 
mdanger.ll    In  danger  truly  :  and  yet  if  you  do  not  listen,  are 

*  ^^f"^^'     347.  t  Ibid.  i.  360. 

I  Mimoire  sur  les  Etafs-Gdnercnix.    See  Mont^raillard,  i.  457-9. 

^  Dilibiratio7is  d,  prendre  pour  les  Assemblees  des  Bail  Hashes. 

y  Mdmotre  presents  ati  Rol,  par  Monseigneur  Comte  d'Artois,  M.  le  Prince 


92 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


they  out  of  danger  ?  It  is  the  voice  of  all  France,  this  sound  that 
rises.  Immeasurable,  manifold;  as  the  sound  of  outbreaking 
waters  :  wise  were  he  who  knew  what  to  do  in  it,— if  not  to  fly  to 
the  mountains,  and  hide  himself? 

How  an  ideal,  all-seeing  Versailles  Government,  sitting  there  on 
such  prmciples,  in  such  an  environment,  would  have  determined  to 
^demean  itself  at  this  new  juncture,  may  even  yet  be  a  question. 
Such  a  Government  would  have  felt  too  well  that  its  long  task  was 
now  drawing  to  a  close  ;  that,  under  the  guise  of  these  States- 
General,  at  length  inevitable,  a  new  omnipotent  Unknown  of 
Democracy  was  coming  into  being  ;  in  presence  of  which  no  Ver- 
sallies  Government  either  could  or  should,  except  in  a  provisory 
character,  continue  extant.  To  enact  which  provisory  character, 
so  unspeakably  important,  might  its  whole  faculties  but  have  suf- 
ficed ;  and  so  a  peaceable,  gradual,  well-conducted  Abdication  and 
Domtne-dimittas  have  been  the  issue  ! 

This  for  our  ideal,  all-seeing  Versailles  Government.    But  for 
the  actual  irrational  Versailles  Government?    Alas,  that  is  a 
Government  existing  there  only  for  its  own  behoof :  without  right, 
except  possession  ;   and  now  also  without  might.     It  foresees 
nothing,  sees  nothing  ;  has  not  so  much  as  a  purpose,  but  has  only 
purposes,-— and  the  instinct  whereby  all  that  exists  will  struggle  to 
keep  existing.    Wholly  a  vortek;  in  which  vain  counsels,  hallucina- 
tions, falsehoods,  intrigues,  and  imbecilities  whirl  ;  like  withered 
rubbish  in  the  meeting  of  winds  !    The  CEil-de-Bceuf  has  its  irra- 
tional hopes,  if  also  its  fears.    Since  hitherto  all  States-General 
have  done  as  good  as  nothing,  why  should  these  do  more  ?    The  ^ 
Commons,  indeed,  look  dangerous  ;  but  on  the  whole  is  not  revolt,  < 
unknown  now  for  five  generations,  an  impossibihty  ?    The  Three  \ 
Estates  can,  by  management,  be  set  against  each  other  ;  the  Third  i 
will,  as  heretofore,  join  with  the  King  ;  will,  out  of  mere  spite  and  ' 
self-interest,  be  eager  to  tax  and  vex  the  other  two.    The  other 
two  are  thus  delivered  bound  into  our  hands,  that  we  may  fleece 
them  likewise.    Whereupon,  money  being  got,  and  the  Three 
Estates  all  in  quarrel,  dismiss  them,  and  let  the  future  go  as  it  can! 
As  good  Archbishop  Lomenie  was  wont  to  say:  "There  are  so 
many  accidents  ;  and  it  needs  but  one  to  save  us."— How  many  to 
destroy  us  ? 

Poor.  Necker  in  the  midst  of  such  an  anarchy  does  what  is  pos- 
sible for  him.  He  looks  into  it  with  obstinately  hopeful  face  ; 
lauds  tjie  known  rectitude  of  the  kingly  mind  ;  listens  indulgent- 
like  to  the  known  perverseness  of  the  queenly  and  courtly  ;— emits 
if  any  proclamation  or  regulation,  one  favouring  the  Tiers  Etat ; 
but  settling  nothing  ;  hovering  afar  off  rather,  and  advising  all 
things  to  settle  themselves.  The  grand  questions,  for  the  present, 
have  got  reduced  to  two  :  the  Double  Representation,  and  the  Vote 
by  Head.  Shall  the  Commons  have  a  'double  representation,' 
that  is  to  say,  have  as  many  members  as  the  Noblesse  and  Clergy 

de  Cond6,  M.  le  Due  de  Bourbon,  M.  le  Due  d'Enghien,  et  M.  le  Prince  de 
Conti,   (Given  in  Hist  ParL  i.  256.) 


THE  NOTABLES  AGAIN. 


03 


united  ?  Shall  the  States-General,  when  once  assembled,  vote  and 
deliberate,  in  one  body,  or  in  three  separate  bodies  ;  '  vote  by  head, 
or  vote  by  class,'— ^r^/rd^  as  they  call  it  ?  These  are  the  moot- 
points  n©w  filling  all  France  v/ith  jargon,  logic  and  eleutheromania. 
To  terminate  which,  Necker  bethinks  him,  Might  not  a  second 
Convocation  of  the  Notables  be  fittest  ?  Such  second  Convocation 
is  resolved  on. 

On  the  6th  of  November  of  this  year  1788,  these  Notables 
accordingly  have  reassembled  ;  after  an  interval  of  some  eighteen 
months.  They  are  Calonne's  old  Notables,  the  same  Hundred 
and  Forty-four, — to  show  one's  impartiality  ;  likewise  to  save 
time.  They  sit  there  once  again,  in  their  Seven  Bureaus,  in  the 
hard  winter  weather:  it  is  the  hardest  winter  seen  since  1709; 
thermometer  below  zero  of  Fahrenheit,  Seine  River  frozen  over.*^ 
Cold,  scarcity  and  eleutheromaniac  clamour  :  a  changed  world 
since  these  Notables  were  ^  organed  out,'  in  May  gone  a  year  ! 
They  shall  see  now  whether,  under  their  Seven  Princes  of  the 
Blood,  in  their  Seven  Bureaus,  they  can  settle  the  moot-points. 

To  the  surprise  of  Patriotism,  these  Notables,  once  so  patriotic, 
seem  to  incline  the  wrong  way ;  towards  the  anti-patriotic  side. 
They  stagger  at  the  Double  Representation,  at  the  Vote, by  Head  : 
there  is  not  affirm.ative  decision  ;  there  is  mere  debating,  and  that 
not  with  the  best  aspects.  For,  indeed,  were  not  these  Notables 
themselves  mostly  of  the  Privileged  Classes?  They  clamoured 
once  ;  now  they  have  their  misgivings  ;  make  their  dolorous 
representations.  Let  them  vanish,  ineffectual ;  and  return  no 
more  !  They  vanish  after  a  month's  session,  on  this  12th  of 
December,  year  1788:  the  last  terrestrial  Notables  ;  not  to  re- 
appear any  other  time,  in  the  History  of  the  World. 

And  so,  the  clamour  still  continuing,  and  the  Pamphlets  ;  and 
nothing  but  patriotic  Addresses,  louder  and  louder,  pouring  in  on 
us  from  all  corners  of  France, — Necker  himself  some  fortnight 
after,  before  the  year  is  yet  done,  has  to  present  his  Report^\  re- 
commending at  his  own  risk  that  same  Double  Representation  ; 
nay  almost  enjoining  it,  so  loud  is  the  jargon  and  eleutheromania. 
iWhat  dubitating,  what  circumambulating  1  These  v/hole  six  noisy 
months  (for  it  began  with  Brienne  in  July),  has  not  Report  followed 
Report^  and  one  Proclamation  flown  in  the  teeth  of  the  other  ?  % 

■  However,  that  first  moot-point,  as  we  see,  is  now  settled.  As 
for  the  second,  that  of  voting  by  Head  or  by  Order,  it  unfortunately 
is  still,  left  hanging.  It  hangs  there,  we  may  say,  betw^een  the 
.Privileged  Orders  and  the  Unprivileged  ;  as  a  ready-made  battle- 
prize,  and  necessity  of  war,  from  the  very  first  :  which  battle-prize 
whosoever  seizes  it — may  thenceforth  bear  as  battle-flag,  with  the 
best  omens  ! 

But  so,  at  least,  by  Royal  Edict  of  the  24th  of  January,§  does  it 

*  Marmontel,  M^?no ir es  (hondon,  1805),  iv.  33.    ffisf.  Pari.  &c. 
f  Rapport  fait  au  Roi  dans  son  Conseil,  le  27  Dicembre  1788. 
X  5th  July;  8th  August;  23rd  September,  &c.  &c. 

§  Rdglement  du  Roi  pour  la  Convocation  des  Etats-Gindraux  d  VerSOilUs^ 
((Reprinted,  wrong  dated,  in  Histoire  Parlcmentaire^  i.  262.) 


94 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


finally,  to  impatient  expectant  France,  become  not  only  indubit- 
able that  National  Deputies  are  to  meet,  but  possible  (so  far  and 
hardly  farther  has  the  royal  Regulation  gone)  to  begin  electing 
them. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THEELECTION. 

Up,  then,  and  be  doing  !  The  royal  signal-word  flies  through 
France,  as  through  vast  forests  the  rushing  of  a  mighty  wind.  .At 
Parish  Churches,  in  Townhalls,  and  every  House  of  Convocation  ; 
by  BailHages,  by  Seneschalsies^  in  whatsoever  form  men  convene  ; 
there,  with  confusion  enough,  are  Primary  Assemblies  forming. 
To  elect  your  Electors  ;  such  is  the  form  prescribed  :  then  to 
draw  up  your  '  Writ  of  Plaints  and  Grievances  {Cahie?-  de  plaintes 
et  dolea7tces),^  of  which  latter  there  is  no  lack. 

With  such  virtue  works  this  Royal  January  Edict  ;  as  it  rolls 
rapidly,  in  its  leathern  mails,  along  these  frostbound  highways, 
towards  all  the  four  winds.  Like  some  Jiat,  or  magic  spell-word  ; 
— which  such  things  do  resemble  !  For  always,  as  it  sounds  out 
'  at  the  market-cross,'  accompanied  with  trumpet-blast  ;  presided 
by  Bailh,  Seneschal,  or  other  minor  Functionary,  with  beef-eaters; 
or,  in  country  churches  is  droned  forth  after  sermon,  'an  prone  des 
messes pay-oissales  ;''  and  is  registered,  posted  and  let  fly  over  all 
the  world, — you  behold  how  this  multitudinous  French  People,  so 
long  simmering  and  buzzing  in  eager  expectancy,  begins  heaping 
and  shaping  itself  into  organic  groups.  Which  organic  groups, 
again,  hold  smaller  organic  grouplets  :  the  inarticulate  buzzing- 
becomes  articulate  speaking  and  acting.  By  Primary  Assembly, 
and  then  by  Secondary  ;  by  '  successive  elections,'  and  infinite 
elaboration  and  scrutiny,  according  to  prescribed  process  — shall 
the  genuine  '  Plaints  and  Grievances  '  be  at  length  got  to  paper  ; 
shall  the  fit  National  Representative  be  at  length  laid  hold  of. 

How  the  whole  People  shakes  itself,  as  if  it  had  one  life  ;  and, 
in  thousand-voiced  rumour,  announces  that  it  is  awake,  suddenly 
out  of  long  death-sleep,  and  will  thenceforth  sleep  no  more  !  The 
long  looked-for  has  come  at  last ;  wondrous  news,  of  Victory, 
Deliverance,  Enfranchisement,  sounds  magical  through  every 
heart.  To  the  proud  strong  man  it  has  come  ;  whose  strong 
hands  shall  no  more  be  gyved  :  to  whom  boundless  unconquereci 
continents  lie  disclosed.  The  weary  day-drudge  has  heard  of  it  ; 
the  beggar  with  his  crusts  moistened  in  tears.  What!  To  us 
also  has  hope  reached  ;  down  even  to  us?  Hunger  and  hardshij) 
are  not  to  be  eternal  ?  The  bread  we  extorted  from  the  rugged 
glebe,  and,  with  the  toil  of  our  sinews,  reaped  and  ground,  and 
kneaded  into  loaves,  was  not  wholly  for  nnother,  then  ;  but  \\  e 
also  shall  eat  of  it,  and  be  filled  Glorious  news  (answer  the 
prudent  elders^  but  all-too  unlikely  ! — Thus,  at  any  rate,  may  the 


THE  ELECTION. 


lower  people,  who  pay  no  money-taxes  and  have  no  right  to  vote,"^ 
assiduously  crowd  round  those  that  do  ;  and  most  Halls  of 
Assembly,  within  doors  and  without,  seem  animated  enough. 

Paris,  alone  of  Towns,  is  to  have  Representatives  ;  the  number 
of  them  twenty.  Paris  is  divided  into  Sixty  Districts  ;  each  of  which 
(assembled  in  some  church,  or  the  Hke)  is  choosing  two  Electors. 
Official  deputations  pass  from  District  to  District,  for  all  is  inex- 
perience as  yet,  and  there  is  endless  consulting.  The  streets 
swarm  strangely  with  busy  crowds,  pacific  yet  restless  and  loqua- 
cious ;  at  intervals,  is  seen  the  gleam  of  military  muskets  ;  espe- 
cially about  the  Palais,  where  the  Parlement,  once  more  on  duty, 
sits  querulous,  almost  tremulous. 

Busy  is  the  French  world  !  In  those  great  days,  what  poorest 
speculative  craftsm.an  but  will  leave  his  workshop  ;  if  not  to  vote, 
yet  to  assist  in  voting  On  all  highways  is  a  rustling  and  bustling. 
Over  the  wide  surface  of  France,  ever  and  anon,  through  the 
spring  months,  as  the  Sower  casts  his  corn  abroad  upon  the  fur- 
rows, sounds  of  congregating  and  dispersing  ;  of  crowds  in  de- 
hberation,  acclamation,  voting  by  ballot  and  by  voice,— rise  dis- 
crepant towards  the  ear  of  Heaven.  To  which  political  phenomena 
add  this  economical  one,  that  Trade  is  stagnant,  and  also  Bread 
getting  dear  ;  for  before  the  rigorous  winter  there  was,  as  we  said, 
a  rigorous  summer,  with  drought,  and  on  the  13th  of  July  with 
destructive  hail.  What  a  fearful  day  !  all  cried  while  that  tempest 
fell.  Alas,  the  next  anniversay  of  it  will  be  a  worse.f  Under  such 
aspects  is  France  electing  National  Representatives. 

The  incidents  and  specialties  of  these  Elections  belong  not  to 
Universal,  but  to  Local  or  Parish  History  :  for  which  reason  let 
not  the  new  troubles  of  Grenoble  or  Besangon  ;  the  bloodshed 
on  the  streets  of  Rennes,  and  consequent  march  thither  of  the 
Breton  '  Young  Men '  with  Manifesto  by  their  *  Mothers,  Sisters 
*and  Sweethearts  I  nor  suchhke,  detain  us  here.  It  is  the 
same  sad  history  everywhere  ;  with  superficial  variations.  A  rein- 
stated Parlement  (as  at  Besangon),  which  stands  astonished  at 
this  Behemoth  of  a  States-General  it  had  itself  evoked,  starts  for- 
ward, with  more  or  less  audacity,  to  fix  a  thorn  in  its  nose  ;  and, 
alas,  IS  instantaneously  struck  down,  and  hurled  quite  out —for 
the  new  popular  force  can  use  not  only  arguments  but  brickbats  ! 
Or  else,  and  perhaps  combined  with  this,  it  is  an  order  of  Noblesse 
(as  m  Brittany),  which  will  beforehand  tie  up  the  Third  Estate, 
that  it  harm  not  the  old  privileges.  In  which  act  of  tying  up, 
never  so  skilfully  set  about,  there  is  likewise  no  possibihty  of 
prospering;  but  the  Behemoth-Briareus  snaps  your  cords  like 

^  Rdglement  du  Rol  (in  Histoire  Parlementaire,  as  above,  i.  267-^07  ) 
t  Bailly,  M^moircs,  i.  336.  /  o  /  / 

X  Protestation  ct  Arrctd  des  Jeunes  Gens  dc  la  Ville  de  Nantes,  die  28 
Janvu7'  T789,  avant  leur  depart  pour  Rennes.  An  '/ '  dcs  Jennes  Gens  de  la 
Ville  d' Angers,  du  ^  Fdvrier  1789.  Arrcte  drs  Mercs,  Scsurs,  Epoiises  ct 
Amantes  des  Jeunes  Citoyejis  d' Angers,  du  6  Fdvrier  1789.  (Reprinted  in 
Histoire  Pai^lementaire^  i.  290-g.) 


96 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


green  rushes.  Tie  up  ?  Alas,  Messieurs  !  And  then,  as  for  your 
chivalry  rapiers,  valour  and  wager-of-battle,  think  one  moment, 
how  can  that  answer  ?  The  plebeian  heart  too  has  red  life  in  it, 
which  changes  not  to  paleness  at  glance  even  of  you  ;  and  '  the 
'  six  hundred  Breton  gentleir.cn  assembled  in  arms,  for  seventy- 
'  two  hours,  in  the  Cordeliers^  Cloister,  at  Rennes,'— have  to  come 
out  again,  wiser  than  they  entered.  For  the  Nantes  Youth,  the 
Angers  Youth,  all  Brittany  was  astir  ;  '  mothers,  sisters  and  sweet- 
^hearts'  shrieking  after  them,  March!  The  Breton  Noblesse 
must  even  let  the  mad  world  have  its  way.^ 

In  other  Provinces,  the  Noblesse,  with  equal  goodwill,  finds  it 
better  to  stick  to  Protests,  to  well-redacted  '  Cahiers  of  grievances,' 
and  satirical  writings  and  speeches.  Such  is  partially  their  course 
in  Provence  ;  whither  indeed  Gabriel  Honore  Riquetti  Comte  de 
Mirabeau  has  rushed  down  from  Paris,  to  speak  a  word  in  season. 
In  Provence,  the  Privileged,  backed  by  their  Aix  Parlement,  dis- 
cover that  such  novelties,  enjoined  though  they  be  by  Royal  Edict, 
tend  to  National  detriment  ;  and  what  is  still  more  indisputable, 

*  to  impair  the  dignity  of  the  Noblesse.'  Whereupon  Mirabeau 
protesting  aloud,  this  same  Noblesse,  amid  huge  tumult  within 
doors  and  without,  flatly  determines  to  expel  him  from  their  As- 
sembly. No  other  method,  not  even  that  of  successive  duels, 
would  answer  with  him,  the  obstreperous  fierce-glaring  man. 
Expelled  he  accordingly  i^. 

*  In  all  countries,  in  all  times,'  exclaims  he  departing,  '  the 
^  Aristocrats  have  implacably  pursued  every  friend  of  the  People  ; 
^  and  with  tenfold  implacability,  if  such  a  one  were  himself  born 
'  of  the  Aristocracy.    It  was  thus  that  the  last  of  the  Gracchi 

*  perished,  by  the  hands  of  the  Patricians.    But  he,  being  struck 

*  with  the  mortal  stab,  flung  dust  towards  heaven,  and  called  on' 

*  the  Avenging  Deities  ;  and  from  this  dust  there  was  born  Marius, 
<  — Marius  not  so  illustrious  for  exterminating  the  Cimbri,  as  for 

*  overturning  in  Rome  the  tyranny  of  the  Nobles.'t  Casting  up 
which  new  curious  handful  of  dust  (through  the  Printing-press), 
to  breed  what  it  can  and  may,  Mirabeau  stalks  forth  into  the 
Third  Estate. 

That  he  now,  to  ingratiate  himself  with  this  Third  Estate, 
^  opened  a  cloth-shop  in  Marseilles,'  and  for  moments  became  a 
furnishing  tailor,  or  even  the  fable  that  he  did  so,  is  to  us  always 
among  the  pleasant  memorabilities  of  this  era.  Stranger  Clothier 
never  wielded  the  ell-wand,  and  rent  webs  for  men,  or  fractional 
parts  of  men.  The  Fils  Adoptif  is  indignant  at  such  disparaging 
fable, J — which  nevertheless  was  widely  believed  in  those  days.| 
But  indeed,  if  Achilles,  in  the  heroic  ages,  killed  mutton,  why 
should  not  Mirabeau,  in  the  unheroic  ones,  measure  broadcloth  ? 

More  authentic  arc  his  triumph-progresses  through  that  dis- 
turbed district,  with  niol)  jiilVilce,  flaming  torches,  'windows  hired 
'for  two  louis,' and  voluntary  guard  of  a  hundred  men.    He  is 

*  Hist.  Pari.  \.  287.    Deux  Amis  de  la  Libert^,  \.  105-128. 

t  Fils  Adoptif,  V.  256.  X  Md?7ioircs  de  Mirabeau,  v.  307. 

§  Ui^xdX^  Ami-du-Petiflc  Newspaper  (in  Histoire  Parlcmcntaire^  ii.  103),  &c. 


THE  ELECTION. 


97 


Deputy  Elec?t,  both  of  Aix  and  of  Marseilles  ;  but  will  prefer  Aix. 
He  has  opened  his  far-sounding  voice,  the  depths  of  his  far- 
sounding  soul ;  he  can  quell  (such  virtue  is  in  a  spoken  word)  the 
pride-tumults  of  the  rich,  the  hunger-t'imults  of  the  poor  ;  and 
wild  multitudes  move  under  him,  as  under  the  moon  do  bi]lows 
of  the  sea  :  he  has  become  a  world  compcller,  and  ruler  over 
men. 

One  other  incident  and  cpecially  we  note  ;  with  how  different 
an  interest !  It  is  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris ;  which  starts  for- 
ward, like  the  others  (only  with  less  audacity,  seeing  better  how  it 
lay),  to  nose-ring  that  Behemoth  of  a  States-General.  Worthy 
Doctor  Guillotin,  respectable  practitioner  in  Paris,  has  drawn  up 
his  little  '  Plan  of  a  Cahier  of  doleances  ;^ — as  had  he  not,  having 
the  wish  and  gift,  the  clearest  liberty  to  do  ?  He  is  getting  the 
people  to  sign  it  ;  whereupon  the  surly  Parlement  summons  him 
to  give  account  of  himself.  He  Qoes  ;  but  with  all  Paris  at  his 
heels  ;  which  floods  the  outer  courts,  and  copiously  signs  the  Cahier 
even  there,  while  the  Doctor  is  giving  account  of  himself  within  ! 
[  The  Parlement  cannot  too  soon  dismiss  Guillotin,  with  compli- 
'  ments ;  to  be  borne  home  shoulder-high."^  This  respectable 
Guillotin  we  hope  to  behold  once  more,  and  perhaps  only  once  ; 
the  Parlement  not  even  once,  but  let  it  be  engulphed  unseen  by  us. 

Meanwhile  such  things,  cheering  as  they  are,  tend  little  to 
cheer  the  national  creditor,  or  indeed  aie  creditor  of  any  kind. 
In  the  midst  of  universal  portentous  doubt,  what  certainty  can 
seem  so  certain  as  money  in  the  purse,  and  the  wisdom  of  keeping 
it  there  Trading  Speculation,  Commerce  of  all  kinds,  has  as  far 
as  possible  come  to  a  dead  pau^e  ;  and  the  hand  of  the  industri- 
ous lies  idle  in  his  bosom.  Frightful  enough,  when  now  the 
rigour  of  seasons  has  also  done  its  part,  and  to  scarcity  of  work 
is  added  scarcity  of  food  !  In  the  opening  spring,  there  come 
rumours  of  forestalment,  there  come  King's  Edicts,  Petitions  of 
bakers  against  millers  ;  and  at  length,  in  the  month  of  April — 
troops  of  ragged  Lackalls,  and  fierce  cries  of  starvation  ]  These 
are  the  thrice-famed  Brigands:  an  actual  existing  quotity  of 
persons  :  who,  long  reflected  and  reverberated  through  so  many 
millions  of  heads,  as  in  co.  :ave  multiplying  mirrors,  become  a 
whole  Brigand  World  ;  and,  like  a  kind  of  Supernatural  Machinery 
'  wondrously  move  the  Epos  of  the  Revolution.  The  Brigands  are 
here  :  the  Brigands  are  there  ;  the  Brigands  are  coming  !  Not 
otherwise  sounded  the  clang  of*  Phoebus  Apollo's  silver  bow, 
scattering  pestilence  and  pale  terror  ;  for  this  clang  too  was  of 
the  imagination  ;  preternatural  ;  and  it  too  walked  in  formless 
immeasurability,  having  viade  itself  like  to   the  Night  iyvrri 

But  remark  at  least,  for  the  first  time,  the  singular  empire  of 
Suspicion,  in  those  lands,  in  those  days.    If  poor  famishing  men 
shall,  prior  to  death,  gather  in  groups  and  crowds,  as  the  poor 
fieldfares  and  pjovers  do  in  bitter  weather,  were  it  iDut  that  they 
*  £>eux  Amis  de  la  Liberti,  i.  141. 


98 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


may  chirp  mournfully  together,  and  misery  look  in  the  eyes  of 
misery  ;  if  famishing  men  (what  famishing  fieldfares  cannot  do) 
should  discover,  once  congregated,  that  they  need  not  die  while 
food  is  in  the  land,  since  they  are  many,  and  with  empty  wallets 
have  right  hands  :  in  all  this,  what  need  were  there  of  Preter- 
natural Machinery  ?  To  most  people  none  ;  but  not  to  French 
people,  in  a  time  of  Revolution.  These  Brigands  (as  Turgot's  also 
were,  fourteen  years  ago)  have  all  been  set  on  ;  enlisted,  though 
without  tuck  of  drum,~by  Aristocrats,  by  Democrats,  by 
D'Oiieans,  D^Artois,  and  enemies  of  ihe  public  weal.  Nav  His- 
torians, to  this  day,  will  prove  ij  by  one  argument  :  these  Brigands 
pretending  to  have  no  victual,  nevertheless  contrive  to  drink,  nay, 
have  been  seen  drunk."^  An  unexampled  fact  !  But  on  the 
whole,  may  we  not  predict  that  a  people,  with  such  a  width  of 
Credulity  and  of  Incredulity  (the  proper  union  of  which  makes 
Suspicion,  and  indeed  unreason  generally),  will  see  Shapes  enough 
of  Immortals  fighting  in  its  battle-ranks,  and  never  want  for  Epical 
Machinery  ? 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Brigands  are  clearly  got  to  Paris,  in  con- 
siderable multitudes  :i  with  sallow  faces,  lank  hair  (the  true  en- 
thusiast complexion),  with  sooty  rags  ;  and  also  with  large  clubs, 
which  they  smite  angrily  against  the  pavement  !  These  mingle 
in  the  Election  tumult  ;  would  fain  sign  Guillotines  Cahier,  or  any 
Cahzer  or  Petition  whatsoever,  could  they  but  write.  Their  en- 
thusiast complexion,  the  smiting  of  their  sticks  bodes  little  good 
to  any  one  ;  least  of  all  to  rich  master-manufacturers  of  the 
Suburb  Saint-Antoine,  with  whose  workmen  they  consort. 


CHAPTER  III. 

GROWN  ELECTRIC. 

But  now  also  National  Deputies  from  all  ends  of  France  are  in 
Paris,  with  their  commissions,  what  they  call  pottvoirs,  or  powers, 
in  their  pockets  ;  inquiring,  consulting  ;  looking  out  for  lodgings 
at  Versailles.  The  States-General  shall  open  there,  if  not  on  the 
First,  then  surely  on  the  Fourth  of  May  ;  in  grand  procession  ancj 
gala.  The  Sal/c  des  Menus  is  all  new-carpentered,  bedizened  for 
them  ;  their  very  costume  has  been  fixed  ;  a  grand  controversy 
which  there  was,  as  to  ^  slouch-hats  or  slouched-hats,'  for  the  Com- 
mons Deputies,  has  got  as  j^ood  as  adjusted.  Ever  new  strangers 
arrive  ;  loungers,  miscellaneous  persons,  ofiicers  on  furlough, — as 
the  worthy  Captain  Dampmartin,  whom  we  hope  to  be  acquainted 
with  :  these  also,  from  all  regions,  have  repaired  hither,  to  see 
what  is  toward.  Our  Paris  Committees,  of  the  Sixty  Districts, 
are  busier  than  ever  ;  it  is  now  too  clear,  the  Paris  Elections  will 
be  late. 


*  Lacretclle,  i^me  Si  hie,  ii.  155, 


t  Besenval,  iii.  385,  &C. 


GROWN  ELECTRIC, 


99 


On  Monday,  the  27th  of  April,  Astronomer  Bailly  notices  that 
the  Sieur  Re'veillon  is  not  at  his  post.  The  Sieur  Reveillon, 
'extensive  Paper  Manufacturer  of  the  Rue  St.  Antoine  ; '  he, 
commonly  so  punctual,  is  absent  from  Electoral  Committee  ; — 
and  even  will  never  reappear  there.  In  those  '  immense  Magazines 
'  of  velvet  paper  '  has  aught  befallen  ?  Alas,  yes  !  Alas,  it  is  no 
Montgolfier  rising  there  to-day  ;  but  Drudgery,  Rascality  and  the 
Suburb  that  is  rising  !  Was  the  Sieur  Reveillon,  himself  once  a 
journeyman,  heard  to  say  that  '  a  journeyman  might  live  hand- 
'somely  on  fifteen  sous  a-day'.^  Some  sevenpence  halfpenny  : 
'tis  a  slender  sum  !  Or  was  he  only  thought,  and  believed,  to  b© 
heard  saying  it.^  By  this  long  chafing  and  friction  it  would  appear 
the  National  temper  has  got  electric. 

Down  in  those  dark  dens,  in  those  dark  heads  and  hungry  hearts, 
who  knows  in  what  strange  figure  the  new  Political  Evangel 
may  have  shaped  itself ;  what  miraculous  '  Communion  of 
'  Drudges'  may  be  getting  formed  !  Enough  :  grim  individuals,  soon 
waxing  to  grim  multitudes,  and  other  multitudes  crowding  to  see, 
beset  that  Paper- Warehouse  ;  demonstrate,  in  loud  ungrammatical 
language  (addressed  to  the  passions  too),  the  insufficiency  oi 
sevenpence  halfpenny  a-day.  The  City-watch  cannot  dissipate 
them;  broils  arise  and  bellowings  ;  Reveillon,  at  his  wits'  end, 
entreats  the  Populace,  entreats  the  authorities.  Besenval,  now  in 
active  command,  Commandant  of  Paris,  does,  towards  evening,  to 
Reveillon's  earnest  prayer,  send  some  thirty  Gardes  Frangaises. 
These  clear  the  street,  happily  without  firing  ;  and  take  post  there 
for  the  night  in  hope  that  it  may  be  all  over."^ 

Not  so  :  on  the  morrow  it  is  far  worse.  Saint-Antoine  has 
arisen  anew,  grimmer  than  ever  ;— reinforced  by  the  unknown 
Tatterdemalion  Figures,  with  their  enthusiast  complexion  and  large 
sticks.  The  City,  through  all  streets,  is  flowing  thitherward  co  see  : 
'  two  cartloads  of  paving-stones,  that  happened  to  pass  that  way" 
have  been  seized  as  a  visible  godsend.  Another  detachment  of 
Gardes  Frangaises  must  be  sent ;  Besenval  and  the  Colonel  taking 
earnest  counsel.  Then  still  another  ;  they  hardly,  with  bayonets 
and  menace  of  bullets,  penetrate  to  the  spot.  What  a  sight  !  A 
street  choked  up,  with  lumber,  tumult  and  the  endless  press  of 
men.  A  Paper- Warehouse  eviscerated  by  axe  and  fire  :  mad  din 
of  Revolt  ;  musket- volleys  responded  to  by  yells,  by  miscellaneous 
missiles,  by  tiles  raining  from  roof  and  window,— tiles,  execrations 
and  slain  men  !  ' 

The  Gardes  Francaises  like  it  not,  but  have  to  persevere.  All 
day  It  continues,  slackening  and  rallying  ;  the  sun  is  sinking,  and 
Samt-Antome  has  not  yielded.  The  City  flies  hither  and  thither  : 
alas,  the  sound  of  that  musket-volleying  booms  into  the  far  dining- 
rooms  of  the  Chaussee  d'Antin  ;  alters  the  tone  of  the  dinner-gossip 
there.  Captain  Dampmartin  leaves  his  wine  ;  goes  out  with  a 
iriend  or  two,  to  see  the  fighting.  Unwashed  men  growl  on  him, 
with  murmurs  ot  ''A  has  les  Aristocrntes  (Down  with  the  Aristo- 

CFats) ; "  and  insult  the  cross  of  St.  Louis  1  They  elbow  him,  and 
*  Besenval,  iii,  385-8, 


too  STATES-GENERAL. 


hustle  him  ;  but  do  not  pick  his  pocket  ; — as  indeed  at  Reveillon's 
too  there  was  not  the  shghtest  stealing.^ 

At  fall  of  night,  as  the  thing  will  not  end,  Besenval  takes  his 
resolution  :  orders  out  the  Gardes  Stiisses  with  two  pieces  of  artil- 
lery. The  Swiss  Guards  shall  proceed  thither  ;  summon  that 
rabble  to  depart,  in  the  King's  name.  If  disobeyed,  they  shall 
load  their  artillery  with  grape-shot,  visibly  to  the  general  eye  ; 
shall  again  summon  ;  if  again  disoboyed,  hre, — and  keep  firing 
*  till  the  last  man'  be  in  this  manner  blasted  off,  and  the  street 
clear.  With  which  spirited  resolution,  as  might  have- been  hoped, 
the  business  is  got  ended.  At  sight  of  the  lit  matches,  of  the 
foreign  red-coated  Sw^tzers,  Saint- Antpine  dissipates  ;  hastily,  in 
the  shades  of  dusk.  •  ^kpiie  i§Jft3^,QJ3ipihered  street ;  there  are 
^from  four  to  fiv^e  mfeSed ''(J^SmSt.  Unfortunate  Reveillon 
has  found  shelter  in  the  Bastille  ;  doewhereft'om,  safe  behind 
stone  bulwarks,  issue,  plaint,  protestation,\pkplanation,  for  the  next 
month.  Bold  Besenval  has  thanks  from  all  the  respectable  Parisian 
classes  ;  but  finds  no  special  notice  taken  of  him  at  Versailes, — 
a  thing  the  m^fn  of  true  worth  is  used  to.f 

But  how  it  originated,  this  fierce  electric  sputter  and  explosion  ? 
From  D'(3rleans  !  cries  the  Court-party  :  he,  with  his  gold, 
enhsted  these  Brigands,— surely  in  some  surprising  manner,  with- 
out sound  of  drum  •.  he  raked  them  in  hither,  from  all  corners  ;  to 
ferment  and  take  fire  ;  evil  is  his  good.  From  the  Court  !  cries 
enlightened  Patriotism  :  it  is  the  cursed  gold  and  wiles  of  Aristo- 
crats that  enlisted  then: ;  set  them  upon  ruining  an  innocent 
Sieur  Reveillon  ;  to  frighten  the  faint,  and  disgust  men  with  the 
career  of  Freedom. 

Besenval,  with  reluctance,  concludes  that  it  came  from  'the 
'  English,  our  natural  enemies,'  Or,  alas,  might  not  one  rather 
attribute  it  to  Diana  in  the  shape  of  Hunger  ?  To  some  twin 
Diosairi^  Oppression  and  Revenge  ;  so  often  seen  in  the  battles 
of  men  1  Poor  Lackalls,  all  betoiled,  besoiled,  encrusted  into  dim 
defacement  ;  into  whom  nevertheless  the  breath  of  the  Almighty 
has  breathed  a  living  soul  !  To  them  it  is  clear  only  that 
eleutheromaniac  Philosophism  has  yet  baked  no  •  bread  ;  that 
Patrioti  Committee-men  A/ill  level  down  to  their  own  level,  and 
no  lower.  Brigands,  or  whatever  they  might  Idc,  it  was  bitter 
earnest  with  them.  They  bury  their  dead  with  the  title  of  Defen- 
seurs  de  la  Patrie,  Martyrs  of  the  good  Cause. 

Or  shall  we  say  :  Insurrection  has  now  served iX.'s,  Apprenticeship  ; 
and  this  was  its  proof-stroke,  and  no  inconclusive  one  Its  next 
will  be  a  master-stroke  ;  announcing  indisputable  Mastership  to 
a  whole  astonished  world.  Let  that  rock-fortress,  Tyranny's 
stronghold,  which  they  name  Bastille ^ox  Building,  as  if  there  were 
no  other  building,— look  to  its  guns  1 

*  Evhiemens  qui  sc  sent  /ya^^sds  sm/s  mcs ycu\  pendant  la  Ri'vol tition  tnm* 
%aise,  par  A.  H.  DninpiM.-uiiii  (Berlin,  1799),  i.  2=^-27. 
t  Besenval,  iii.  389. 


THE  PROCESSION, 


loi 


But,  in  such  wise,  with  primary  and  secondary  Assemblies,  and 
Cahiers  of  Grievances  ;  with  motions,  congregations  of  all  kinds  ; 
with  much  thunder  of  froth-eloquence,  and  at  last  with  thunder  of 
platoon-musquetry,~do^s  agitated  France  accomplish  its  Elec- 
tions. With  confused  winnowing  and  sifting,  in  this  rather 
tumultous  manner,  it  has  now  (all  except  some  remnants  of  Paris) 
sifted  out  the  true  wheat-grains  of  National  Deputies,  Twelve 
Hundred  and  Fourteen  in  number  ;  and  will  forthwith  open  its 
States- General.  * 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PROCESSION. 

On  the  first  Saturday  of  May,  it  is  gala  at  Versailles  ;  and 
Monday,  fourth  of  the  month,  is  to  be  a  still  greater  day.  The 
Deputies  have  mostly  got  thither,  and  sought  out  lodgings  ;  and 
are  now  successively,  in  long  well-ushered  hies,  kissing  the  hand 
of  Majesty  in  the  Chateau.  Supreme  Usher  de  Breze  does  not 
give  the  highest  satisfaction  :  we  cannot  but  observe  that  in 
ushering  Noblesse  or  Clergy  into  the  anointed  Presence,  he  liberally 
opens  both  his  folding-doors  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  for  members 
of  the  Third  Estate  opens  only  one  !  However,  there  is  room  to 
enter  ;  Majesty  has  smiles  for  all. 

The  good  Louis  welcomes  his  Honourable  Members,  with  smiles 
of  hope.  He  has  prepared  for  them  the  Hall  of  Me7ms,  the  largest 
near  him  ;  and  often  surveyed  the  workmen  as  they  went  on.  A 
spacious  Hall :  with  raised  platform  for  Throne,  Court  and  Blood- 
royal  ;  space  for  six  hundred  Commons  Deputies  in  front ;  for 
half  as  many  Clergy  on  this  hand,  and  half  as  many  Noblesse  on 
that.  It  has  lofty  galleries  ;  wherefrom  dames  of  honour,  splendent 
m  craze  d'or;  foreign  Diplomacies,  and  other  gilt-edged  white- 
frilled  individuals,  to  the  number  of  two  thousand,— may  sit  and 
look.  Broad  passages  flow  through  it  ;  and,  outside  the  inner 
wall,  all  round  it.  There  are  committee-rooms,  guard-rooms,  robing- 
fooms  :  really  a  noble  Hall ;  where  upholstery,  aided  by  the  subject 
\ine-arts,  has  done  its  best  ;  and  crimson  tasseled  cloths,  and  em- 
blematic fleurs-de-lys  are  not  wanting. 

I'he  Hall  is  ready  :  the  very  costume,  as  we  said,  has  been 
settled  ;  and  the  Commons  arc  7iot  to  wear  that  hated  slouch-hat 
{chapeau  clabaud),  but  onp  rot  quite  so  slouched  {chapeau  rabattii). 
As  for  their  manner  of  working,  when  all  dressed  :  for  their 
'  voting  by  head  or  by  order' and  the  rest,~this,  which  it  were 
perhaps  still  time  to  settle,  and  in  few  hours  will  be  no  longer 
time,  remains  unsettled  ;  hangs  dubious  in  the  breast  of  Twelve 
Hundred  men. 

But  now  finally  the  Sun,  on  Monday  the  jth  of  May,  has  risen  ; 
-unconcerned,  as  if  it  were  no  special  day.  ^et>  as  his  first 

VCZ.  I,  '  ^ 


102 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


rays  could  strike  music  from  the  Memnon's  Statue  on  the  Nile, 
what  tones  were  these,  so  thrilling,  tremulous  of  preparation  and 
foreboding,  which  he  awoke  in  every  bosom,  at  Versailles  !  Huge 
Paris,  in  all  conceivable  and  inconceivable  vehicles,  is  pouring 
itself  forth  ;  from  each  Town  and  Village  come  subsidiary  rills  ; 
Versailles  is  a  very  sea  of  men.  But  above  all,  from  the  Church 
of  St.  Louis  to  the  Church  of  Notre- Dame  :  one  vast  suspended- 
billow  of  Life, — v/ith  spray  scattered  even  to  the  chimney-pots  ! 
F or  on  chimney-tops  too,  as  over  the  roofs,  and  up  thitherv/ards 
on  every  lamp-iron,  sign-post,  breakneck  coign  of  vantage,  sits 
patriotic  Courage  ;  and  every  window  bursts  with  patriotic  Beauty  : 
for  the  Deputies  are  gathering  at  St.  Louis  Church  ;  to  march  in 
procession  to  Notre-Dame,  and  hear  sermon. 

Yes,  friends,  ye  may  sit  and  look  :  boldly  or  in  thought,  all 
France,  and  all  Europe,  may  sit  and  look  ;  for  it  is  a  day  hke 
few  others.  Oh,  one  might  weep  like  Xerxes  : — So  many  serried 
rows  sit  perched  there  ;  like  winged  creatures,  alighted  out  of 
Heaven  :  all  these,  and  so  many  more  that  follow  them,  shall  have 
wholly  fled  aloft  again,  vanishing  into  the  bluo  Deep;  and  the 
memory  of  this  day  still  be  fresh.  It  is  the  baptism-day  of 
Democracy  ;  sick  Time  has  given  it  birth,  the  numbered  months 
being  run.  The  extreme- unction  day  of  Feudahsm  !  A  super- 
annuated System  of  Society,  decrepit  with  toils  (for  has  it  not  done 
much  ;  produced  yon^  and  what  ye  have  and  know  !) — and  with 
thefts  and  brawls,  named  glorious-victories  ;  and  v/ith  profligacies, 
sensualities,  and  on  the  whole  with  dotage  and  senility,- — is  now 
to  die  :  and  so,  with  death-throes  and  birth-throes,  a  new  one  is 
to  be  born.  What  a  work,  O  Earth  and  Heavens,  what  a  worl  ! 
Battles  and  bloodshed,  September  Massa'cres,  Bridges  of  Lodi, 
retreats  of  Moscow,  Waterloos,  Peterloos,  Tenpound  Franchises, 

Tarbarrels  and  Guillotines;  and  from  this  present  date,  if  one 

might  prophesy,  some  two  centuries  of  it  still  to  fight !  Two 
centuries  ;  hardly  less  ;  before  Democracy  go  through."  its  due, 
most  baleful,  stages  of  g^^'^^^ocracy  ;  and  a  pestilential  World  be 
burnt  up,  and  have  begun  to  grow  green  and  young  again. 

Rejoice  nevertheless,  ye  Versailles  multitudes  ;  to  you,  from 
whom  all  this  is  hid,  the  glorious  end  of  it  is  visible.  This  day, 
sentence  of  death  is  pronounced  on  Shams  ;  judgment  of  resus- 
citation, W'cre  it  but  far  off,  is  pronounced  on  Realities.  This  day 
it  is  declared  aloud,  as  with  a  Doom-trumpet,  that  a  Lie  is  im- 
believahle.  I)clieve  that,  stand  by  that,  if  more  there  be  not ;  and 
let  what  thing  or  things  soever  will  follow  it  follow.  ^  Ye  can  no 
other  ;  God  be  your  help  !  ^  So  spake  a  greater  than  any  of  you  ; 
opening  his  Chapter  of  World-History. 

Behold,  however  !  The  doors  of  St.  Louis  Church  flung  wide  ; 
and  the  Procession  of  Processions  advancing  towards  Notre- 
Dame  !  Shouts  rend  the  air  ;  one  shout,  at  which  Grecian  birds 
might  drop  dead.  It  is  indeed  a  stately,  solemn  sight.  The 
Elected  of  France,  and  then  the  Court  of  France  ;  they  are 
marshalled  and    march    there,   all  in  prescribed    place  and 


THE  PROCESSION. 


103 


costume.  Our  Commons  '  in  plain  black  mantle  and  white 
cravat ; '  Noblesse,  in  gold-worked,  bright-dyed  cloaks  of  velvet, 
resplenden^t,  rustling  with  laces,  waving  with  plumes  ;  the  Clergy 
in  rochet,  alb,  or  other  best  p07itificalibiis  :  lastly  comes  the  King 
himself,  and  King's  Household,  also  in  their  brightest  blaze  of 
pomp, — their  brightest  and  final  one.  Some  Fourteen  Hundred 
Men  blown  together  from  all  winds,  on  the  deepest  errand. 

Yes,  in  that  silent  marching  mass  their  lies  Futurity  enough. 
No  symbolic  Ark,  like  the  old  Hebrews,  do  these  men  bear  :  yet 
with  them  too  is  a  Covenant ;  they  too  preside  at  a  new  Era  in 
the  History  of  Men.  The  whole  Future  is  there,  and  Destiny 
dim-brooding  over  it  ;  in  the  hearts  and  unshaped  thoughts  of 
these  men,  it  lies  illegible,  inevitable.  Singular  to  think  :  they 
have  it  in  them  ;  yet  not  they,  not  mortal,  only  the  Eye  above 
can  read  it, — as  it  shall  unfold  itself,  in  fire  and  thunder,  of  siege, 
and  field-artillery  ;  in  the  rustling  of  battle-banners,  the  tramp  of 
hosts,  in  the  glow  of  burning  cities,  the  shriek  of  strangled  nations  ! 
Such  things  he  hidden,  safe-wrapt  in  this  Fourth  day  of  May  ; 
— say  rather,  had  lain  in  some  other  unknown  day,  of  which 
this  latter  is  the  public,  fruit  and  outcome.  As  indeed  what 
wonders  lie  in  every  Day, — had  we  the  sight,  as  happily  we  have 
not,  to  decipher  it  :  for  is  not  every  meanest  Day  '  the  conflux  of 
two  Eternities  ! ' 

Meanwhile,  suppose  we  too,  good  Reader,  should,  as  now  without 
miracle  Muse  Clio  enables  us, — take  station  also  on  some 
coign  vantage  ;  and  glance  momentarily  over  this  Procession, 
and  this  Life-sea  ;  with  far  other  eyes  than  the  rest  do,  namely 
with  prophetic  ?  We  can  mount,  and  stand  there,  without  fear  of 
falling. 

As  for  the  Life»sea,  or  onlooking  unnumbered  Multitude,  it  is 
unfortunately  all-to  dim.  Yet  as  we  gaze  hxedly,  do  not  nameless 
Figures  not  a  few,  which  shall  not  always  be  nameless,  disclose 
themselves  ;  visible  or  presumable  there  !  Young  Baroness  de 
Stael — she  evidently  looks  from  a  window  ;  among  older  honour- 
able women.-  Her  father  is  Minister,  and  one  of  the  gala  person- 
ages ;  to  his  own  eyes  the  chief  one.  Young  spiritual  Amazon,  thy 
rest  is  not  there  ;  nor  thy  loved  Father's  :  '  as  Malebranche  saw 
'all  things  in  God,  so  M.  Necker  sees  all  things  in  Necker,— a 
theorem  that  will  not  hold. 

But  where  is  the  brown-locked,  light-behaved,  fire-hearted 
Demoiselle  Theroigne  ?  Brown  eloquent  Beauty  ;  who,  with  thy 
winged  words  and  glances,  shalt  thrill  rough  bosoms,  whole  steel 
battalions,  and  persuade  an  Austrian  Kaiser,— pike  and  helm  lie 
provided  for  thee  in  due  season  ;  and,  alas,  also  strait-waistcoat 
and  long  lodging  in  the  Salpetriere  !  Better  hadst  thou  staid  in 
native  Luxemburg,  and  been  the~  mother  of  some  brave  man's 
children  :  but  it  was  not  thy  task,  it  was  not  thy  lot. 

Of  the  rougher  sex  how,  without  tongue,  or  hundred  tongues,  of 

*  Madame  de  Stael,  Conudcraiions  stir  la  lUvolution  Francaise  (London. 
%8i^,  1, 1x4-191. 

^  E  Z 


I04 


S:rA  TES-  GENERAL. 


iron,  enumerate  the  notabilities  !  Has  not  Marquis  Valadi  hastily 
quitted  his  quaker  broadbrim  ;  his  Pythagorean  Greek  in  Wap- 
ping,  and  the  city  of  Glasgow  ?  *  De  Morande  from  his  Cotirrier 
de  r Europe ;  Linguet  from  \ivE>  Anfiales ^  they  looked  eager  through 
the  London  fog,  and  became  Ex-Editors, — that  they  might  fee^S 
the  guillotine,  and  have  their  due.  Does  Louvet  (of  ^FaziUaS) 
stand  a-tiptoe  ?  And  Brissot,  hight  De  Warville,  friend  of  the 
Blacks  ?  He,  with  Marquis  Condorcet,  and  Claviere  the  Genevese 
'  have  created  the  Moniteur  Newspaper/  or  are  about  creating  it. 
Able  Editors  must  give  account  of  such  a  day. 

Or  seest  thou  with  any  distinctness,  low  down  probably,  not 
in  places  of  honour,  a  Stanislas  Maillard,  riding-tipstaff  [hiiissier 
a  cheval)  of  the  Chatelet  ;  one  of  the  shiftiest  of  men  ?  A  Cap- 
tain Hulin  of  Geneva,  Captain  Elie  of  the  Queen's  Regiment; 
both  with  an  air  of  half-pay  ?  Jourdan,  with  ^ile-coloured  whis- 
•  kers,  not  yet  with  tile-beard  ;  an  unjust  dealer  in  mules  ?  He 
shall  be,  in  a  few  months,  Jourdan  the  Headsman,  and  have  other 
work. 

Surely  also,  in  some  place  not  of  honour,  stands  or  sprawls  up 
querulous,  that  he  too,  though  short,  may  see, — one  squalidest 
bleared  mortal,  redolent  of  soot  and  horse-drugs  :  Jean  Paul 
Marat  of  Neucliatel !  O  Marat,  Renovator  of  Human  Science, 
Lecturer  on  Optics  ;  O  thou  remarkablest  Horseleech,  once  in 
D'Artois'  Stables, — as  thy  bleared  soul  looks  forth,  through  thy 
bleared,  dull-acrid,  wo-stricken  face,  what  sees  it  in  ail  this  I  Any 
faintest  light  of  hope  ;  like  dayspring  after  Nova-Zenibla  night? 
Or  is  it  but  blue  sulphur-light,  and  spectres  ;  woe,  suspicion,  re- 
venge without  end  ? 

Of  Draper  Lecointre,  how  he  shut  his  cloth-shop  hard  by,  and 
stepped  forth,  one  need  hardly  speak.  Nor  of  Santerre,  the 
sonorous  Brewer  from  the  Faubourg  St.  AnfMne.  Two  other 
Figures,  and  only  two,  we  signalise  there.  The  huge,  brawny, 
Figure ;  through  whose  black  brows,  and  rude  flattened  face 
{figure  ec?'asee)^  ih^xQ  looks  a  waste  energy  as  of  Hercules  not 
yet  furibund, — he  is  an  esurient,  unprovided  Advocate  ;.  Danton 
by  name  :  him  mark.  Then  that  other,  his  slight-built  comrade 
and  craft-brother  ;  he  with  the  long  curling  lo.cks  ;  with  the  face 
of  dingy  blackguardism,  wondrously  irradiated. -with  genius,  as 
if  a  naphtha-lamp  burnt  vnthin  it  :  that  Figure  is  CajSiHolDes^ 
mouljn|l>  A  fellow  of  infmite  sbrcwdness,  wit,  nay  humour  ;  one 
'omn^sprightliest  clearest  souls  in  all  these  miillions.  Thou  poor 
Camille,  say  of  thee  what  they  may,  it  were  but  falsehood  to 
pretend  one  did  not  almost  love  thee,  thou  headlong  lightly- 
sparkling  man  !  But  the  brawny,  not  yet  furibund  .Figure,  we 
say,  is  Jacques  Danton  ;  a  name  that  shall  be  *  tolernAjly  known 
'  in  the  Revolution.'  He  is  President  of  the  elector/il  Cordeliers 
District  at  Paris,  or  about  to  be  it ;  and  shall  opefi  liis  Iiings  of 
brass.  ' 

We  dwell  no  longer  on  the  mixed  shouting  MultitcK.'c  :  for  now;, 
behold,  the  Commons  Deputies  are  at  hand  ! 

*  Founders  0/  Ihc  French  Republic  (London,  1798),  §  Valadi. 


THE  PROCESSION. 


Which  of  these  Six  Hundred  individuals,  in  plain  white  cravat, 
that  have  come  up  to  regenerate  France,  might  one  guess  would 
become  their  >^/>/^  For  a  king  or  leader  they,  as  ail  bodies  of 
men,  must  have  :  be  their  work  what  it  may,  there  is  one  man 
there  who,  by  character,  faculty,  position,  is  fittest  of  all  to  do  it  ; 
that  man,  as  future  not  yet  elected  king,  walks  there  among  the 
rest.  He  with  the  thick  black  locks,  will  it  be  ?  With  the  hure^ 
as  himself  calls  it,  or  black  boar's-kead,  fit  to  be  '  shaken '  as  a 
senatorial  portent?  Through  whose  shaggy  beetle-brows,  and 
rough-hewn,  seanied,  carbuncled  f^ice,  there  look  natural  ugliness, 
small-pox,  incontinence,  bankruptcy,--and  burning  fire  of  genius  ; 
like  comet-fire  glaring  fuliginous  through  murkiest  confusions  ? 
It  is  Gabriel  Honor e  Riquetti  de  Afzrabea7(,  the  world -compeller  ; 
man-ruling  Deputy  of  Aix'!  /  r  o.^'"  '  •■  roness  Stac^, 
-he  steps  proudly  along,  tl  :>kaixce  liere  ;  and 

shakes  his  black  chevelzire,  or  lion  s  jii.u.  ,  as  if  prophetic  of 
great  deeds. 

Yes,  Reader,  that  is  the  Type-Frenchman  of  this  epoch  ;  as 
Voltaire  was  of  the  last.  He  is  French  in  his  aspirations,  acqui- 
sitions, in  his  virtues,  in  his  vices  ;  perhaps  more  French  than  any 
other  man  ;--ar r!  "  r^u'h  a  mars      raaaiuicj  too.  Mark 

him  well.    Tlu  i  ,  -^embty  were  all  different  v/ithout  that 

one;  nay,  he  miglit  say  with  the  old  Despot:  ''The  National 
Assembly  ?    I  am  that." 

Of  a  southern  chmate,  of  wild  southern  blood  :  for  the  Riquettis. 
or  Arighettis,  had  to  fly  from  Florence  and  the  Guelfs,  long  cen-^ 
turie^  ago,  and  settled  in  Provence  ;  where  from  generation  to 
generation  they  have  ever  approved  themselves  a  peculiar  kindred: 
irascible,  indomitable,  sharp-cutting,  true,  like  the  steel  they  wore  ; 
of  an  intensity  and  activity  that  sometimes  verged  towards  mad- 
ness, yet  did  not  reach  it.  One  ancient  Riquetti,  in  mad  fulfilment 
of  a  mad  vow;,  chains  two  Mountains  together  ;  and  the  chain, 
with  its  '  iron  star  of  five  rays,'  is  still  to  be  seen.  May  not  a 
modern  Riquetti  ?/;^chain  so  much,  and  set  it  drif^ir.o  - -'.vhu  li  -Jso 
shall  be  seen  ? 

^  Destiny  has  work  for  that  swart  burly-headed  Mirabeau^ ;  Pes- 
y^^l.^'^^^  watched  over  him,  prepared  him  from  afar.  Did  not  his 
"Grandfather,  stout  CoL  d'Argent  (Silver-Stock,  so  they  nam.ed 
him),  shattered  and  slashed  by  seven-and- twenty  wounds  in  one 
fell  day  lie  sunk  together  on  the  Bridge  at  Casano  ;  while  Prince 
Eugene's  cavalry  galloped  and  regalloped  over  him,— -only  the  fly- 
ing sergeant  had  thrown  a  camp-kettle  over  that  loved  head  ;  and 
Vendome,  dropping  his  spyglass,  m.oaned  out,  '  Mirabeau  is  dead, 
then  ! '  Nevertheless  he  was  not  dead  :  he  awoke  to  breathe,  and 
miraculous  surgery  ;— for  Gabriel  was  yet  to  be.  With  his  silver 
stock  he  kept  his  scarred  head  erect,  through  long  years  ;  and 
wedded  ;  and  produced  tough  Marquis  Victor,  the  Friend  of  Men. 
Whereby  at  last  in  the  appointed  year  1749,  this  long-expected 
rough-hewn  Gabriel  Honore  did  likewise  see  the  light  :  roughest 
lion's-whelp  ever  littered  of  that  rough  breed.  How  the  old  hon 
(for  our  old  Marquis  too  was  lion-like,  most  unconquerable,  kingly- 


io6 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


genial,  most  perverse)  gazed  wonderingly  on  his  offspring ;  and 
determin*ed  to  train  him  as  no  hon  had  yet  been  !  It  is  in  vain,  O 
Marquis  !  This  cub,  though  thou  slay  him  and  flay  him,  will  n6t 
learn  to  draw  in  dogcart  of  Political  Economy,  and  be  a  Friend  oj 
Men  ;  he  will  not  be  Thou,  must  and  will  be  Himself,  another  than 
Thou.  Divorce  lawsuits,  Svhole  family  save  one  in  prison,  and 
three-score  Lettres-de-Cachet'  for  thy  own  sole  use,  do  but  astonish 
the  world. 

Our  Luckless  Gabriel,  sinned  against  and  sinning,  has  been  in 
the  Isle  of  Rhe,  and  heard  the  Atlantic  from  his  tower  ;  in  the 
Castle  of  If,  and  heard  the  Mediterranean  at  Marseilles.  He  has 
been  in  the  Fortress  of  Joux  ;  and  forty-two  months,  with  hardly 
clothing  to  his  back,  in  the  Dungeon  of  Vincennes  ;— all  by  Lettre- 
de-Cachet,  from  his  lion  father.  He  has  been  in  Pontarher  Jails 
(self-constituted  prisoner) ;  was  noticed  fording  estuaries  of  the 
sea  (at  low  water),  in  flight  from  the  face  of  men.  He  has  pleaded 
before  Aix  Parleuients  (to  get  back  his  wife);  the  public  gathering 
on  roofs,  to  see  since  they  could  not  hear:  "the  clatter-teeth 
'\{claqMe-dents)  \  " snarles  singular  old  Mirabeau  ;  discerning  in  such 

t admired  forensic  eloquence  nothing  but  two  clattering  jaw-bones, 
and  a  head  vacant,  sonorous,  of  the  drum  species. 
'  But  as  for  Gabriel  Honore,  in  these  strange  wayfaringSy  what 
has  he  not  seen  and  tried  !  From  drill-sergeants,  to  prime-minis- 
ters, to  foreign  and  domestic  booksellers,  all  manner  of  fnen  he 
has  seen.  All  manner  of  mei>  he  has  gained  ;  for  at  bottom  it  is 
a  social,  loving  heart,  that  wild  unconquerable  one  :— more  espe- 
cially all  manner  of  women.  From  the  Archer's  Daughter  at 
Saintes  to  that  fair  young  Sophie  Madame  Monni-er,  whom  he 
could  not  but  '  steal,'  and  be  beheaded  for— in  effigy  !  For  indeed 
hardly  since  the  Arabian  Prophet  lay  dead  to  All's  adi  jiratioii,  was 
there  seen  such  a  Love-hero,  with  the  strength  of  thirty  men.  _  In 
War,  again,  he  has  helped  to  conquer  Corsica  ;  fought  duels,  irre- 
gular brawls  ;  horsewhipped  calumnious  barons.  In  Literature, 
he  has  written  on  Besfjotisin^  on  Lettres-de-CacJiet :  Erotics 
Sappliic-Wertereaii,  Obscenities,  Profanities  ;  Books  on  the  Prus- 
sian l\^onarchy^  on  Ca^liosfro,  on  Calonue.  on  the  Water  Com- 
panies of  Paris  :—Q.^ch  book  cjnip::;  \  'c  will  say,  to  a  bitumi- 
nous alarum-fire  ;  huge,  sinoky,  sudden  !  The  firepan,  the  kind- 
'  ling,  the  bitumen  were  his  own  ;  but  the  lumber,  of  rags,  old  wood 
and  nameless  combustible  rubbish  (for  all  is  fuel  to  him),  was 
gathered  from  huckster,  and  ass-panniers,  of  every  description 
under  heaven.  Whereby,  indeed,  hucksters  enough  have  been 
heard  to  exclaim  :  Out  upon  it,  the  fire  is  mine  / 

Nay,  consider  it  more  generally,  seldom  had  man  such  a  talent 
for  borrowing.  The  idea,  the  faculty  of  another  man  he  can  make 
his  r  the  man  himself  he  can  make  his.  All  reflex  and  echo 
{tout  de  reflet  et  de  rdverbcre)  !  "  snarls  old  Mirabeau,  who  can  see, 
but  will  not.  Crabbed  old  Friend  of  Men  !  it  is  his  sociahty,  Ifis 
aggregative  nature  ;  and  w  ill  now  be  the  quality  of  all  for .  him. 
\  In'^hat  forty-years  '  struggle  against  despotism,'  he  has  gained  the 
\  glorious  faculty  of  self-help,  and  yet  not  lost  the  glorious  natural 


THE  PROCESSION. 


T07 


gift  of  fellowships  of  being  helped.  Rare  union  !  This  man  can/ 
live  self-suflicing— yet  lives  also  in  the  life  of  other  men  ;  can 
make  men  love  him,  work  with  him  :  a  born  king  of  men  !  * 
But  consider  further  how,  as  the  old  Marquis  still  snarls,  he  has 
"  made  away  with  {htime^  swallowed)  all  Eormulas ;  a  fact 
which,  if  we  meditate  it,  will  in  these  days  mean  much.  This  is  no 
man  of  system,  then  ;  he  is  only  a  man  of  instincts  and  insights. 
A  man  nevertheless  who  will  glare  fiercely  on  any  object ;  and  see 
through  it,  and  conquer  it  :  for  he  has  intellect,  he  has  will,  force 
beyond  other  men.  A  man  not  with  loo'ic-spectacles  ;  but  with  an 
eye^J  Unhappily  without  Decalogue,  Inoral  Code  or  Theorem  of 
any  fixed  sort  ;  yet  not  without  a  strong  living  Soul  in  him,  and 
Sincerity  there  :  a  Reality,  not  an  Artificiality,  not  a  Sham  !  And 
so  he,  having  struggled  '  forty  years  against  despotism,'  and  ^  made 
away  with  all  formulas,'  shall  now  become  the  spokesman  pf  a 
Nation  bent  to  do  the  same.  For  is  it  not  precisely  the  struggle  of 
France  also  to  cast  off  despotism  ;  to  make  away  with  her  old 
formulas,— having  found  them  naught,  worn  out,  far  from  the 
reality  ?  She  will  make  away  with  sttch  formulas  ; — and  even  go 
bare^  if  need  be,  till  she  have  found  new  ones. 

Towards  such  work,  in  such  manner,  marches  he,  this  singular 
Riquetti  Mirabeau.  In  fiery  rough  figure,  with  black  Samson- 
locks  under  the  slouch-hat,  he  steps  along  there.  A  fiery  fuliginous 
mass,  which  could  not  be  choked  and  smotliered,  but  would  fill  all 
France  with  smoke.  And  now  it  has  got  air ;  it  will  burn  its 
whole  substance,  its  whole  smoke-atmosphere  too,  and  fill  all 
France  with  flame.  Strange  lot  \  Forty  years  of  that  smoulder- 
ing, with  foul  fire-damp  and  vapour  enough  ;  then  victory  over 
that ;-— and  like  a  burning  mountain  he  blazes  heaven-high  ;  and, 
for  twenty-three  resplendent  months,  pours  out,  in  flame  and 
molten  fire-  torrents,  all  that  is  in  him,  the  Pharos  and  Wonder-sign 
of  an  amazed  Europe  and  then  lies  hollow,  cold  forever  !  Pass 
on,  thou  questionable  Gabriel  Honore,  the  greatest  of  them  all  : 
in  the  whole  National  Deputies,  in  the  whole  Nation,  there  is  none 
like  and  none  second  to  thee. 

But  now  if  Mirabeau  is  the  greatest,  who  of  these  Six  Hundred 
may  be  the  meanest  ?  Shall  we  say,  that  anxious,  slight,  ineffec- 
tual-looking man,  under  thirty,  in  spectacles  ;  his  eyes  (were  the 
glasses  off )  troubled,  careful ;  with  upturned  face,  snuffing  dimly 
the  uncert^iin  future-time  ;  complexion  of  a  multiplex  atrabiliar 
colour,  the  final  shade  of  which  may  be  the  pale  sea-green.^  That 
greenish-coloured  {verddtre)  individual  is  an  Advocate  of  Arras  ; 
his  name  is  Maximilieji  Robespiei'rc.  llie  son  of  an  Advocate  ; 
his  father  founded  .mason-lodges  under  Charles  Edward,  the 
English  Prince  or  Pretender.  Maximilien  the  first-born  was  thriftily 
educated  ;  he  had  brisk  Camille  Desmouhns  for  schoolmate  in  the 
College  of  Louis  le  Grand,  at  Paris.  But  he  begged  our  famed 
Necklace-Cardinal,  Rohan,  the  patron,  to  let  him  depart  thence, 
and  resii^n  in  favour  of  a  younger  brother.  The  strict-minded  Max 
departed  ;  home  to  paternal  Arras  ;  and  even  had  a  Law-case 
*  See  De  Staiil,  ConsiiUrdiious      142);  Barbaroux,  Mcmoires,  &c. 


loS  STATES-GENERAL. 


there  and  pleaded,  not  unsuccessfully,  ^in  favour  of  the  first 
Franklin  thunder-rod.'  With  a  strict  painful  mind,  an  under- 
standing small  but  clear  and  ready,  he  grew  in  favour  with  official 
persons,  who  could  foresee  in  him  an  excellent  man  of  business, 
happily  quite  free  from  genius.  The  Bishop,  therefore,  taking 
counsel,  appoints  him  Judge  of  his  diocese  ;  and  he  faithfully  does 
justice  to  the  people  :  till  behold,  one  day,  a  culprit  comes  ^vhose 
crime  merits  hanging  ;  and  the  strict-minded  Max  must  abdicate, 
for  his  conscience  will  not  permit  the  dooming  of  any  son  of  Adam 
to  die.  A  strict-minded,  strait-laced  man  !  A  man  unfit  for 
Revolutions  ?  Whose  small  soul,  transparenjt  wholesoirne-looking  as 
small  ale,  could  by  no  chance  ferment  into  virulent  alegar^ — the 
mother  of  ever  new  alegar  ;  till  all  France  were  grown  acetous 
virulent  ?    We  shall  see. 

Between  which  two  extremes  of  grandest  and  meanest,  so  many 
grand  and  mean  roll  on,  towards  their  several  destinies,  in  that 
Procession  !  There  is  Casales,  the  learned  young  soldier  ;  who 
shall  become  the  eloquent  orator  of  Royalism,  and  earn  the 
shadow  of  a  name.  Experienced  Mounter,  experienced  Malouet; 
whose  Presidential  Parlementary  experience  the  stream  of  things 
shall  soon  leave  stranded.  A  Petioii  has  left  his  gown  and  briefs 
at  Chartres  for  a  stormier  sort  of  pleading ;  has  not  forgotten  his 
violin,  being  fond  of  music.  His  hair  is  grizzled,  though  he  is  still 
young  :  convictions,  beliefs,  placid-unalterable  are  in  that  man  ; 
not  hindmost  of  them,  behef  in  himself.  A  Protestant-clerical 
Rabaut-St.-Etienne,  a  slender  young  eloquent  and  vehement  Bar- 
nave,  will  help  to  regenerate  France.  There  are  so  many  of  them 
young.  Till  thirty  the  Spartans  did  not  suffer  a  man  to  marry : 
but  how  many  men  here  under  thirty  ;  coming  to  produce  not 
one  sufficient  citizen,  but  a  nation  and  a  world  of  such!  The 
old  to  heal  up  rents  ;  the  young  to  remove  rubbish  : — which 
latter,  is  it  not,  indeed,  the  task  here  ? 

Dim,  formless  from  this  distance,  yet  authentically  there,  thou 
noticest  the  Deputies  from  Nantes  1  To  us  mere  clothes-screens^ 
with  slouch-hat  and  cloak,  but  bearing  in  their  pocket  ?i  C aider  of 
doleances  with  this  singular  clause,  and  more  such  in  it  :  That 
'  the  master  wigmakers  of  Nantes  be  not  troubled  with  new  gild- 
*  brethren,  the  actually  existing  number  of  ninety-two  being  more 
^than  sufficient  The  Rennes  people  have  elected  Farmer 
Gerard,  'a  man  of  natural  sense  and  rectitude,  without  any 
'  learning.'  He  walks  there,  with  solid  step ;  unic[ue,  '  in  his 
rustic  farmer-clothes  ; '  which  he  will  wear  always  ;  careless  of 
short-cloaks  and  costumes.  The  name  Gerard,  or  ^  Fere  Gerard, 
Father  Gerard,'  as  they  please  to  call  him,  will  fly  far  ;  borne 
about  in  endless  banter ;  in  RoyaHst  satires,  in  Republican 
didactic  Almanacks.f  As  for  the  man  Gerard,  being  asked  once, 
what  he  did,  after  trial  of  it,  candidly  think  of  this  Parlementary 
work,— "I  think,"  answered  he,  "that  there  are  a  good  many 

*  Hisiolre  Parlcv(C)it',;rp,  i.  33 

t  Actes  des  Apotres  (by  reltiur  and  others) ;  Almanack  du  Phre  Gdrard  (bj 
Collot  d'Herbois),  &c.  &c. 


THE  PROCESSION. 


scoundrels  among  us."  So  walks  Father  Gerard;  solid  inJiis 
thick  shoes,  whithersoever  bound. 

Anar\vorthy  Doctor  Guillotin,  whom  we  hoped  to  behold  one 
other  time  ?  If  not  here,  the  Doctor  should  be  here,  and  we  see 
him  with  the  eye  of  prophecy:  for  indeed  the  Parisian  Deputies 
are  all  a  little  late.  Singular  Guillotin,  respectable  practitioner  : 
doomed  by  a  satiric  destiny  to  the  strangest  immortal  glory  that 
ever  kept  obscure  mortal  from  his  resting-place,  the  bosom  of 
oblivion  !  Guillotin  can  improve  the  ventilation  of  the  Hall  ;  in 
all  cases  of  medical  police  and  hygiene  be  a  present  aid  :  but, 
greater  far,  he  can  produce  his  '  Report  on  the  Penal  Code  ; '  and 
reveal  therein  a  cunningly  devised  Beheading  Machine,  which 
shall  become  famous  and  world-famous.  This  is  the  product 
of  Guillotin's  endeavours,  gained  not  without  meditation  and 
reading  ;  which  product  popular  gratitude  or  levity  christens  by 
a  feminine  derivative  name,  as  if  it  were  his  daughter  :  La 
Guillotine  /  "  With  my  machine,  Messieurs,  I  whisk  off  your 
"  head  {votes  fais  sauter  la  tete)  in  a  twinkling,  and  you  have  no 
"  pain  ;  ''—whereat  they  all  laugh."^  Unfortunate  Doctor  !  For 
two-and-twenty  years  he,  unguillotined,  shall  hear  nothing  but 
guillotine,  see  nothing  but  guillotine  ;  then  dying,  shall  through 

•  long  centuries  wander,  as  it  were,  a  disconsolate  ghost,  on  the 

•  wrong  side  of  Styx  and  Lethe  ;  his  name  like  to  outlive  Cesar's. 

See  Bailly,  likewise  of  Paris,  time-honoured  Historian  of 
Astronomy  Ancient  and  Modern.  Poor  Bailly,  how  thy  serenely 
beautiful  Philosophising,  with  its  soft  moonshiny  clearness  and 
thinness,  ends  in  foul  thick  confusion— of  Presidency,  Mayorship, 
diplomatic  Officiality,  rabid  Triviality,  and  the  throat  of  ever- 
lasting Darkness  !  Far  was  it  to  descend  from  the  heavenly 
Galaxy  to  the  Drapeau  Rouge :  beside  that  fatal  dung-heap,  on 
that  last  hell-day,  thou  must  ^tremble,'  though  only  with  cold, 
'de  froid'  Speculation  is  not  practice:  to  be  weak  is  not  so 
miserable  ;  but  to  be  weaker  than  our  task.  Wo  the  day  when 
they  mounted  thee,  a  peaceable  pedestrian,  on  that  wild  Hip- 
pogriff  of  a  Democracy ;  which,  spurning  the  firm  earth,  nay 
lashing  at  the  very  stars^  no  yet  known  Astolpho  could  have 
ridden  ! 

In  the  Commons  Deputies  there  are  Merchants,  Artists,  Men  of 
Letters  ;  three  hundred  and  seventy-four  Lawyers  ;t  and  at  least 
one  Clergyman  :  the  Abbe  Sieyes.  Him  also  Paris  sends,  among 
Its  twenty.  Behold  him,  the  light  thin  man  ;  cold,  but  elastic, 
wiry  ;  mstmct  with  the  pride  of  Logic  ;  passionless,  or  with  but 
one  passion,  that  of  self-conceit.  If  indeed  that  can  be  called  a 
passion,  which,  in  its  independent  concentrated  greatness,  seems 
to  have  soared  into  transcendentalism  ;  and  to  sit  there  with  a 
kind  of  godlike  indifference,  and  look  down  on  passion  !  He  is 
the  man,  and  wisdom  shall  die  with  him  This  is  the  Sieyes  who 
shall  be  System-builder,  Constitution-builder  General  ;  and  build 
Constitutions  (as  many  as  wanted)    skyhigh, -which   shall  all 

Mpnlteur  Newspaper,  of  December  ist,  1789  (in  Hlstoire  Parlementaire). 
bouiile,  Mdmoires  sur  la  FJvoluiion  Fra?iqaisc  (London,  1797),  i,  63, 


no 


STA  TES-GENERAL. 


unfortunately  fall  before  he  get  the  scaffolding  away.  "Z^ 
Politiqiie^^  said  he  to  Dumont,  "  Polity  is  a  science  I  think  I 
have  completed,  (ackevee)."'^  What  things,  O  Sieyes,  with  thy 
clear  assiduous  eyes,  art  thou  to  see  !  But  were  it  not  curious  to 
know  how  Sieyes,  now  in  these  days  (for  he  is  said  to  be  still  alive)i' 
looks  out  on  all  that  Constitution  masonry,  through  the  rheumy 
soberness  of  extreme  age?  Might  we  hope,  still  with  the  old 
irrefragable  transcendentalism  ?  The  victorious  cause  pleased  the 
gods,  the  vanquished  one  pleased  Sieyes  {vtcta  Catoni). 

Thus,  however,  amid  skyrending  vivats^  and  blessings  from 
every  heart,  has  the  Procession  of  the  Commons  Deputies  rolled  by. 

Next  follow  the  Noblesse,  and  next  the  Clergy  ;  concerning 
both  of  whom  it  might  be  asked.  What  they  specially  have  come 
for  ?  Specially,  little  as  they  dream  of  it,  to  answer  this  question, 
put  in  a  voice  of  thunder  :  What  are  you  doing  in  God's  fair 
Earth  and  Task-garden  ;  where  whosoever  is  not  working  is  beg- 
ging or  stealing  ?  Wo,  wo  to  themselves  and  to  all,  if  they  can 
only  answer  :  Collecting  tithes,  Preserving  game  !— Remark, 
meanwhile,  how  U Orleans  affects  to  step  before  his  own  Order, 
and  mingle  with  the  Commons.  For  him  are  vivats  :  few  for  the 
rest,  though  all  wave  in  plumed  '  hats  of  a  feudal  cut,'  and  have 
sword  on  thigh  ;  though  among  them  is  UAntraigiies,  the  young 
Languedocian  gentleman, — and  indeed  many  a  Peer  more  or  less 
noteworthy. 

There  are  Lzancourt,  and  La  Rochcftnicault ;  the  liberal  Anglo- 
maniac  Dukes.  There  is  a  filially  pious  Lally j  a  couple  of 
liberal  Lameths.  Above  all,  there  is  a  Lafayette ;  whose  name 
shall  be  Cromwell-Grandison,  and  fill  the  world.  Many  a  '  formula' 
has  this  Lafayette  too  made  away  with  ;  yet  not  all  formulas. 
He  sticks  by  the  Washington-formula  ;  and  by  that  he  will  stick  ; 
— and  hang  by  it,  as  by  sure  bower-anchor  hangs  and  swings  the 
tight  war-ship,  which,  after  all  changes  of  wildest  weather  and 
water,  is  found  still  hanging.  Happy  for  him  ;  be  it  glorious  or 
not  !  Alone  of  all  Frenchmen  he  has  a  theory  of  the  world,  and 
right  mind  to  conform  thereto  ;  he  can  become  a  hero  and  perfect 
character,  were  it  but  the  hero  of  one  idea.  Note  further  our  old 
Parlementarv  friend,  Crispi7t- Catiline  cV Espranaiil.  He  is  re- 
turned from'  the  Mediterranean  Islands,  a  redhot  royalist,  repen- 
tant to  the  finger-ends  ;— unsettled-looking  ;  whose  light,  dusky- 
glowing  at  best,  now  flickers  foul  in  the  socket;  whom  the 
National  Assembly  will  by  and  by,  to  save  time,  'regard  as  m  a 
state  of  distraction.'  Note  lastly  that  globular  Younger  Mirabeau  ; 
indignant  that  his  elder  I)rother  is  among  the  Commons  :^  it  is 
Viscomte  Mirabeau  ;  named  oftener  Mirabeau  Ton7ie(\u  (Barrel 
Mirabeau),  on  account  of  his  rotundity,  and  the  quaHitities  of 
strong  liquor  he  contains. 

7  here  then  walks  our  French  Noblesse.  All  in  the  old  pomp 
of  chivalry  :  and  yet,  alas,  how  changed  from  the  old  position  ; 
drifted  f^ir  down  from  their  native  latitude,  like  Arctic  icebergs  got 
*  Dumoiit,  Souvenirs  sur  Mirahcau,  p.  64.  f  A.D.  1834. 


THE  PROCESSION,  m 


mto  the  ICquatorial  sea,  and  fast  thawing  there  !  Once  these 
Chivalry  Duces  (Dukes,  as  they  are  stili  named)  did  actually  lead 
the  world,— were  it  only  towards  battle-spoil,  where  lay  the  world's 
best  wages  then  :  moreover,  being  xhe  ablest  Leaders  going,  they 
had  their  lion's  share,  those  Duces;  which  none  could  grudge 
them.  But  now,  when  so  many  Looms,  improved  Ploughshares, 
Steam-Engines  and  Bills  of  Exchange  have  been  invented  ;  and, 
for  battle-brawling  itself,  men  hire  Drill-Sergeants  at  eighteen- 
pence  a-day, — what  mean  these  goldmantled  Chivalry  Figures, 
walking  there  '  in  black- velvet  cloaks,'  in  high-plumed  '  hats  of  a 
feudal  cut '  ?    Reeds  shaken  in  the  wind  ! 

The  Clergy  have  got  up  ;  wdth  Cahiers  for  abohshing  pluralities, 
enforcing  residence  of  bishops,  better  payment  of  tithes.^  The 
Dignitaries,  we  can  observe,  walk  stately,  apart  from  the  numerous 
Undignified,— who  indeed  are  properly  little  other  than  Commons 
disguised  in  Curate-frocks.  Here,  hov/ever,  though  by  strange 
ways,  shall  the  Precept  be  fulfilled,  and  they  that  are  greatest 
(much  to  their  astonishment)  become  least.  P^or  one  example, 
out  of  many,  mark  that  plausible  G?^egoire  :  one  day  Cure  Gregoire 
shall  be  a  Bishop,  when  the  now  stately  are  wandering  distracted, 
as  Bishops  partibus.  With  other  thought,  mark  also  the  Abbe 
Mau7y  :  his  broad  bold  face  ;  mouth  accurately  primmed;  full 
eyes,  that  ray  out  intelligence,  falsehood,--the  sort  of  sophistry 
which  is  astonished  you  should  find  it  sophistical.  Skilfulest 
vamper-up  of  old  rotten  leather,  to  make  it  look  like  new^  ;  ahvays 
a  rising  man  ;  he  used  to  tell  Mercier,  "  You  will  see  ;  I  shall  be 
m  the  Academy  before  you."t  Likely  indeed,  thou  skilfullest 
Maury  ;  nay  thou  shalt  have  a  Cardinal's  Hat,  and  plush  and  glory; 
but  alas,  also,  in  the  longrun— mere  oblivion,  like  the  rest  of  us  ; 
and  six  feet  of  earth  !  What  boots  it,  vamping  rotten  leather  on 
these  terms  ?  Glorious  in  comparison  is  the  livelihood  thy  good 
old  F ather  earns,  by  making  shoes,— one  may  hope,  in  a  sufficient 
manner.  Maury  does  not  want  for  audacity.  He  shall  wear  pistols, 
by  and  by  ;  and  at  death-cries  of  "  The  Lamp-iron  ;"  answer 
coolly,  "Friends,  will  you  see  better  there  ?'' 

But  yonder,  halting  lamely  along,  thou  noticest  next  Bishop 
lalleyraitd-Perig^orcf,  his  Reverence  of  Autun.  A  sardonic  grim- 
ness  lies  m  that  irreverent  Reverence  of  Autun.  He  will  do  and 
suffer  strange  things  ;  and  will  becoine  surelv  one  of  the  strangest 
tilings  ever  seen,  or  hke  to  be  seen.  A  man  living  in  falsehood, 
and  on  falsehood  ;  yet  not  what  vou  can  call  a  false  man  :  there  is 
ttie  specialty  !  It  will  be  an  enigma  for  future  ages,  one  may  hope  : 
nitlierto  such  a  product  of  Nature  and  Art  was  possible  only  for 
tnis  age  of  ours,— Age  of  Paper,  and  of  the  Burning  of  Paper.  Con^ 
siaer  Bishop  Talleyrand  and  Marquis  Lafavette  as  the  topmost  of 
tneir  two  kinds  ;  and  say  once  more,  lookin<-  at  what  they  did  and 
^vnat  they  were,  O  Tempiis  ferax  reruvi  I 

On  the  whole,  however,  has  not  this  unfortunate  Clcro-y  also 
aritted  in  the  Time-stream,  far  from  its  native  latitude  ?    An  ano- 
*  Hist,  Pari,  i.  322-27.  f  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris. 


XI2 


STA  TES-GENERAL, 


malous  mass  of  men  ;  of  whom  the  whole  world  has  already  a  dim  | 

understanding-  that  it  can  understand  nothing.    They  were  once  a  : 

Priesthood,  interpreters  of  Wisdom,  revealers  of  the  Holy  that  is  i 
in  Man  :  a  true  Clerus  (or  Inheritance  of  God  on  Earth)  :  but  now? 

—They  pass  silently,  with  such  Cahiers  as  they  have  been  able  to  i 
redact ;  and  none  cries,  God  bless  them. 


King  Louis  with  his  Court  brings  up  the  rear  :  he  cheerful,  in  i 
this  day  of  hope,  is  saluted  with  plaudits  ;  still  more  Necker  his  | 
Minister.    Not  so  the  Queen  ;  on  whom  hope  shines  not  steadily  j 
any  more.    Ill-fated  Queen  !    Her  hair  is  already  gray  with  many  j 
cares  and  crosses  ;  her  first-born  son  is  dying  in  these  weeks  :  j 
black  falsehood  has  ineffaceably  soiled  her  name  ;  ineffaceably  j 
while  this  generation  lasts.  Instead  of  Vive  la  Reine,  voices  insult  ; 
her  with  Vive    Orleans.    Of  her  queenly  beauty  little  remains  ex- 
cept  its  stateliness  ;  not  now  gracious,  but  haughty,  rigid,  silently 
enduring.    With  a  most  mixed  feeling,  wherein  joy  has  no  part,  ^ 
she  resigns  herself  to  a  day  she  hoped  never  to  have  seen.    Poor  ^ 
Marie  Antoinette ;  with  thy  quick  noble  instincts  ;  vehement  , 
glancings,  vision  all-too  fitful  narrow  for  the  work  thou- hast  to  do  ! 
O  there  are  tears  in  store  for  thee  ;  bitterest  wailings,  soft  womanly 
meltings,  though  thou  hast  the  heart  of  an  imperial  Theresa's 
Daughter.    Thou  doomed  one,  shut  thy  eyes  on  the  future  ! — 

And  so,  in  stately  Procession,  have  passed  the  Elected  of  France.  ( 
Some  towards  honour  and  quick  fire-consummation  ;  most  towards  • 
dishonour  ;  not  a  few  towards  massacre,  confusion,  emigration,  i 
desperation  :  all  towards  Eternity  ! — So  many  heterogeneities  cast  \ 
together  into  the  fermenting-vat  ;  there,  with  incalculable  action,  '< 
counteraction,  elective  affinities,  explosive  developments,  to  work  i 
out  healing  for  a  sick  moribund  System  of  Society  !    Probably  the 
strangest  Body  of  Men,  if  we  consider  well,  that  ever  met  together 
on  our  Planet  on  such  an  errand.    So  thousandfold  complex  a 
Society,  ready  to  burst-up  from  its  infinite  depths  ;  and  these  men, 
its  rulers  and  healers,  without  life-rule  for  themselves, — other  life- 
rule  than  a  Gospel  according  to  Jean  Jacques  !    To  the  wisest  of 
them,  what  we  must  call  the  wisest,  man  is  properly  an  Accident 
under  the  sky.    Man  is  without  Duty  round  him  ;  except  it  be  ^  to 
make  the  Constitution.'  He  is  without  Heaven  above  him,  or  Hell 
beneath  him  ;  he  has  no  God  in  the  world.  V 

What  further  or  better  belief  can  be  said  to  exist  in  these  Twelve 
Hundred  1  Belief  in  high-plumed  hats  of  a  feudal  cut ;  in  heraldic 
scutcheons  ;  in  the  divine  right  of  Kings,  in  the  divine  right  of 
Game-destroyers.  Belief,  or  what  is  still  worse,  canting  half-belief; 
Ox  worst  of  all,  mere  Macchiavellic  pretence-of-belief,— in  conse- 
crated dough-wafers,  and  the  godhood  of  a  poor  oldjilaJian^Man^ 
Nevertheless  in  that  immeasurable  Confusion  and  Corruption, 
which  struggles  there  so  blindly  to  become  less  confused  and  cor- 
rupt, there  is,  as  we  said,  this  one  salient  point  of  a  New  Life  dis- 
cernible :  the  deep  fixed  Determination  to  have  done  with  Shams. 
A  detenni^-wtion,  which,  consciously  or /t^consciously,  is  fixeds 


THE  PROCESSION, 


which  waxes  ever  more  fixed,  into  very  madness  and  fxxed-idea  ; 
which  in  such  embodiment  as  hes  provided  there,  shall  now  un- 
fold itself  rapidly  :  monstrous,  stupendous,  unspeakable  ;  new  for 
long  thousands  of  years  ! — How  has  the  Heaven^s  light,  often- 
times in  this  Earth,  to  clothe  itself  in  thunder  and  electric  murki- 
ness  ;  and  descend  as  molten  lightning,  blasting,  if  purifying  • 
Nay  is  it  not  rather  the  very  murkiness,  and  atmospheric  suffoca- 
tion, that  briitgs  the  lightning  and  the  light  ?  The  new  Evangel, 
as  the  old  had  been,  was  it  to  be  born  in  the  Destruction  of  a 
World  ? 

But  how  the  -beputies  assisted  at  High  Mass,  and  heard  sermon, 
and  applauded  the  preacher,  church  as  it  was,  when  he  preached 
politics  ;  how,  next  day,  with  sustained  pomp,  they  are.  for  the 
first  time,  installed  in  their  Salle  des  Menus  (Hall  no  longer  of 
Amusejnents),  and  become  a  States-General, — readers  can  fancy 
for  themselves.  The  King  from  his  estrade,  gorgeous  as  Solomon 
in  all  his  glory,  runs  his  eye  over  that  majestic  Hall ;  many- 
plumed,  many-glancing  ;  bright- tinted  as  rainbow,  in  the  galleries 
and  near  side  spaces,  where  Beauty  sits  raining  bright  influence. 
Satisfaction,  as  of  one  that  after  long  voyaging  had  got  to  port, 
plays  over  his  broad  simple  face  :  the  innocent  King  !  He  rises 
and  -  speaks,  with  sonorous  tone,  a  conceivable  speech.  With 
which,  still  more  with  the  si^^cceedrng  one-hour  an'3r  two-hour 
speeches  of  Garde -des- Sceaux  and  M.  Necker,  full  of  nothing  but 
patriotism,  hope,  faith,  and  deficiency  of  the  revenue, — no  reader 
of  these  pages  shall  be  tried. 

We  remark  only  that, /as  hiS  Majesty,  on  finishing  the  speech, 
put  on  his  plumed  hat,  and  the  Noolesse  according  to  custom, 
imitated  him,  our  Tiers-Etat  Deputies  did  mostly,  not  without  a 
shade  of  fierceness,  in  like  manner  clap-on,  and  even  crush  on 
their  slouched  hats  ;  and  stand  there  awaiting  the  issue.*  Thick 
buzz  among  them,  between  majority  and  minority  of  Couvrezvoits, 
Decouvrez-vous  (Hats  off.  Hats  on)  !  To  which  his  Majesty  puts 
end,  by  taking  off  his  own  royal  hat  again. 

-  The  session  terminates  without  further  accident  or  omen  than 
this  ;  with  which,  signfiicantly  enough,  France  has  opened  her 
States- General. 

*  Histoire  Parletnentaire  (i.  356).    Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris,  &c. 


BOOK  FIFTH. 

THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


Y     CHAPTER  I. 

INERTIA. 

That  exasperated  France,  in 'this  same  National  Assembly  of 
hers,  has  got  something,  nay  something  great,  momentous,  indis- 
pensable, cannot  be  doubted  ;  yet  still  the  question  were  :  Spe- 
cially what  ?  A  question  hard  to  solve,  even  for  calm  onlookers 
at  this  distance  ;  wholly  insoluble  to  actors  in  the  middle  of  it. 
The  States-General,  created  and  conflated  by  the  passionate  effort 
of  the  whole  Nation,  is  there  as  a  thing  high  and  hfted  up.  Hope, 
jubilating,  cries  aloud  that  it  v/ill  prove  a  miraculous  Brazen  Ser- 
pent in  the  Wilderness  ;  whereon  whosoever  looks,  with  faith  and 
obedience,  shall  be  healed  of  all  woes  and  serpent-bites. 

We  may  answer,  it  will  at  least  prove  a  symbohc  Banner  ;  round 
which  the  exasperating  complaining  Twenty-Five  Millions,  other- 
wise isolated  and  without  power,  may  rally,  and  work — what  it  is 
in  them  to  work.  If  battle  must  be  the  work,  as  one  cannot  help 
expecting,  then  shall  it  be  a  battle-banner  (say,  an  Itahan  Gon- 
falon, in  its  old  Republican  Carroccio)  ;  and  shall  tower  up,  car- 
borne,  shining  in  the  wind  :  and  with  iron  tongue  peal  forth  many 
a  signal.  A  thing  of  prime  necessity  ;  which  whether  in  the  van  or 
in  the  centre,  whether  leading  or  led  and  driven,  must  do  the 
fighting  multitude  inc^.lculable  services.  For  a  season,  while  it 
floats  in  the  very  front,  nay  as  it  w^ere  stands  solitary  there,  waiting 
whether  force  will  gather  round  it,  this  same  National  Carroccio^ 
and  the  signal-peals  it  rings,  are  a  main  object  with  us. 

The  omen  of  the  'slouch-hats  clapt  on'  shows  the  Commons 
Deputies  to  have  made  up  their  minds  on  one  thing  :  that  neither 
Noblesse  nor  Clergy  shall  have  precedence  of  them  ;  hardly  even 
Majesty  itself.  To  such  length  has  the  Qmtrat  Social,  and  force 
of  public  opinion,  carried  us.  For  what  is  Majesty  but  the  Dele- 
gate of  the  Nation;  delegated,  and  bargained  with  (even  rather 
tightly),— in  some  very  singular  posture  of  affiiirs,  which  Jean 
Jacques  has  not  fixed  the  date  of? 

Coming  therefore  into  their  Hall,  on  the  morrow,  an  inorganic 
mass  of  Six  Hundred  individuals,  these  Commons  Deputies  per- 


INERTIA. 


115 


ceive,  without  terror,  that  they  have  it  all  to„th^"^selves  1  heir 
HaU  is  also  the  Grand  or  general  Hall  for  all  the  Ihree  Orders. 
But  the  Noblesse  and  Clergy,  it  would  seem,  have  retired  to  their 
two  separate  Apartments,  or  Halls  ;  and  are  there  verifying  their 
powers,'  not  in  a  conjoint  but  in  a  separate  capacity.  Ihey  are  to 
constitute  two  separate,  perhaps  separately-voting  Orders,  then  j 
It  is  as  if  both  Noblesse  and  Clergy  had  silently  taken  for  granted 
that  they  already  were  such  !  Two  Orders  against  one  ;  and  so 
the  Third  Order  to  be  left  in  a  perpetual  minority  ?  ^ 

Much  may  remain  unfixed;  but  the  negative  of  that  is  a  thing 
fixed  :  in  the  Slouch-hatted  heads,  in  the  French  Nation  s  head. 
Double  representation,  and  ail  else  hitherto  gained,  were  otherwise 
futile,  null.  Doubtless,  the  '  powers  must  be  verified doubtless, 
the  Commission,  the  electoral  Documents  of  your  Deputy  must 
be  inspected  by  his  brother  Deputies,  and  found  vahd  .  it  is  tire 
preliminary  of  all.  Neither  is  this  question,  of  doing  it  separately 
or  doing  it  conjointly,  a  vital  one  ;  but  if  it  lead  to  such  ?  It  must 
be  resisted  ;  wise  was  tha  maxim,  Resist  the  beginnings  !  Nay 
were  resistance  unadvisable,  even  dang  us,  yet  surely  pause  is 
very  natural  :  pause,  with  Twenty-five  Millions  behind  you,  may 
become  resistance  enough.— The  inorganic  mass  of  Commons 
Deputies  will  restrict  itself  to  a  '  system  of  inertia/  and  for  the 
present  remain  inorganic. 

Such  method,  recommendable  alike  to  sagacity  and  to  timidity, 
do  the  Commons  Deputies  adopt ;  and,  not  without  adroitness, 
and  with  ever  more  tetiacity,  they  persist  in  it,  day  after  day,  week 
after  week.  For  six  weeks  their  history  is  of  the  kind  named 
barren  ;  which  indeed,  as  P'hilosophy  knows,  is  often  the  fruit- 
fulest  of  all.  These  were  their  still  creation-days  ;  wherein  they 
sat  incubating  !  In  fact,  what  they  did  was  to  do  nothing,  m  a 
judicious  manner.  Daily  the  inorganic  body  reassembles ;  regrets 
that  they  cannot  get  organisation,  'verification  of  powers  m  com- 
mon, and  begin  regenerating  France.  Headlong  motions  may  be 
made,  but  let  such  be  repressed;  inertia  alone  is  at  once  un- 
punishable and  unconquerable. 

Cunning  must  be  met  by  cunning  ;  proud  pretension  by  inertia, 
by  a  low  tone  of  patriotic  sorrow  ;  low,  but  incurable,  unalterable. 
Wise  as  serpents  ;  harmless  as  doves  :  what  a  spectacle  for  France ! 
Six  Hundred  inorganic  individuals,  essential  for  its  regeneration 
and  salvation,  sit  there,  on  their  elliptic  benches,  longing  passion- 
ately towards  life  ;  in  painful  durance  ;  like  souls  waiting  to  be 
born.  Speeches  are  spoken  ;  eloquent ;  audible  within  doors  and 
without.  Mind  agitates  itself  against  mind  ;  the  Nation  looks  on 
with  ever  deeper  interest.  Thus  do  the  Commons  Deputies  sit  in- 
cubating. 

There  are  private  conclaves,  supper-parties,  consultations  ; 
Breton  Club,  Club  of  Viroflay ;  germs  of  many  Clubs.  Wholly 
an  element  of  confused  noise,  dimness,  angry  heat  wherein, 
however,  the  Eros- egg,  kept  at  the  6t  temperature,  may  hover 
safe,  unbroken  till  it  be  hatched.    In  your  Mouniers,  Maiouets, 


Ii6 


THE  THIJW  INSTATE. 


Lechapeliers  in  science  sufficient  for  that ;  fervour  in  your  Bar- 
naves,  Rabauts.  At  times  shall  come  an  inspiration  from  royal 
Mirabeau:  he  is  nowise  yet  recognised  as  royal;  nay  he  was 
groaned  at/  when  his  name  was  first  mentioned  :  but  he  is 
struggling  towards  recognition. 

In  the  course  of  the  week,  the  Commons  having  called  their 
Eldest  to  the  chair,  and  furnished  him  with  young  stronger-lunged 
assistants,— can  speak  articulately  ;  and,  in  audible  lamentable 
words,  declare,  as  we  said,  that  they  are  an  inorganic  body,  lono-- 
mg  to  become  organic.  Letters  arrive ;  but  an  inorganic  body 
cannot  open  letters  ;  they  lie  on  the  table  unopened.  The  Eldest 
may  at  most  procure  for  himself  some  kind  of  List  or  Muster- 
roll,  to  take  the  votes  by  ;  and  wait  what  will  betide.  Noblesse 
and  Clergy  are  all  elsewhere  :  however,  an  eager  public  crowds 
all  galleries  and  vacancies  ;  which  is  some  comfort.  With  effort 
It  IS  determined,  not  that  a  Deputation  shall  be  sent,— for  how 
can  an  morganic  body  send  deputations  ?— but  that  certain  indi- 
vidual Commons  Members  shall,  in  an  accidental  wav,  stroll  into 
the  Clergy  Chamber,  and  then  into  the  Noblesse  one  ;  and  men-  ' 
tion  there,  as  a  thing  they  have  happened  to  observe,  that  the 
Commons  seem  to  be  sitting  waiting  for  them.,  in  order  to  verify 
their  powers.    That  is  the  wiser  method  ! 

The  Clergy,  among  whom  are  such  a  multitude  of  Undignified, 
of  mere  Commons  in  Curates'  frocks,  depute  instant  respectful 
answer  that'  they  are,  and  will  now  more  than  ever  be,  in  deepest 
study  as  to  that  very  matter.  Contrariwise"  the  Noblesse,  in 
cavaher  attitude,  reply,  after  four  days,  that  they,  for  their  part, 
are  all  verified  and  constituted  ;  which,  they  had  trusted,  the 
Commons  also  were  ;  such  separate  verification  being  clearly  the 
proper  constitutional  wisdom-of-ancestors  method  as  they  the 
Noblesse  will  have  much  pleasure  in  demonstrating  by  a  Commis- 
sion of  their  number,  if  the  Commons  will  meet  them,  Commission 
against  Commission  !  Directly  in  the.  rear  of  which  comes  a 
deputation  of  Clergy,  reiterating,  in  their  insidious  conciliatory 
way,  the  same  proposal.  Here,  then,  is  a  complexity :  what  will 
wise  Commons  say  to  this  1 

Warily,  inertly,  the  wise  Commons,  considering  that  they  are 
if  not  a  French  Third  Estate,  at  least  an  Aggregate  of  individuals 
pretending  to  some  title  of  that  kind,  determine,  after  talking  on  it 
five  days,  to  name  such  a  Commission,— though,  as  it  were,  with 
proviso  not  to  be  convinced  :  a  sixth  day  is  taken  up  in  naming  it ; 
a  seventh  and  an  eighth  day  in  getting  the  forms  of  meetino-' 
place,  hour  and  the  hke,  settled  :  so  that  it  is  not'  till  the  evening 
of  the  23rd  of  May  that  Noblesse  Commission  first  meets  Com- 
mons Commission,  Clergy  acting  as  Conciliators  ;  and  begins  the 
inipossible  task  of  convincing  it.  One  other  meeting,  on  the  25th, 
will  suffice  :  the  Commons  arc  inconvinr  ible,  the  Noblesse  and 
Clergy  irrefragably  convincing  ;  the  Commissions  retire  ;  each 
Order  persisting  in  its  first  pretensions."^ 

*  Reported  Debates,  6th  May  to  istjune,  1789  (in  Histoire  Parlementairtu 
h  379-422).  ^ 


INERTIA, 


117 


Thus  have  three  weeks  passed.  For  three  weeks,  the  Third- 
Estate  Carroccio,  with  far-seen  Gonfalon,  has  stood  stockstill, 
flouting  the  wind  ;  waiting  what  force  would  gather  round  it. 

Fancy  can  conceive  the  feeling  of  the  Court  ;  and  how  counsel 
met  counsel,  and  loud-sounding  inanity  whirled  in  that  distracted 
vortex,  where  wisdom  could  not  dwell.  Your  cunningly  devised 
Taxing- Machine  has  been  got  together  ;  set  up  with  incredible 
labour  ;  and  stands, there,  its  three  pieces  in  contact  ;  its  two  fly- 
wheels of  Noblesse  and  Clergy,  its  huge  working-wheel  of  Tiers- 
Etat.  The  two  fly-wheels  whirl  in  the  softest  manner  ;  but,  pro- 
digious to  look  upon,  the  huge  working-wheel  hangs  motionless, 
refuses  to  stir  !  The  cunningest  engineers  are  at  fault.  How  will 
it  work,  when  it  does  begin  ?  Fearfully,  my  Friends  ;  and  to 
many  purposes  ;  but  to  gather  taxes,  or  grind  court-meal,  one  may 
apprehend,  never.  Could  we  but  have  continued  gathering  taxes 
by  hand  I  Messeigneurs  d'Artois,  Conti,  Conde  (named  Court 
Triumvirate),  they  of  the  anti-democratic  Memoir e  au  Roi,  has 
not  their  foreboding  proved  true  ?  They  may  wave  reproachfully 
their  high  heads  ;  they  may  beat  their  poor  brains  ;  but  the  cun- 
ningest engineers  can  do  nothing.  Necker  himself,  were  he  even 
listened  to,  begins  to  look  blue.  The  only  thing  one  sees  advis- 
able is  to  bring  up  soldiers.  New  regiments,  two,  and  a  battalion 
of  a  third,  have  already  reached  Paris  ;  others  shall  get  in  march. 
Good  were  it,  in  all  circumstances,  to  have  troops  within  reach  ; 
good  that  the  command  were  in  sure  hands.  Let  Broglie  be  ap- 
pointed ;  old  Marshal  Duke  de  Broglie  ;  veteran  disciplinarian,  of 
a  firm  drill-sergeant  morality,  such  as  may  be  depended  on. 

For,  alas,  neither  are  the  Clergy,  or  the  very  Noblesse  what 
they  should  be  ;  and  might  be,  when  so  menaced  from  without : 
entire,  undivided  within.  The  Noblesse,  indeed,  have  their  Cati- 
line or  Crispin  D'Espremenil,  dusky-glowing,  all  in  renegade 
heat  ;  their  boisterous  Barrel- Mirabeau  ;  but  also  they  have  their 
Lafayettes,  Liancourts,  Lameths  ;  above  all,  their  D'Orleans,  now 
cut  forever  from  his  Court-moorings,  and  musing  drowsily  of  high 
and  highest  sea-prizes  (for  is  not  he  too  a  son  of  Henri  Ouatre, 
and  partial  potential  Heir- Apparent  ?)— on  his  voyage  towards 
Chaos.  From  the  Clergy  again,  so  numerous  are  the  Cures,  actual 
deserters  have  run  over  :  two  small  parties  ;  in  the  second  party 
Cure  Gregoire.  Nay  there  is  talk  of  a  whole  Hundred  and 
Forty-nine  of  them  about  to  desert  in  mass,  and  only  restrained 
by  an  Archbishop  of  Paris.    It  seems  a  losing  game. 

But  judge  if  France,  if  Paris  sat  idle,  all  this  while  !  Addresses 
from  far  and  near  flow  in  :  for  our  Commons  have  now  grown 
organic  enough  to  open  letters.  Or  indeed  to  cavil  at  them  ! 
Thus  poor  Marquis  de  Breze,  Supreme  Usher,  Master  of  Cere- 
monies, or  whatever  his  title  was,  writing  about  this  time  on  some 
ceremonial  matter,  sees  no  harm  in  winding  up  with  a  '  Monsieur, 
yours  with  sincere  attachment.' — "  To  whom  does  it  address  itself, 
this  sincere  attachment  ? "  inquires  Mirabeau.  "  To  the  Dean  of 
the  Tiers- Etat." — "  There  is  no  man  in  France  entitled  to  write 
that/'  rejoins  he ;  whereat  the  Galleries  and  the  World  will  not  be 


Il8  THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


kept  from  applauding.^  Poor  De  Breze  !  These  Commons  have 
a  still  older  grudge  at  him  ;  nor  has  he  yet  done  with  them. 

In  another  way,  Mirabeau  has  had  to  protest  against  the  quick 
suppression  of  his  Newspaper,  y(f??/^r;^(^/  of  the  States-General; — 
and  to  continue  it  under  a  new  name.  In  which  act  of  valour,  the  , 
Paris  Electors,  still  busy  redacting  their  Cahzer,  could  not  but 
support  him,  by  Address  to  his  Majesty  :  they  claim  utmost  '  pro- 
visory freedom  of  the  press;'  they  have  .spoken  even  about 
demolishing  the  Bastille,  and  erecting  a  Bronze  Patriot  King  on 
tjie  site  ! — These  are  the  rich  Burghers  :  but  now  consider  how  it 
went,  for  example,  with  such  loose  miscellany,  now  all  grown 
eleutheromaniac,  of  Loungers,  Prowlers,  social  Nondescripts  (and 
the  distilled  Rascality  of  our  Planet),  as  whirls  forever  in  the 
Palais  Royal  ; — or  what  low  infinite  groan,  first  changing  into  a 
growl,  comes  from  Saint-Antoine,  and  the  Twenty-five  Millions  in 
danger  of  starvation  ! 

There  is  the  indisputablest  scarcity  of  corn  ; — be  it  Aristocrat- 
plot,  D'Orleans-plot,  of  this  year  ;  or  drought  and  hail  of  last 
year  :  in  city  and  province,  the  poor  man  looks  desolately  towards 
a  nameless  lot.  And  this  States -General,  tli^at  could  make  us  an 
age  of  gold,  is  forced  to  stand  motionless  ;  cannot  get  its  powers 
verified  !  All  industry  necessarily  languishes,  if  it  be  not  that  of 
making  motions. 

In  the  Palais  Royal  there  has  been  erected,  apparently  by  sub- 
scription, a  kind  of  Wooden  Tent  {ejt  planches  de  bois)  ;t — most 
convenient  ;  where  select  Patriotism  can  now  redact  resolutions, 
deliver  harangues,  with  comfort,  let  the  weather  be  as  it  will. 
Lively  is  that  Satan-at-Home  !  On  his  table,  on  his  chair,  in 
every  cafe^  stands  a  patriotic  orator  ;  a  crowd  round  him  within  ; 
a  crowd  listening  from  without,  open-mouthed,  through  open  door 
and  window  ;  with  '  thunders  of  applause  for  every  sentiment  of 
more  than  common  hardiness.'  In  Monsieur  Dessein's  Pamphlet-  ' 
shop,  close  by,  you  cannot  without  strong  elbowing  get  to  the 
counter  :  every  hour  produces  its  pamphlet,  or  litter  of  pamphlets  ; 
^  there  were  thirteen  to-day,  sixteen  yesterday,  ninety-two  last 
week.' J  Think  of  Tyranny  and  Scarcity  ;  Fervid-eloquence, 
Rumour,  Pamphleteering  ;  Societe  Fiiblicolc^  Breton  Club,  En- 
raged Club  ; — and  whether  every  tap-room,  coffee-room,  social 
reunion,  accidental  street-group,  over  wide  France,  was  not  an 
Enraged  Club  ! 

To  all  which  the  Commons  Deputies  can  only  listen  with  a 
'sublime  inertia  of  sorrow  ;  reduced  to  busy  themselves  Svith  their 
internal  pohce.'  Surer  position  no  Deputies  ever  occupied  ;  if 
they  keep  it  with  skill.  Let  not  the  temperature  rise  too  high  ; 
break  not  the  Eros-egg  till  it  be  hatched,  till  it  break  itself  !  An 
eager  pubhc  crowds  all  Galleries  and  vacancies!  ^cannot  be 
restrained  from  applauding.'  The  two  Privileged  Orders,  the 
Noblesse  all  verified  and  const  it  u ted,  may  look  on  with  what  face 
they  will  ;  not  without  a  sc  (  i  ct  tremor  of  heart.    The  Clergy, 

*  Moniieur  (in  Hisloire  Parlemcntaire,  i.  405). 

+  Histoirc  Ir'arlementairet  i.  429.       J  Arthlir  Young,  Travels,  i.  104, 


INERTIA. 


110 


always  acting  the  part  of  conciliators,  make  a  clutch  at  the 
Galleries,  and  the  popularity  there  ;  and  miss  it.  Deputation  of 
them  arrives,  with  dolorous  message  about  the  '  dearth  of  grains, 
and  the  necessity  there  is  of  casting  aside  vam  formalities,  and 
deliberating  on  this.  An  insidious  proposal ;  which,  however,  the 
Commons  (moved  thereto  by  seagreen  Robespierre)  dexterously 
accept  as  a  sort  of  hint,  or  even  pledge,  that  the  Clergy  will  forth- 
with come  over  to  them,  constitute  the  States-General,  and  so 
cheapen  grains  1^— Finally,  on  the  27th  day  of  May,  Mirabeau, 
judging  the  time  now  nearly  come,  proposes  that  '  the  mertia 
'cease;'  that,  leaving  the  Noblesse  to  their  own  stiff  ways,  the 
Clergy  be  summoned,  '  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  Peace,'  to  join 
the  Commons,  and  begin.f  To  which  summons  if  they  turn  a 
deaf  ear,— we  shall  see  1  Are  not  one  Hundred  and  Forty-nme  ot 
them  ready  to  desert  ?  ,     .  -r^        •  .1 

O  Triumvirate  of  Princes,  new  Garde-des-Sceaux  Barentin,  thou 
Home-Secretary  Breteuil,  Duchess  Pohgnac,  and  Queen  eager  to 
listen,— what  is  now  to  be  done?  This  Third  Estate  will  get  m 
motion,  with  the  force  of  all  France  in  it  ;  Clergy-machmery  with 
Noblesse-machinery,  which  were  to  serve  as  beautiful  counter- 
balances and  drags,  will  be  shamefully  dragged  after  it,— and  take 
fire  along  with  it.  What  is  to  be  done  ?  The  CEil-de-Boeuf  waxes 
more  confused  than  ever.  Whisper  and  counter-whisper  ;  a  very 
tempest  of  whispers  !  Leading  men  from  all  the  Three  Orders 
are  nightly  spirited  thither  ;  conjurors  many  of  them  ;  but  can 
they  conjure  this  ?  Necker  himself  were  now  welcome,  could  he 
interfere  to  purpose.  ,    tt  -i 

Let  Necker  interfere,  then  ;  and  in  the  King's  name  !  Happily 
that  incendiary  '  God-of-Peace '  message  is  not  yet  answered. 
The  Three  Orders  shall  again  have  conferences  ;  under  this 
Patriot  Minister  of  theirs,  somewhat  may  be  healed,  clouted  up  ; 
—we  meanwhile  getting  forward  Swiss  Regiments,  and  a  'hundred 
'pieces  of  field-artillery.'  This  is  what  the  GEil-de-Boeuf,  for  its 
part,  resolves  on.  ,    .         ^1  •  j 

But  as  for  Necker— Alas,  poor  Necker,  thy  obstinate  Third 
Estate  has  one  first-last  word,  verification  in  common,  as  the 
pledge  of  voting  and  deliberating  in  common  !  Half-way  pro- 
posals, from  such  a  tried  friend,  they  answer  with  a  stare.  The 
tardy  conferences  speedily  break  up  ;  the  Third  Estate,  now  ready 
and  resolute,  the  whole  world  backing  it,  returns  to  its  Hall  of  the 
Three  Order  ;  and  Necker  to  the  CEil-de-Bceuf,  with  the  char- 
acter of  a  disconjured  conjuror  there— fit  only  for  dismissal.^ 

And  so  the  Commons  Deputies  are  at  last  on  their  own  strength 
getting  under  way?  Instead  of  Chairman,  or  Dean,  they  have 
now  got  a  President  :  AstronoiPxer  Bailly.  Under  way,  with  a 
vengeance  !  With  endless  vociferous  and  temperate  eloquence, 
borne  on  Newspaper  wings  to  all  lands,  they  have  now,  on  this 
17th  day  of  June,  determined  that  their  name  is  not  Third 
Estate,  hvit—Natio7ial  Assembly  !    They,  then,  are  the  Nation  ? 

*  Bailly,  Mdmoires,  i.  114.  f  Histoire  Parlementairc,  i.  413. 

X  Debates,  ist  to  17th  June  1789  (in  Histoire  Parlementaire,  1.  422-478). 


I20 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


Triumvirate  of  Princes,  Queen,  refractory  Noblesse  and  Clergy,  i 
what,  then,  are  yo?if  A  most  deep  question  scarcely  answer-  i 
al^le  m  living  political  dialects. 

All  regardless  of  which,  our  new  National  Assembly  proceeds 
to  appomt  a  '  committee  of  subsistences  ; '  dear  to  France,  though 
It  can  find  little  or  no'grain.  Next,  as  if  our  National  Assembly 
stood  quite  firm  on  its  legs,— to  appoint  'four  other  standing 
committees  then  to  settle  the  security  of  the  National  Debt  ; 
then  that  of  the  Annual  Taxation  :  all  within  eight-and-forty 
hours.  At  such  rate  of  velocity  it  is  going  :  the  conjurors  of  the 
Uiil-de-Boeuf  may  well  ask  themselves,  Whither  ? 


CHAPTER  II. 

MERCURY  DE  BREZE 

Now  surely  were  the  time  for  a  '  god  from  the  machine  there  is 
a  nodus  worthy  of  one.  The  only  question  is,  Which  god  ?  Shall 
It  be  Mars  de  Broghe,  with  his  hundred  pieces  of  cannon Not 
yet,  answers  prudence  ;  so  soft,  irresolute  is  King  Louis.  Let  it  be 
Messenger  Mercury,  our  Supreme  Usher  de  Breze. 

On  the  morrow,  which  is  the  20th  of  June,  these  Hundred  and 
F orty-nme  false  Curates,  no  longer  restrainable  by  his  Grace  of 
Pans,  will  desert  in  a  body  :  let  De  Breze  intervene,  and  produce 
—closed  doors  !  Not  only  shall  there  be  Royal  Session,  in  that 
Salle  des  Menus  ;  but  no  meeting,  nor  working  (except  bv  car- 
penters), till  then.  Your  Third  •  Estate,  self-styled  '  National 
'Assembly,^  shall  suddenly  see  itself  extruded  from  its  Hall,  by 
carpenters,  in  this  dexterous  way  ;  and  reduced  to  do  nothing, 'not 
e^/en  to  meet,  or  articulately  lament,~till  Majesty,  with  Seance 
Royale  and  new  miracles,  be  ready  !  In  this  manner  shall  De 
Breze,  as  Mercury  ex  machznd,  intervene  ;  and,  if  the  CEil-de-Boeuf 
mistake  not,  work  deliverance  from  the  nodus. 

Of  poor  De  Breze  we  can  remark  that  he  has  yet  prospered  in 
none  of  his  dealings  with  these  Commons.  Five  weeks  ago,  when 
they  kissed  the  hand  of  Majesty,  the  mode  he  took  got  nothing 
but  censure  ;  and  then  his  '  sincere  attachment,'  how  was  it  scorn- 
fully whiffed  aside  !  Before  supper,  this  night,  he  writes  to  Presi- 
dent Bailly,  a  new  Letter,  to  be  delivered  shortly  after  dawn  to- 
morrow, in  the  King's  name.  Which  Letter,  however,  Bailly,  in 
the  pride  of  office,  will  merely  crush  together  into  his  pocket,  like 
a  bill  he  does  not  mean  to  pay. 

^  Accordingly  on  Saturday  morning  the  20th  of  June,  shrill-sound- 
mg  heralds  proclaim  through  the  streets  of  Versailles,  that  there 
is  to  be  a  S(fa7tce  Royale  next  Monday  ;  and  no  meeting  of  the 
Statcs-(xeneral  till  then.  And  yet,  we  observe,  Prcsiflent  Bailly  in 
sound  of  this,  and  with  DeBr(:zc's  Letter  in  his  pocket,  is  proceeding, 
With  National  Assembly  at  his  heels,  to  the  accustomed  Salle  des 


MERCURY  DE  BREZE. 


121 


Menus  ;  as  if  De  Breze  and  heralds  were  mere  wind.  It  is  shut, 
this  Salle  ;  occupied  by  Gardes  Frangaises.  "  Where  is  your 
Captain  ?  "  The  Captain  shows  his  royal  order  :  workmen,  he  is 
grieved  to  say,  are  all  busy  setting  up  the  platform  for  his  Majesty's 
Seance  ;  most  unfortunately,  no  admission  ;  admission,  at  furthest, 
for  President  and  Secretaries  to  bring  away  papers,  which  the 
joiners  might  destroy  ! — President  Bailly  enters  with  Secretaries  ; 
and  returns  bearing  papers  :  alas,  within  doors,  instead  of  patriotic 
eloquence,  there  is  now  no  noise  but  hammering,  sawing,  and  ( 
operative  screeching  and  rumbling !  A  profanation  without 
parallel. 

The  Deputies  stand  grouped  on  the  Paris  Road,  on  this  um- 
brageous Avenue  de  Versailles  ;  complaining  aloud  of  the  indignity 
done  them.  Courtiers,  it  is  supposed,  look  from  their  windows, 
and  giggle.  The  morning  is  none  of  the  comfortablest  :  raw  ;  it  is 
even  drizzling  a  little.^  But  all  travellers  pause  ;  patriot  gallery- 
men,  mi'scellaneous  spectators  increase  the  groups.  Wild  counsels 
alternate.  Some  desperate  Deputies  propose  to  go  and  hold 
session  on  the  great  outer  Staircase  at  Marly,  under  the  King's 
windows  ;  for  his  Majesty,  it  seems,  has  driven  over  thither. 
Others  talk  of  making  the  Chateau  Forecourt,  what  they  call 
Place  Amies ^  a  Runnymede  and  new  Champ  de  Mai  of  free 
Frenchmen  :  nay  of  awakening,  to  sounds  of  indignant  Patriotism, 
the  echoes  of  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  itself. — Notice  is  given  that  President 
Bailly,  aided  by  judicious  Guillotin  and  others,  has  found  place  in 
the  Tennis- Court  of  the  Rue  St.  Frangois.  Thither,  in  long-drawn 
files,  hoarse-jingling,  like  cranes  an  wing,  the  Commons  Deputies 
angrily  wend. 

Strange  sight  was  this  in  the  Rue  St.  Frangois,  Vieux  Versailles ! 
A  naked  Tennis- Court,  as  the  pictures  of  that  time  still  give  it  : 
four  walls  ;  naked,  except  aloft  some  poor  wooden  penthouse,  or 
roofed  spectators'-gallery,  hanging  round  them  : — on  the  floor  not 
now  an  idle  teeheeing,  a  snapping  of  balls  and  rackets  ;  but  the 
bellowing  din  of  an  indignant  National  Representation,  scandal- 
ously exiled  hither  !  However,  a  cloud  of  witnesses  looks  down  on 
them,  from  wooden,  penthouse,  from  wall-top,  from  adjoining  roof 
and  chimney  ;  rolls  towards  them  from  all  quarters,  with  passionate 
spoken  blessings.  Some  table  can  be  procured  to  write  on  ;  some 
chair,  if  not  to  sit  on,  then  to  stand  on.  The  Secretaries  undo 
their  tapes  ;  Bailly  has  constituted  the  Assembly.  [ 

Experienced  Mounier,  not  wholly  new  to  such  things,  in  Parle- 
mentary  revolts,  wiiich  he  has  seen  or  heard  of,  thinks  that  it  were 
well,  in  these  lamentable  threatening  circumstances,  to  unite  them- 
selves by  an  Oath. — Universal  acclamation,  as  from  smouldering 
bosoms  getting  vent  !  The  Oath  is  redacted  ;  pronounced  aloud 
by  President  Bailly, — and  indeed  in  such  a  sonorous  tone,  that  the 
cloud  of  witnesses,  even  outdoors,  hear  it,  and  bellow  response  to 
it.  Six  hundred  right-hands  rise  with  President  Bailly's,  to  take 
God  above  to  witness  that  they  will  not  separate  for  man  below, 
but  will  meet  in  all  places,  under  all  circumstances,  wheresoever 
*  Bailly,  M^7noi?^cs,  i.  185-206, 


122 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


two  or  three  can  get  together,  till  they  have  made  the  Constitution. 
Made  the  Constitution,  Friends  !  That  is  a  long  task.  Six  hun- 
dred hands,  meanwhile,  will  sign  as  they  have  sworn  :  six  hundred 
save  one  ;  one  Loyahst  Abdiel,  still  visible  by  this  sole  light-pomt, 
and  nameable,  poor  '  M.  Martin  d'Auch,  from  Castelnaudary,  m 
Languedoc.'  Hun  they  permit  to  sign  or  signify  refusal ;  they 
even  save  him  from  the  cloud  of  witnesses,  by  declarmg  '  his  head 
deranged.'  At  four  o'clock,  the  signatures  are  all  appended  ;  new 
meeting  is  fixed  for  Monday  morning,  earher  than  the  hour  of  the 
Royal  Session  ;  that  our  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  Clerical  deserters 
be  not  balked  :  we  will  meet  '  at  the  Recollets  Church  or  else- 
where,' in  hope  that  our  Hundred  and  Forty-nine,  will  join  us  ;— 
and  now  it  is  time  to  go  to  dinner. 

This,  then,  is  the  Session  of  the  Tennis-Court,  f^mied  Seance  dii 
Ten  de  Paume ;  the  fame  of  which  has  gone  forth  to  all  lands. 
This  is  Mercurius  de  Breze's  appearance  as  Deus  ex  viachind  ; 
this  is  the  fruit  it  brings  !  The  giggle  of  Courtiers  in  the  Versailles 
Avenue  has  already  died  into  gaunt  silence.  Did  the  distracted 
Court,  with  Gardes-des-Sceaux  Barentin,  Triumvirate  and  Com- 
pany, imagine  that  they  could  scatter  six  hundred  National 
Deputies,  big  with  a  National  Constitution,  like  as  much  barndoor 
poultry^  big  with  next  to  nothing,— by  the  white  or  black  rod  of  a 
Supreme  Usher?  Barndoor  poultry  fly  cackhng  :  but  National 
Deputies  turn  round,  lion-faced  ;  and,  with  uphfted  right-hand, 
swear  an  Oath  that  makes  the  four  corners  of  France  tremble. 

President  Bailly  has  covered  himself  with  honour  :  which  shall 
become  rewards.  The  National  Assembly  is  now  doubly  and 
trebly  the  Nation's  Assembly  ;  not  militant,  martyred  only,  but 
triumphant ;  insulted,  and  which  could  not  be  insulted.  Pans 
disembogues  itself  once  more,  to  witness,  '  with  grim  looks,'  the 
Seance  Roy  ale  ."^  which,  by  a  new  fehcity,  is  postponed  till  Tuesday. 
The  Hundred  and  Forty-nine,  and  even  with  Bishops  among 
them,  all  in  processional  mass,  have  had  free  leisure  to  march  off, 
and  solemnly  join  the  Commons  sitting  waiting  in  their  Church. 
The  Commons  welcomed  them  with  shouts,  with  embracmgs,  nay 
with  tears  ;t  for  it  is  growing  a  life-and-death  matter  now. 

As  for  the  Sea7ice  itself,  the  Carpenters  seem  to  have  accom- 
plished their  platform  ;  but  all  else  remains  unaccomphshed. 
Futile,  we  may  say  fatal,  was  the  whole  matter.  King  Louis 
enters,  through  seas  of  people,  all  grim-silent,  angry  with  many 
things,— for  it  is  a  bitter  raiu  too.  Enters,  to  a  Third  Estate,  like- 
wise grim-silent ;  which  has  been  wetted  waiting  under  mean 
porches,  at  back-doors,  while  Court  and  Privileged  were  entering 
by  the  front.  King  and  Garde- des-Sceaux  (there  is  no  Necker 
visible)  make  known,  not  without  longwindedness,  the  determina- 
tions of  the  royal  breast.  The  Three  Orders  shall  vote  separately. 
On  the  other  hand,  France  may  look  for  considerable  consti- 
tutional blessings  ;  as  specified  in  these  Five- and-thiily  Articles,! 

*  See  Arthur  Young  [Tmveh,  i.  115-iiS)  :  A.  Lameth,  &c. 
f  Dumont,  Souve?tirs  sur  Mirabeau,  c.  4. 
t  Ilisioire  Paylcmcniairc,  \  13. 


MERCURY  DE  BREZE, 


123 


which  Garde-des-Sceaux  is  waxing  hoarse  with  reading.  Which 
Five-and-thirty  Articles,  adds  his  Majesty  again  rising,  if  the 
Three  Orders  most  unfortunately  cannot  agree  together  to  effect 
them,  I  myself  will  effect  :  "  seiil  je  feral  le  Men  de  mes  peuples^' 
—which  being  interpreted  may  signify,  You,  contentious  Deputies 
of  the  States-General,  have  probably  not  long  to  be  here  !  But, 
in  fine,  all  shall  now  withdraw  for  this  day  ;  and  meet  again,  each 
Order  in  its  separate  place,  to-morrow  morning,  for  despatch  of 
business.  This  is  the  determination  of  the  royal  breast  :  pithy 
and  clear.  And  herewith  King,  retinue,  Noblesse,  majority  of 
Clergy  file  out,  as  if  the  whole  matter  were  satisfactorily  com- 
pleted. 

These  file  out  ;  through  grim-silent  seas  of  people.  Only  the 
Commons  Deputies  file  not  out ;  but  stand  there  in  gloomy  silence, 
uncertain  what  they  shall  do.  One  man  of  them  is  certain  ;  one 
man  of  them  discerns  and  dares  !  It  is  now  that  King  Mirabeau 
starts  to  the  Tribune,  and  lifts  up  his  lion-voice.  Verily  a  word  in 
season  ;  for,  in  such  scenes,  the  moment  is  the  mother  of  ages  1 
Had  not  Gabriel  Honore  been  there,— one  can  well  fancy,  how  the 
Commons  Deputies,  affrighted  at  the  perils  which  now  yawned 
dim  all  round  them,  and  waxing  ever  paler  in  each  other's  pale- 
ness, might  very  naturally,  one  after  one,  have  glided  offj  and  the 
whole  course  of  European  History  have  been  different ! 

But  he  is  there.  List  to  the  brool  of  that  royal  forest-voice  ; 
sorrowful,  low  ;  fast  swelling  to  a  roar  !  Eyes  kindle  at  the  glance 
of  his  eye  : — National  Deputies  were  missioned  by  a  Nation  ; 
they  have  sworn  an  Oath  ;  they— but  lo  !  while  the  lion's  voice 
roars  loudest,  what  Apparition  is  this  1  Apparition  of  Mercurius 
de  Breze,  muttering   somewhat !— '  Speak  out,"  cry  several.— 

Messieurs,"  shrills  De  Breze,  repeating  himself,  "  You  have  heard 
"the  King's  orders  !  "—Mirabeau  glares  on  him  with  fire-flashing 
face  ;  shakes  the  black  lion's  mane  :  Yes,  Monsieur,  we  have 
"heard  what  the  King  was  advised  to  say  :  and  you  who  cannot  be 
"  the  interpreter  of  his  orders  to  the  States-General ;  you,  who  have 
"  neither  place  nor  right  of  speech  here  ;  you  are  not  the  man  to 
"remind  us  of  it.  Go,  Monsieur,  tell  those  who  sent  you  that  we 
"  are  here  by  the  will  of  the  People,  and  that  nothing  shall  send  us 
"  hence  but  the  force  of  bayonets  l""^  And  poor  De  Breze  shivers 
forth  from  the  National  Assembly  ;— and  also  (if  it  be  not  in  one 
faintest  glimmer,  months  later)  finally  from  the  page  of  History  ! — 

Hapless  De  Breze  ;  doomed  to  survive  long  ages,  in  men's 
memory,  in  this  faint  way,  with  tremulent  white  rod  I  He  was 
true  to  Etiquette,  which  was  his  Faith  here  below ;  a  martyr  to 
respect  of  persons.  Short  woollen  cloaks  could  not  kiss  Majesty's 
hand  as  long  velvet  ones  did.  Nay  lately,  when  the  poor  little 
Dauphin  lay  dead,  and  some  ceremonial  Visitation  came,  was  he 
not  punctual  to  announce  it  even  to  the  Dauphin's  dead  body : 
"  Monseigneur.  a  Deputation  of  the  States-General  !"t  Sun^ 
lachrymce  rericm. 

But  what  does  the  CEil-de-Boeuf,  now  when  De  Breze  shivers 
*  Moiiitcur  [Hist.  Pari.  ii.  22).  f  Montgaillard.  ii.  ^8. 


124- 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


back  thither?  Despatch  ih^it  same  force  of  bayonets?  Not  soli 
the  seas  of  people  still  hang  multitudinous,  intent  on  what  isi 
passmg  ;  nay  rush  and  roll,  loud-billowing,  into  the  Courts  of  the 
Chateau  itself ;  for  a  report  has  risen  that  Necker  is  to  be  dismissei 
Worst  of  all,  the  Gardes  P>angaises  seem  indisposed  to  act :  '  two 
'Companies  of  them  do  not  fire  when  ordered!'*  Necker,  for 
not  being  at  the  Seance,  shall  be  shouted  for,  carried  home  in! 
trmmph  ;  and  must  not  be  dismissed.  His  Grace  of  Paris,  on  the! 
other  hand,  has  to  fly  with  broken  coach-panels,  and  owe  his  life; 
to  furious  driving.  The  6^^r^^^-^^-6'^?r/i-  (Body-Guards),  which 
you  were  drawing  out,  had  better  be  drawn  in  again.f  There  is. 
no  sending  of  bayonets  to  be  thought  of. 

Instead  of  soldiers,  the  (Eil-de-Boeuf  sends— carpenters,  to  take! 
down  the  platform.  Ineffectual  shift !  In  few  instants,  the  veryj 
carpenters  cease  wrenching  and  knocking  at  their  platform  ;  stand 
on  It,  hammer  in  hand,  and  listen  open-mouthed.l  The  Third 
Estate  is  decreeing  that  it  is,  was,  and  will  be,  nothing  but  ai 
National  Assembly  ;  and  now,  moreover,  an  inviolable  one,  alli 
members  of  it  inviolable  :  'infamous,  traitorous,  towards  the' 
^  Nation,  and  guilty  of  capital  crime,  is  any  person,  body-corpo- 
'  rate,  tribunal,  court  or  commission  that  now  or  henceforth,  during 

*  the  present  session  or  after  it,  shall  dare  to  pursue,  interrogate, 

*  arrest,  or  cause  to  be  arrested,  detain  or  cause  to  be  detained,' 
'any,'  &c.  &c.  '  on  whose  part  soever  the  same  be  commanded.' §  ' 
Which  done,  one  can  wind  up  with  this  comfortable  reflection  [ 
from  Abbe  Sieyes  :  "  Messieurs,  you  are  today  what  you  were  * 
"yesterday."  .  ] 

Courtiers  may  shriek  ;  but  it  is,  and  remains,  even  so.    Their  ! 
well-charged  explosion  has  exploded  throuo^h   the  touch-hole s  ' 
covering  themselves  with  scorches,  confusion,  and  unseemly  soot !  i 
Poor  Triumvirate,  poor  Queen  ;  and  above  all,  poor  Queen's  Hus- 
band, who  means  well,  had  he  any  fixed  meaning  !    Folly  is  that 
wisdom  which  is  wise  only  behindhand.    Few  months  ago  these 
Thirty-five  Concessions  had  filled  France  with  a  rejoicing,  which 
might  have  lasted  for  several  years.    Now  it  is  unavailing,  the 
very  mention  of  it  slighted ;  Majesty's  express  orders  set  at 
nought.  ' 

All  France  is  in  a  roar  ;  a  sea  of  persons,  estimated  at  '  ten 
'  thousand,' whirls  '  all  this  day  in  the  Palais  Royal.' ||  The  re- 
maining Clergy,  and  likewise  some  Forty-eight  Noblesse,  D'Orl^ans 
among  them,  have  now  forthwith' gone  over  to  the  victorious  Com- 
mons ;  by  whom,  as  is  natural,  they  are  received  '  with  acclama- 
'tion.' 

The  Third  Estate  triumphs  ;  Versailles  Town  shouting  round 
it ;  ten  thousand  whirling  all  day  in  the  Palais  Royal  ;  and  all 
France  standing  a-tiptoe,  not  unlike  whirling  !  Let  the  GEil-de- 
Boeuf  look  to  it.  As  for  King  Louis,  he  will  swallow  his  injuries  ; 
will  temporise,  keep  silence  ;  will  at  all  costs  have  present  peace. 

*  Histoire  Pariementaire,  ii.  26.         f  Bailly,  i.  217. 

t  Histoire  Parlementaii-e,  ii.  23.  §  Montgaillard',  ii.  47. 

IJ  Arthur  Young,  i.  119. 


BROGUE  THE  WAR-GOD. 


12S 


It  was  Tuesday  the  23d  of  June,  when  he  spoke  that  peremptory, 
royal  mandate  ;  and  the  week  is  not  done  till  he  has  written  to  the 
remaining  obstinate  Noblesse,  that  they  also  must  oblige  him,  and 
give  in.    D'Espremenil  rages  his  last ;  Barrel  Mirabeau  *  breaks 

*  his  sword,'  making  a  vow, — which  he  might  as  well  have  kept. 
The  '  Triple  Family '  is  now  therefore  complete  ;  the  third  erring 
brother,  the  Noblesse,  having  joined  it ; — erring  but  pardonable  ; 
soothed,  so  far  as  possible,  by  sweet  eloquence  from  President 
Bailly. 

So  triumphs  the  Third  Estate ;  and  States- General  are  be- 
come National  Assembly  ;  and  all  France  may  sing  Te  jDeum, 
By  wise  inertia,  and  wise  cessation  of  inertia,  great  victory  has 
been  gained.  It  is  the  last  night  of  June:  all  night  you  meet 
nothing  on  the  streets   of  Versailles  but  ^  men  running  with 

*  torches'  with  shouts  of  jubilation.  From  the  2d  of  May  when 
they  kissed  the  hand  of  Majesty,  to  this  30th  of  June  when  men 
run  with  torches,  we  count  seven  weeks  complete.  For  seven 
weeks  the  National  Carroccio  has  stood  far-seen,  ringing  many  a 
signal ;  and,  so  much  having  now  gathered  round  it,  may  hope  to 
stand. 


CHAPTER  III. 

BROGX.IE  THE  WAR-GOD, 

The  Court  feels  indignant  that  it  is  conquered  ;  but  what  then  ? 
Another  time  it  will  do  better.  Mercury  descended  in  vain  ;  now 
has  the  time  come  for  Mars.— The  gods  of  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  have 
withdrawn  into  the  darkness  of  their  cloudy  Ida  ;  and  sit  there, 
shaping  and  forging  what  may  be  needful,  be  it  '  billets  of  a  new 
*  National  Bank,'  munitions  of  war,  or  things  forever  inscrutable 
to  men. 

^  Accordingly,  what  means  this  *  apparatus  of  troops  '  ?  The  Na- 
tional Assembly  can  get  no  furtherance  for  its  Committee  of  Sub- 
sistences ;  can  hear  only  that,  at  Paris,  the  Bakers'  shops  are 
besieged  ;  that,  in  the  Provinces,  people  are  living  on  '  meal-husks 
and  boiled  grass.'  But  on  all  highways  there  hover  dust-clouds,  with 
the  march  of  regiments,  with  the  trailing  of  cannon  :  foreign 
Pandours,  of  fierce  aspect  ;  Sahs-Samade,  Esterhazy,  Royal- 
Allemand  ;  so  many  of  them  foreign  ;  to  the  number  of  thirty 
thousand— which  fear  can  magnify  to  fifty  :  all  wending  towards 
Paris  and  Versailles  !  Already,  on  the  heights  of  Montmartre,  is 
a  digging  and  delving  ;  too  like  a  scarping  and  trenching.  The 
effluence  of  Paris  is  arrested  Versailles-ward  by  a  barrier  of  cannon 
at  Sevres  Bridge.  From  the  Queen's  Mews,  cannon  stand  pointed 
on  the  National  Assembly  Hall  itself.  The  National  Assembly 
has  its  very  slumbers  broken  by  the  tramp  of  soldiery,  swarming 
and  defihng,  endless,  or  seemingly  endless,  all  round  those  spaces, 


126 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE, 


at  dead  of  night,  '  without  drum-music,  without  audible  word  of 
command.'  *    What  means  it  ? 

Shall  eight,  or  even  shall  twelve  Deputies,  our  Mirabeaug, 
Barnaves  at  the  head  of  them,  be  whirled  suddenly  to  the  Castle 
of  Ham  ;  the  rest  ignominously  dispersed  to  the  winds  ?  No 
National  Assembly  can  make  the  Constitution  with  cannon  levelled 
on  it  from  the  Queen's  Mews  !  What  means  this  reticence  cf  the 
CEil-de-Boeuf,  broken  only  by  nods  and  shrugs  ?  In  the  mystery 
of  that  cloudy  Ida,  what  is  it  that  they  forge  and  shape  ?— Such 
questions  must  distracted  Patriotism  keep  asking,  and  receive  no 
answer  but  an  echo. 

Enough  of  themselves  !  But  now,  above  all,  while  the  hungry 
food-year,  which  runs  from  August  to  August,  is  getting  older  ; 
becoming  more  and  more  a  famine-year  ?  With  '  meal-husks  and 
boiled  grass,'  Brigands  may  actually  collect ;  and,  in  crowds,  at 
farm  and  mansion,  howl  angrily.  Food!  Food  I  It  is  in  vain  to 
send  soldiers  against  them  :  at  sight  of  soldiers  they  disperse,  they 
vanish  as  under  ground ;  then  directly  reassemble  elsewhere  for 
new  tumult  and  plunder.  Frightful  enough  to  look  upon  ;  but  what 
\.o  hear  of,  reverberated  through  Twenty- five  Millions  of  suspicious 
minds  !  Brigands  and  Broglie,  open  Conflagration,  preternatural 
Rumour  are  driving  mad  most  hearts  in  France.  What  will  the 
issue  of  these  things  be  ? 

At  Marseilles,  many  weeks  ago,  t*he  Townsmen  have  taken 
arms  ;  for  '  suppressing  of  Brigands,'  and  other  purposes  :  the 
military  commandant  may  make  of  it  what  he  will.  Elsewhere, 
everywhere,  could  not  the  like  be  done  ?  Dubious,  on  the  dis- 
tracted Patriot  Imagination,  wavers,  as  a  last  deliverance,  some 
foreshadow  of  a  Natio7ml  Gtiard,  But  conceive,  above  all,  the 
Wooden  Tent  in  the  Palais  Royal  !  A  universal  hubbub  there, 
as  of  dissolving  worlds  :  there  loudest  bellows  the  mad,  mad- 
making  voice  of  Rumour  ;  their  sharpest  gazes  Suspicion  into  the 
pale  dim  World- Whirlpool ;  discerning  shapes  and  phantasms; 
imminent  bloodthirsty  Regiments  camped  on  the  Champ-de-Mars  ; 
dispersed  National  Assembly;  redhot  cannon-balls  (to  burn 
Paris)  ;— the  mad  War-god  and  Bellona's  sounding  thongs.  To 
the  calmest  man  it  is  becoming  too  plain  that  battle  is  in- 
evitable. 

Inevitable,  silently  nod  Messeigneurs  and  Broghe :  Inevitable 
and  brief !  Your  National  Assembly,  stopped  short  in  its  Consti- 
tutional labours,  may  fatigue  the  royal  ear  with  addresses  and 
remonstrances  :  those  cannon  of  ours  stand  duly  levelled ;  those 
troops  are  here.  The  King's  Declaration,  with  its  Thirty-five^  too 
generous  Articles,  was  spoken,  was  not  listened  to  ;  but  remains 
yet  unrevoked  :  he  himself  shall  effect  it,  seiil  ilfera  ! 

As  for  Broglie,  he  has  his  headquarters  at  Versailles,  all  as  in  a 
seat  of  war  :  clerks  writing  ;  significant  staff-officers,  inclined  to 
taciturnity ;  plumed  aides-de-camp,  scouts,  orderlies  flying  or 
hovering.  He  himself  looks  forth,  important,  impenetrable; 
listens  to  Besenval  Commandant  of  Paris,  and  his  warning  and 
*  A.  Lametb,  AsscmbUc  Constiiuante,  i.  41. 


BROGUE  THE  WAR-GOD, 


127 


earnest  counsels  (for  he  has  come  out  repeatedly  on  purpose),  with 
a  silent  smile.*  The  Parisians  resist  ?  scornfully  cry  Messeigneurs. 
As  a  meal-mob  may  !  They  have  sat  qui^t,  these  five  generations' 
submitting  to  all.  Their  Mercier  declared,  in  these  very  years' 
that  a  Parisian  revolt  was  henceforth  '  impossible.'f  Stand  by 
the  royal  Declaration,  of  the  Twenty-third  of  June.  The  Nobles 
of  France,  valorous,  chivalrous  as  of  old,  will  rally  round  us  with 
one  heart ; — and  as  for  this  which  you  call  Third  Estate,  and  which 
we  call  canaille  of  unwashed  Sansculottes,  of  Patehns,  Scribblers 
factious  Spouters, — brave  Broglie,  Svith  a  whiff  of  grapeshot 
{salve  de  canons)^  if  need  be,  will  give  quick  account  of  it.  Thus 
reason  they  :  on  their  cloudy  Ida  ;  hidden  from  men, — men  also 
hidden  from  them. 

Good  is  grapeshot,  Messeigneurs,  on  one  condition  :  that  the 
shooter  also  were  made  of  metal  !  But  unfortunately  he  is  made 
of  flesh  ;  under  his  buffs  and  bandoleers  your  hired  shooter  has 
instincts,  feelings,  even  a  kind  of  thought.  It  is  his  kindred, 
bone  of  his  bone,  this  same  canaille  that  shall  be  whiffed; 
he  has  brothers  in  it,  a  father  and  mother,~hving  on  meal- 
husks  and  boiled  grass.  His  very  doxy,  not  yet  'dead  i'  the 
spital,'  drives  him  into  military  heterodoxy  ;  declares  that  if  he 
shed  Patriot  blood,  he  shall  be  accursed  among  men.  The  soldier, 
who  has  seen  his  pay  stolen  by  rapacious  Foulons,  his  blood  wasted 
by  Soubises,  Pompadours,  and  the  gates  of  promotion  shut  in- 
exorably on  him  if  he  were  not  born  noble, — is  himself  not  without 
griefs  against  you.  Your  cause  is  not  the  soldier's  cause  ;  but, 
as  would  seem,  your  own  only,  and  no  other  god's  nor  man's. 

For  example,  the  world  may  have  heard  how,  at  Bethune  lately, 
when  there  rose  some  'riot  about  grains,'  of  which  sort  there  are 
so  many,  and  the  soldiers  stood  drawn  out,  and  the  word  '  Fire  1' 
was  g:ven,--not  a  trigger  stirred  ;  only  the  butts  of  all  muskets 
rattled  angrily  against  the  ground  ;  and  the  soldiers  stood  gloom- 
ing, with  a  mixed  expressio;i  of  countenance  ;— till  clutched  '  each 
under  the  arm  of  a  patriot  householder,'  they  were  all  hurried  off, 
in  this  manner,  to  be  treated  and  caressed,  and  have  their  pay 
increased  by  subscription  !  J 

^  Neither  have  the  Gardes  Frangaises,  the  best  regiment  of  the 
hne,  shown  any  promptitude  for  street-firing  lately.  They  re- 
turned grumbling  from  Reveillon's  ;  and  have  not  burnt  a  single 
cartridge  since  ;  nay,  as  we  saw,  not  even  when  bid.  A  dangerous 
humour  dwells  in  these  Gardes.  Notable  men  too,  in  their  way  ! 
Valadi  the  Pythagorean  was,  at  one  time,  an  officer  of  theirs.  Nav, 
in  the  ranks,  under  the  three-cornered  felt  and  cockade,  what  hard 
heads  may  there  not  be,  and  reflections  going  on,— unknown  to 
the  public  !  One  head  of  the  hardest  we  do  now  discern  there  : 
on  the  shoulders  of  a  certain  Sergeant  Hoche.  Lazare  Hoche, 
that  IS  the  name  of  him  ;  he  used  to  be  about  the  Versailles  Royal 
1  Stables,  nephew  of  a  poor  herbwoman  ;  a  handy  lad  ;  exceedingly 
;  addicted  to  reading.    He  is  now  Sergeant  Hoche,  and  can  rise  no 

*  Besenval,  iii.  398.  f  Mercier,  Tableau  de  Paris,  vi.  23. 

J  Histoire  Parlcmeiitairc. 


128 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


farther  :  he  lays  out  his  pay  in  rushhghts,  and  cheap  editions  of 
books  * 

On  the  whole,  the  best  seems  to  be  :  Consign  these  Gardes  Fran- 
gaises  to  their  Barracks.  So  Besenval  thinks,  and  orders.  Con- 
signed to  their  barracks,  the  Gardes  Frangaises  do  but  form  a 
*  Secret  Association,'  an  Engagement  not  to  act  against  the  ! 
National  Assembly.  Debauched  by  Valadi  the  Pythagorean ; 
debauched  by  money  and  women  !  cry  Besenval  and  innumerable 
others.  Debauched  by  what  you  will,  or  in  need  of  no  debauch- 
ing, behold  them,  long  files  of  them,  their  consignment  broken, 
arrive,  headed  by  their  Sergeants,  on  the  26th  day  of  June,  at 
the  Palais  Royal  !  Welcomed  with  vivats,  with  presents,  and  a 
pledge  of  patriot  liquor  ;  embracing  and  embraced  ;  declaring  in 
words  that  the  cause  of  France  is  their  cause  !  Next  day  and 
the  following  days  the  like.  What  is  singular  too,  except  this 
patriot  humour,  and  breaking  of  their  consignment,  they  behave 
otherwise  with  '  the  most  rigorous  accuracy.'f 

They  are  growing  questionable,  these  Gardes  !  Eleven  ring- 
leaders of  them  are  put  in  the  Abbaye  Prison.  It  boots  not  in  the 
least.  The  imprisoned  Eleven  have  only,  M3y  the  hand  of  an 
individual,'  to  drop,  towards  nightfall,  a  line  in  the  Cafe  de  Foy  ; 
where  Patriotism  harangues  loudest  on  its  table.  '  Two  hundred 
young  persons,  soon  waxing  to  four  thousand,'  with  fit  crowbars, 
roll  towards  the  Abbaye  ;  smite  asunder  the  needful  doors  ;  and 
bear  out  their  Eleven,  with  other  mihtary  victims  : — to  supper 
in  the  Palais  Royal  Garden  ;  to  board,  and  lodging  *  in  camp- 
beds,  in  the  Theatre  des  Varietes  ;'  other  national  Prytaneum  as 
yet  not  being  in  readiness.  Most  deliberate  !  Nay  so  punctual 
were  these  young  persons,  that  finding  one  military  victim  to  have 
been  imprisoned  for  real  civil  crime,  they  returned,  him  to  his  cell, 
with  protest., 

Why  new  military  force  was  not  called  out  ?  New  military  force 
was  called  out.  New  military  force  did  arrive,  full  gallop,  with 
drawn  sabre  :  but  the  people  gently  Maid  hold  of  their  bridles 
the  dragoons  sheathed  their  swords  ;  lifted  their  caps  by  way  of 
salute,  and  sat  like  mere  statues  of  dragoons, — except  indeed  that 
a  drop  of  liquor  being  brought  them,  they  '  drank  to  the  King  and 
Nation  with  the  greatest  cordiality.'^ 

And  now,  ask  in  return,  why  Messeigneurs  and  Broglie  the 
great  god  of  war,  on  seeing  these  things,  did  not  pause,  and  take 
some  other  course,  any  other  course  ?  Unhappily,  as  we  said, 
they  could  see  nothing.  I^ridc,  which  goes  before  a  fall  ;  wrath, 
if  not  reasonable,  yet  pardonable,  most  natural,  had  hardened 
their  hearts  and  heated  their  heads;  so,  with  imbecility  and 
violence  (ill-matched  pair),  they  rush  to  seek  their  hour.  All 
Regiments  are  not  Gardes  Franc^aises,  or  debauched  by  Valadi 
the  Pythagorean  :  let  fresh  undebauched  Regiments  come  up  ; 
let  Royal-Allemand,  Salis-Samade,  Swiss  Chateau-Vieux  come  uj), 
— which,  can  fight,  but  c^n  hardly  speak  except  in  German 

*  Dictionnaire  des  Hummcs  Mdrquans,  Londrcs  (Paris),  1800,  ii.  198, 
+  Beacnval,  iii.  394-6.  J  Histoire  Farlcmcntaire,  ii.  3a. 


TO  ARMS! 


129 


gutUirals  ;  let  soldiers  march,  and  highways  thunder  with 
artillery-waggons  :  Majesty  has  a  new  Royal  Session  to  hold,— 
and  miracles  to  work  there  !  The  whiff  of  grapeshot  can,  if 
needful,  become  a  blast  and  tempest. 

In  which  circumstances,  before  the  redhot  balls  begin  raining, 
may  not  the  Hundred-and- twenty  Paris  Electors,  though  their 
Cahier  is  long  since  hnished,  see  good  to  meet  again  daily,  as  an 
'  Electoral  Club  '  ?  They  meet  first  '  in  a  Tavern  ;  '—where  '  the 
largest  wedding-party'  cheerfully  give  place  to  them.*  But 
latterly  they  meet  in  the  H6tel~de-  Ville,  in  the  Townhall  itself. 
Flesselles,  Provost  of  Merchants,  with  his  Four  Echevins  {Scabins, 
Assessors),  could  not  prevent  it ;  such  was  the  force  of  public 
opinion.  He,  with  his  Echevins,  and  the  Six-and-Twenty  Town- 
Councillors,  all  appointed  from  Above,  may  well  sit  silent  there, 
in  their  long  gowns  ;  and  consider,  with  awed  eye,  what  prelude 
this  IS  of  convulsion  coming  from  Below,  and  how  themselves 
shall  fare  in  that  i  » 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TO  ARMS ! 

So  hangs  it,  dubious,  fateful,  in  the  sultry  days  of  July.  It  is 
the  passionate  printed  advice  of  M.  Marat,  to  abstain,  of  all  things, 
from  violence. t  Nevertheless  the  hungry  poor  are  already  burn- 
mg  Town  Barriers,  where  Tribute  on  eatables  is  levied  ;  getting 
clamorous  for  food. 

The  twelfth  July  nuorning  is  Sunday;  the  streets  are  all 
placarded  with  an  enormous-sized  De  par  le  Roz,  '  inviting  peace- 
able citizens  to  remain  within  doors,'  to  feel  no  alarm,  to  gather 
in  no  crowd.  Why  so  1  What  mean  these  '  placards  of  enor- 
mous size '  1  Above  all,  what  means  this  clatter  of  military ; 
dragoons,  hussars,  rattling  in  from  all  points  of  the  compass 
towards  the  Place  Louis  Ouinze  ;  with  a  staid  gravity  of  face, 
though  saluted  with  mere  nicknames,  hootings  and  even  missiles  ?J 
Besenval  is  with  them.  Swiss  Guards  of  his  are  already  in  the 
Champs  Elysees,  with  four  pieces  of  artillery. 

Have  the  destroyers  descended  on  us,  then  ?  From  the  Bridge 
of  Sevres  to  utmost  Vincennes,  from  Saint-Denis  to  the  Champ- 
de-Mars,  we  are  begirt  !  Alarm,  of  the  vague  unknown,  is  in 
every  heart.  The  Palais  Royal  has  become  a  place  of  awestruck 
mterjections,  silent  shakings  of  the  head  :  one  can  fancy  with 
what  dolorous  stound  the  noon-tide  cannon  (which  the  Sun  fires  at 

*  Dusaulx,  Prise  de  la  Bastille  [Collection  des  Mimoires,  par  Berville  et 
Barrike,  Pans,  1821),  p.  269. 

^  ^-^is  au  Peuple.ou  les  Ministres  ddvoiUs,  ist  July,  1789  (in  Histoira 
varlementatre,  11.  37.  j    j     ^  ^  \ 

X  Besenval,  iii.  411, 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE, 


the  crossing  of  his  meridian)  went  off  there  ;  bodeful,  hke  an  m- 
articulate  voice  of  doom/^  Are  these  troops  verily  come  out 
^ ao-ainst  Bricrands  '  ?  Where  are  the  Brigands?  What  mystery 
is  m  the  wind?— Hark  !  a  human  voice  reportmg  articulately  ^the 
Tob's-new8  :  Necker,  People's  Minister,  Saviour  of  France,  ts 
dismissed.  Impossible  ;  incredible  !  Treasonous  to  the  public 
peace  '  Such  a  voice  ought  to  be  choked  in  the  water-works  ;t 
--had  not  the  news-bringer  quickV  Hed.  Nevertheless,  friends, 
make  of  it  what  you  will,  the  news  is  true.  Necker  is  gone. 
Necker  hies  northward  incessantly,  in  obedient  secrecy,  since 
yesternio-ht.  We  have  a  new  Ministry  :  Broglie  the  War-god  ; 
Aristocrat  Breteuil  ;  Fculon  who  said  the  people  might  eat  grass  I 
Rumour,  therefore,  shaU  arise;  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and  m 
broad  France.  Paleness  sits  on  every  face  ;  confused  tremor  and 
fremescence  ;  waxing  into  thunder-peals,  of  Fury  stirred  on  by 
Fear. 

But  see  Camille  Desmoulins,  from  the  Cafe  de  Foy,  rushing  out, 
sibylline  in  face  ;  his  hair  streaming,  in  each  hand  a  pistol !  He 
sprino-s  to  a  table  :  the  Pohce  satellites  are  eyeing  him;  alive  they 
shall  not  take  him,  not  they  alive  him  alive.    This  time  he  speaks 
without  stammering  :— Friends,  shall  we  die  like  hunted  hares  ? 
Like  slieep  hounded  into  their  pinfold  ;  bleating  for  mercy,  where 
is  no  mercy,  but  only  a  whetted  knife  ?    The  hour  is  come;  the^ 
supreme  hour  of  Frenchman  and  Man  ;  when  Oppressors  are  to  ^ 
try  conclusions  with  Oppressed  ;  and  the  word  is,  swift  Death,  or 
Deliverance  forever.  Let  such  hour  be  well-zomc^ !    Us,  meseems, , 
one  cry  only  befits  :  To  Arms  !    Let  universal  Paris,  universal 
France,  as  with  the  throat  of  the  whirlwind,  sound  only  :  To 
arms  !— "  To  arms  !"  yell  responsive  the  innumerable  voices  :  like 
one  gi-e^it  voice,  as  of  a  Demon  yelling  from  the  air  :  for  all  faces 
wax  lire-eyed,  all  hearts  burn  up  into  madness.    In  such,  or  fitter 
words.t  does  CamiUe  evoke  the  Elemental  Powers,  in  thi§  great 
moment.— Friends,    continues    Camille,    some    rallying    sign  ! 
Cockades  ;  green  ones  ;— the  colour  of  hope  !— As  with  the  flight 
of  locusts,  these  r^nxen  tree  leaves  ;  green  ribands  from  the  neigh> 
bourin^>-  shops  ;  all  green  things  are  snatched,  and  made  cockades 
of    Camille  descends  from  his  table,  'stifled  with  embraces, 
wetted  with  tears  ;'  has  a  bit  of  green  riband  handed  him  ;  sticks 
it  in  his  hat.    And  now  to  Curtius'  Image-shop  there;  to  the 
Boulevards  ;  to  the  four  winds  ;  and  rest  not  till  France  be  on 
fire  ! 

France,  so  long  shaken  and  wind-parched,  is  probably  at  the 
rip-ht  inflammable  point.— As  for  poor  Curtius,  who,  one  grieves  to 
think,  might  be  but  imperfectly  paid,~he  cannot  make  two  words 
about  his  Images.  The  Wax-bust  of  Necker,  the  Wax-bust  of 
D'Orleans,  helpers  of  France  :  these,  covered  with  crape,  as  in 
funeral  procession,  or  after  the  manner  of  suppliants  appealing  to 

*  Hisloire  Parlemcntairc,  ii.  Rr.  t  Ibitl-  n  ^ 

X  Vicux  Cordelier,  par  r;ui)ille  Desmoulins,  No.  5  (reprinted  m  Collection 
des  Mi^moircs,  par  Buudouiii  i'r^rcs,  J'aris,  1825),  p.  81. 


TO  ARMS! 


131 


Heaven,  to  Earth,  and  Tartarus  itself,  a  mixed  multitude  bears 
off.  For  a  sign  !  As  indeed  man,  with  his  singular  miagmative 
faculties,  can  do  little  or  nothing  without  signs  :  thus  Turks  look 
to  their  Prophet's  banner  ;  also  Osier  Mannikins  have  been  burnt, 
and  Necker's  Portrait  has  erewhile  figured,  aloft  on  its  perch. 

In  this  manner  march  they,  a  mixed,  continually  mcreasmg 
multitude  ;  armed  with  axes,  staves  and  miscellanea  ;  grim,  many- 
sounding,  through  the  streets.  Be  all  Theatres  shut ;  let  all 
dancing,  on  planked  floor,  or  on  the  natural  greensward,  cease  ! 
Instead  of  a  Christian  Sabbath,  and  feast  of  gidngtcette  taber- 
nacles, it  shall  be  a  Sorcerer's  Sabbath  ;  and  Paris,  gone  rabid, 
dance,— with  the  Fiend  for  piper  ! 

*  However,  Besenval,  with  horse  and  foot,  is  in  the  Place  Louis 
Quinze.  Mortals  promenading  homewards,  in  the  fall  of  the  day, 
saunter  by,  from  Chaillot  or  Passy,  from  flirtation  and  a  little  thin 
wine;  with  sadder  step  than  usual.  Will  the  Bust-Procession 
pass  that  way  !  Behold  it ;  behold  also  Prince  Lambesc  dash 
forth  on  it,  with  his  Royal-Allemands  !  Shots  fall,  and  sabre- 
strokes  ;  Busts  are  hewn  asunder ;  and,  alas,  also  heads  of  men. 
A  sabred  Procession  has  nothing  for  it  but  to  explode,  along  what 
streets,  alleys,  Tuileries  Avenues  it  finds  ;  and  disappear.  One 
unarmed  man  lies  Iiewed  dovvn  ;  a  Garde  Fran^aise  by  his 
uniform  :  bear  him  (or  bear  even  the  report  of  him)  dead  and 
gory  to  his  Barracks  ; — where  he  has  comrades  still  alive  ! 

But  why  not  now,  victorious  Lambesc,  charge  through  that 
Tuileries  Garden  itself,  where  the  fugitives  are  vanishing  ?  Not 
show  the  Sunday  promenaders  too,  how  steel  glitters,  besprent 
with  blood  ;  that  it  be  told  of,  and  men's  ears  tingle  ?— Tingle, 
alas,  they  did  ;  but  the  wrong  way.  Victorious  Lambesc,  in  this 
his  second  or  Tuileries  charge,  succeeds  but  in  overturning  (call 
it  not  slashing,  for  he  struck  with  the  flat  of  his  sword)  one  man, 
a  poor  old  schoolmaster,  most  pacifically  tottering  there  ;  and  is 
driven  out,  by  barricade  of  chairs,  by  flights  of  '  bottles  and 
'glasses,' by  execrations  in  bass  voice  and  treble.  Most  delicate 
is  the  mob-queller's  vocation  ;  .  wherein  Too-much  may  be  as  bad 
as  Not-enough.  For  each  of  these  bass  voices,  and  more  each 
treble  voice,  borne  to  all  parts  of  the  City,  rings  now  nothing  but 
distracted  indignation ;  will  ring  all  night.  The  cry,  To  arms  ! 
roars  tenfold  ;  steeples  with  their  metal  storm- voice  boom  out,  as 
the  sun  sinks ;  armorer's  shops  are  broken  open,  plundered  ;  the 
streets  are  a  hving  foam-sea,  chafed  by  all  the  winds. 

Such  issue  came  of  Lambesc's  charge  on  the  Tuileries  Garden  : 
no  striking  of  salutary  terror  into  Chaiflot  promenaders  ;  a  striking 
into  broad  wakefulness  of  Frenzy  and  the  three  Furies,— which 
otherwise  were  not  asleep  1  For  they  lie  always,  those  subter- 
ranean Eumenides  (fabulous  and  yet  so  true),  in  the  dullest  exist- 
ence of  man  and  can  dance,  brandishing  their  dusky  torches, 
shaking  their  serpent-hair.  Lambesc  with  Royal- Allemand  may 
ride  to  his  barracks,  with  curses  for  his  marching-music  ;  then 
ride  back  again,  like  one  troubled  in  mind  :  vengeful  Gardes 
Fran^aises,  sacreingy  with  knit  brows,  start  out  on  him,  from  their 


132 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


barracks  in  the  Chaussee  d'Antin  ;  pour  a  volley  into  him  (killing 
and  wounding)  ;  which  he  must  not  answer,  but  ride  on.*^ 

Counsel  dwells  not  under  the  plumed  hat.    If  the  Eumenides 
awaken,  and  Broglie  has  given  no  orders,  what  can  a  Besenval 
do  ?    When  the  Gardes  Fran^aises,  with  Palais-Royal  volunteers, 
roll  down,  greedy  of  more  vengeance,  to  the  Place  Louis  Quinze 
itself,  they  find  neither  Besenval,  Lambesc,  Royal- Allern and,  nor : 
any  soldier  now  there.    Gone  is  military  order.    On  the  far 
Eastern  Boulevard,  of  Saint-Antoine,  the  Chasseurs  Normandie 
arrive,  dusty,  thirsty,  after  a  hard  day's  ride  ;  but  can  find  no 
billet-master,  see  no  course  in  this  City  of  confusions  ;  cannot  get , 
to  Besenval,  cannot  so  much  as  discover  where  he  is  :  Normandie 
must  even  bivouac  there,  in  its  dust  and  thirst,— unless  sonie  • 
patriot  will  treat  it  to  a  cup  of  liquor,  with  advices. 

Raging  multitudes  surround  the  H6tel-de-Ville,  crying  :  Arms ! 
Orders  !    The  Six-and-twenty  Town-Councillors,  with  their  long  ' 
gowns,  have  ducked  under  (into  the  raging  chaos)  ;— shall  never  ' 
emerge  more.    Besenval  is  painfully  wriggling  himself  out,  to  the  ' 
Champ-de-Mars  ;  he  must  sit  there  '  in  the  crudest  uncertainty 
courier  after  courier  may  dash  off  for  Versailles  ;  but  will  bring 
back  no  answer,  can  hardly  bring  himself  back.    For  the  roads 
are  all  blocked  with  batteries  and  pickets,  with  floods  of  carriages 
arrested  for  examination  :  such  was  Broglie's  one  sole  order  ;  the  , 
CEil-de-Boeuf,  hearing  in  the  distance  such  mad  din,  which  sounded  ' 
almost  like  invasion,  will  before  all  things  keep  its  own  head ; 
whole.    A  new  Ministry,  with,  as  it  were,  but  one  foot  in  the 
stirrup,  cannot  take  leaps.    Mad  Paris  is  abandoned  altogether  to ; 
itself.  • 

What  a  Paris,  when  the  darkness  fell  !  A  European  m.etro- 
politan  City  hurled  suddenly  forth  from  its  old  combinations  and 
arrangements  ;*  to  crash  tumultuously  together,  seeking  new.  Use 
and  wont  will  now  no  longer  direct  any  man  ;  each  man,  with 
what  of  originality  he  has,  must  begin  thinking ;  or  following  those 
that  think.  Seven  hundred  thousand  individuals,  on  the  sudden, 
find  all  their  old  paths,  old  ways  of  acting  and  deciding,  vanish 
from  under  their  feet.  And  so  there  go  they,  with  clangour  and 
terror,  they  know  not  as  yet  whether  running,  swimming  or  flymg, 
—headlong  into  the  New  Era.  With  clangour  and  terror  :  from 
above,  Broglie  the  war-god  impends,  preternatural,  v/ith  his  red- 
hot  cannon-balls  ;  and  from  below,  a  preternatural  Brigand-world 
menaces  with  dirk  and  firebrand  :  madness  rules  the  hour. 

Happily,  in  place  of  the  submerged  Twenty-six,  the  Electoral 
Club  is  gathering;  has  declared  itself  a  'Provisional  Municipality/ 
On  the  morrow  it  will  get  Provost  Flesselles,  with  an  Echevin  or 
two,  to  give  help  in  many  things.  For  the  present  it  decrees  one- 
most  essential  thing  :  that  forthwith  a  *  Parisian  Mihtia '  shall  be 
enrolled.  Depart,  ye  heads  of  Districts,  to  labour  in  this  great 
work  ;  while  we  here,  in  Permanent  Committee,  sit  alert.  Let 
fencible  men,  each  party  in  its  own  range  of  streets,  keep  watch 
Weber,  ii.  75-91. 


GIVE  US  ARMS.  133 


and  ward,  all  night.  Let  Paris  court  a  little  fever-sleep  ;  confused 
by  such  fever-dreams,  of  *  violent  motions  at  the  Palais  Royal  — ■ 
or  from  time  to  time  start  awake,  and  look  out,  palpitating,  in  its 
nightcap,  at  the  clash  of  discordant  mutually-unintelligible  Patrols ; 
on  the  gleam  of  distant  Barriers,  going  up  ail-too  ruddy  towards 
the  vault  of  Night.* 


CHAPTER  V. 

GIVE    US  ARMS. 

On  Monday  the  huge  City  has  awoke,  not  to  its  week-da/|r 
industry  :  to  what  a  different  one  !  The  working  man  has  become 
a  fighting  man  ;  has  one, want  only  :  that  of  arms.  The  industry 
of  all  crafts  has  paused  ;— except  it  be  the  smith's,  fiercely  ham- 
mering pikes  ;  and,  in  a  faint  degree,  the  kitchener's,  cooking  off- 
hand victuals  ;  for  douche  va  toujours.  Women  too  are  sewing 
cockades  ; — not  now  of  green,  which  being  D'Artois  colour,  the 
H6tel-de-Ville  has  had  to  interfere  in  it  ;  but  of  red  and  blue,  our 
old  Paris  colours  :  these,  once  based  on  a  ground  of  constitutional 
white,  are  the  famed  TRICOLOR,— which  (if  Prophecy  err  not) 
*  will  go  round  the  world.' 

All  shops,  unless  it  be  the  Bakers'  and  Vintners',  are  shut  :  Paris 
is  in  the  streets  ^—rushing,  foaming  like  some  Venice  wine-glass 
into  which  you  had  dropped  poison.  The  tocsin,  by  order,  is 
pealing  madly  from  all  steeples.  Arms,  ye  Elector  Municipals ; 
thou  Flesselles  with  thy  Echevins,  give  us  arms  !  Flesselles 
gives  what  he  can  :  fallacious,  perhaps  insidious  promises  of  arms 
from  Charleville  ;  order  to  seek  arms  here,  order  to  seek  them 
there.  The  new  Municipals  give  what  they  can  ;  some  three 
hundred  and  sixty  indifferent  firelocks,  the  equipment  of  the  City- 
Watch  :  '  a  man  in  wooden  shoes,  and  without  coat,  directly 
clutches  one  of  them,  and  mounts  guard.'  Also  as  hinted,  an 
order  to  all  Smiths  to  make  pikes  with  their  whole  soul. 

Heads  of  Districts  are  in  fervent  consultation  ;  subordinate 
Patriotism  roams  distracted,  ravenous  for  arms.  Hitherto  at  the 
H6tel-de-Ville  was  only  such  modicum  of  indifferent  firelocks  as 
we  have  seen.  At  the  so-called  Arsenal,  there  hes  nothing  but 
rust,  rubbish  and  saltpetre, — overlooked  too  by  the  guns  of  the 
Bastille.  His  Majesty's  Repository,  what  they  call  Garde-Meuble, 
is  forced  and  ransacked  :  tapestries  enough,  and  gauderies  ;  but 
of  serviceable  fighting-gear  small  stock !  Two  silver-mounted 
cannons  there  are  ;  an  ancient  gift  from  his  Majesty  of  Siam  to 
Louis  Fourteenth  :  gilt  sword  of  the  Good  Henri  ;  antique 
Chivalry  arms  and  armour.  These,  and  such  as  these,  a  neces- 
sitous Patriotism  snatches  i;Teedily,  for  want  of  better.  The 
Siamese  cannons  go  trundling,  on  an  errand  they  were  not  meant 

*  Deux  Amis,  i.  267-306. 
VOL.  I,  f 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE, 


for.  Among  the  indifferent  firelocks  are  seen  tourney-lances  ;  the 
princely  helm  and  hauberk  glittering-  amid  ill-hatted  heads, — as  in 
a  time  when  all  times .  and  their  possessions  are  suddenly  sent 
jumbling  ! 

At  the  Maison  de  Saint- Lazare^  Lazar- House  once^  now  a 
Correction-House  with  Priests,  there  was  no  trace  of  arms  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  corn,  plainly  to  a  culpable  extent.  Out  with  it, 
lo  market;  in  this  scarcity  of  grains! — Heavens,  will  'fifty-two 
carts,'  in  long  row,  hardly  carry  it  to  the  Halle  aux  Bleds  ?  Well, 
truly,  ye  reverend  Fathers,  was  your  pantry  filled  ;  fat  are  your 
larders  ;  over-generous  your  wine-bins,  ye  plotting  exasperators  of 
the  Poor ;  traitorous  forestallers  of  bread  1 

Vain  is  protesting,  entreaty  on  bare  knees  :  the  House  of  Saint- 
Lazarus  has  that  in  it  which  comes  not  out  by  protesting.  Behold,; 
how,  from  every  window,  it  vomits :  mere  torrents  of  furniture,  of 
bellowing  and  hurlyburly ; — the  cellars  also  leaking  wine.  Till,' 
as  was  natural,  smoke  rose, — kindled,  some  say,  by  the  desperate 
Saint- Lazaristes  themselves,  desperate  of  other  riddance  ;  and  the 
Establishment  vanished  from  this  world  in  fiame.  Remark  never- 
theless that  '  a  thief  (set  on  or  not  by  Aristocrats),  being  detected 
there,  is  '  instantly  hanged/ 

Look  also  at  the  Chatelet  Prison.  The  Debtors'  Prison  of  La' 
Force  is  broken  from  without ;  and  they  that  sat  in  bondage  to 
Aristocrats  go  free  :  hearing  of  which  the  Felons  at  the  Chatelet 
do  likewise  '  dig  up  their  pavements,'  and  stand  on  the  offensive  ; 
with  the  best  prospects, — had  not  Patriotism,  passing  that  way, 
^  fired  a  volley '  into  the  Felon  world  ;  and  crushed  it  down  again 
under  hatches.  Patriotism  consorts  not  with  thieving  and  felony 
surely  also  Punishment,  this  day,  hitches  (if  she  still  hitch)  after 
Crime,  with  frightful  shoes-of-swiftness  !  '  Some  score  or  two '  of; 
wretched  persons,  found  prostrate  with  drink  in  the  cellars  of  that 
Saint-Lazare,  are  indignantly  haled  to  prison  ;  the  Jailor  has  no 
room  ;  whereupon,  other  place  of  security  not  suggesting  itself,  it 
is  written,  '  on  les  pe^idit^  they  hanged  them.'^  Brief  is  the  word  ; 
not  without  significance,  be  it  true  or  untrue  ! 

In  such  circumstances,  the  Aristocrat,  the  unpatriotic  rich  man 
is  packing-up  for  departure.  But  he  shall  not  get  departed.  A 
wooden-shod  force  has  seized  all  Barriers,  burnt  or  not  :  all  that! 
enters,  all  that  seeks  to  issue,  is  stopped  there,  and  dragged  to  the 
Hotel-de-Ville  :  coaches,  tumbrils,  plate,  furniture,  ^  many  meal- 
*  sacks,'  in  time  even  '  flocks  and  herds  '  encumber  the  Place  de, 
Greve.t  \ 

And  so  it  roars,  and  rages,  and  brays  ;  drums  beating,  steeples| 
peahng  ;  criers  rushing  with  hand-bells  :  "  Oyez,  oyez.  All  men 
to  their  Districts  to  be  enroHed  !"  The  Districts  have  met  in' 
gardens,  open  squares  ;  are  getting  marshrvlled  into  volunteer 
troops.  No  redhot  ball  has  yet  fallen  from  Besenval's  Camp  ; 
on  tlie  contrary.  Deserters  with  their  arms  are  continually  drop- 
ping in  :  nay  now,  joy  of  joys,  at  two  in  the  afte^'noon,  the  Gardes 
*  lJUtoirc  Parle  men  taire,  ii.  96.       f  Dusaulx,  Prise  d-^  la  Basiille,  p.  2  a 


GIVE  US  ARMS. 


135 


jFrangaises,  being  ordered  to  Saint-Denis,  and  flatly  declining, 
ihave  come  over  in  a  body  !  It  is  a  fact  worth  many.  Three  thou- 
I  sand  six  hundred  of  the  best  lighting  men,  with  complete  accoutre- 
ment ;  with  cannoneers  even,  and  cannon  !  Their  officers  are  left 
standing  alone  ;  could  not  so  much  as  succeed  in  '  spiking  the 
guns.'  The  very  Swiss,  it  may  now  be  hoped,  Chateau- Vieux  and 
the  others,  will  have  doubts  about  fighting. 

Our  Parisian  Militia, — which  some  think  it  were  better  to  name 
'National  Guard, — is  prospering  as  heart  could  wish.    It  promised 
to  be  forty-eight  thousand;  but  will  in  few  hours  double  and  quad- 
ruple that  number  :  invincible,  if  we  had  only  arms  ! 

But  see,  the  promised  Charleviile  Boxes,  marked  Artillerie ! 
Here,  then,  are  arms  enough  1 — Conceive  the  blank  face  of  Pa- 
triotism, when  it  found  them  filled  with  rags,  foul  linen,  candle- 
ends,  and  bits  of  wood  !  Provost  of  the  Merchants,  how  is  this  ? 
Neither  at  the  Chartreux  Convent,  whither  we  were  sent  with 
signed  order,  is  there  or  ever  was  there  any  weapon  of  war.  Nay 
here,  in  this  Seine  Boat,  safe  under  tarpaulings  (had  not  the  nose 
,  of  Patriotism  been  of  the  tinest),  are  ^five  thousand-weight  of  gun- 
;  powder  ; '  not  coming  in^  but  surreptitiously  going  out  !  What 

•  meanest  thou,  Flesselles  ?    ^Tis  a  ticldish  game,  that  of  '  amusing' 

•  us.  Cat  plays  with  captive  mouse  :  but  mouse  with  enraged  cat, 
;  with  enraged  National  Tiger  ? 

Meanwhile,  the  faster,  O  ye  black-aproned  Smiths,  smite  ;  wqth 
strong  arm  and  willing  heart.    This  man  and  that,  all  stroke  from 
head  to  heel,  shall  thunder  alternating,  and  ply  the  great  forge- 
'  hammer,  tili  stithy  reel  and  ring  again ;  while  ever  and  anon,  over- 
head, booms  the  alarm-cannon, — for  the  City  has  now  got  gun- 
:  powder.    Pikes  are  fabricated  ;  fifty  thousand  of  them,  in  six-and- 
I  thirty  hours  :  judge  whether  the  Black-aproned  have  been  idle. 
;  Dig  trenches,  unpave  the  streets,  ye  others,  assiduous,  man  and 
maid  ;  cram  the  earth  in  barrel-barricades,  at  each  of  them  a 
a  volunteer  sentry  ;  pile  the  whinstones  in  windovz-sills  and  upper 
rooms.   Have  scalding  pitch,  at  least  boiling  water  ready,  ye  weak 
old  women,  to  pour  it  and  dash  it  on  Royal-Allemand,  with  your 
old  skinny  arms  :  your  shrill  curses  along  with  it  will  not  be  want- 
I  ing  ! — Patrols  of  the  newborn  National  Guard,  bearing  torches, 
j  scour  the  streets,  all  that  night ;  which  otherwise  are  vacant,  yet 
!  illuminated  in  every  window  by  order.     Strange-looking  ;  like 
some  naphtlja-hghted  City  of  the  Dead,  with  here  and  there  a 
flight  of  perturbed  Ghosts. 

I  O  poor  mortals,  how  ye  make  this  Earth  bitter  for  each  other  ; 
this  fearful  and  wonderful  Life  fearful  and  horrible  ;  and  wSatan 
has  his  place  in  all  hearts  !  Such  agonies  and  ragings  and  wail- 
ings  ye  have,  and  have  had,  in  all  times  : — to  be  buried  all,  in  so 
deep  silence  ;  and  uie  salt  sea  is  not  swoln  with  your  tears. 

Great  meanwhile  is  the  moment,  when  tidings  of  Freedom  reach 
'^is  ;  when  the  loui^  enthralled  soiil,  from  amid  its  chains  and 
ilid  sla^HTn!  ■  x^  rir  ii  ?tll]'  only  in  blindness  and  be- 

crment,  ail  :  y  Mini  lliat  made  it,  that  it  will  be / 

'•  c?  Underslcuu'  luai  well,  it  is  the  deep  commandment^ dimmer 

F  3 


J36 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


or  clearer,  of  our  whole  being,  to  be  free.  Freedom  is  the  one 
purport,  wisely  aimed  at,  or  unwisely,  of  all  man's  struggles,  toil- 
ings  and  sufferings,  in  this  Earth.  Yes,  supreme  is  such  a  moment 
(if  thou  have  known  it)  :  first  vision  as  of  a  flame-girt  Sinai,  in  this 
our  waste  Pilgrimage,~which  thenceforth  wants  not  its  pillar  of 
cloud  by  day,  and  pillar  of  fire  by  night  !  Something  it  is  even,- 
nry,  something  considerable,  when  the  chains  have  grown  corr. 
sive,  poisonous,  to  be  free  '  from  oppression  by  our  fellow-man; 
Forward,  ye  maddened  sons  of  France  ;  be  it  towards  this  destiny 
or  towards  that !  Around  you  is  but  starvation,  falsehood,  corrup- 
tion and  the  clam  of  death.    Where  ye  are  is  no  abiding. 

Imagination  may,  imperfecdy,  figure  how  Commandant  Besen- 
val,  in  the  Champ-de-Mars,  has  worn  out  these  sorrowful  hours 
Insurrection  raging  all  round  ;  his  men  melting  away  !  From 
Versailles,  to  the  most  pressing  messages,  comes  no  answer  ;  or 
once  only  some  vague  word  of  answer  which  is  worse  than  none. 
A  Council  of  Officers  can  decide  merely  that  there  is  no  decision  :i 
Colonels  inform  him,  '  weeping,'  that  they  do  not  think  their  men 
will  fight.  Cruel  uncertainty  is  here  :  war-god  Broghe  sits  yonder, 
laccessible  in  his  Olympus  ;  does  not  descend  terror-clad,  does 
not  produce  his  whiff  of  grapeshot  ;  sends  no  orders. 

Truly,  in  the  Chateau  of  Versailles  all  seems  mystery  :  m  the 
Town  of  Versailles,  were  we  there,  all  is  rumour,  alarm  and  indig- 
nation. An  august  National  Assembly  sits,  to  appearance,  menaced 
with  death;  endeavouring  to  defy  death.  It  has  resolved  '  that 
Necker  carries  with  him  the  regrets  of  the  Nation.'  It  has  sent 
solemn  Deputation  over  to  the  Chateau,  with  entreaty  to  have 
these  troops  withdrawn.  In  vain  :  his  Majesty,  with  a  singular 
composure,  invites  us  to  be  busy  rather  with  our  own  duty,  making 
the  Constitution  !  Foreign  Pandours,  and  suchlike,  go  pricking 
:m.  I  Drancin^^,  with  a  swashbuckler  air ;  with  an  eye  too  probabl) 
the  Salle  des  Mcmcs—\N(^rQ  it  not  for  the  'grim-looking 
countenances '  that  crowd  all  avenues  there^.Be  firm,  ye  Nationa, 
Senators  ;  the  cynosure  of  a  firm,  grim-looking  people  ! 

The  august  National  Senators  determine  that  there  shall,  a1 
least,  be  Permanent  Session  till  this  thing  end.  Wherein,  however 
consider  that  worthy  Lafranc  de  Pompignan,  our  new  President 
whom  we  have  named  Bailly's  successor,  is  an  old  man,  weariec 
with  many  things.  He  is  the  Brother  of  that  Pompignan  wh( 
meditated  lamentably  on  the  Book  of  Lamefitatio?is  : 

Saves-voux  p  ourquoi  Jdriinic 
Se  lamentait  touie  sa  vie  f 
Cest  qu  il  prdvoyait 
Que  Pompignan  Ic  traduiraiti 

Poor  Bishop  Pompignan  withdraws  ;  having  got  Lafayette  fo 
helper  or  substitute  :  this  latter,  as  nocturnal  Vice-President,  witl 
a  thin  liouse  in  disconsolate  humour,  sits  sleepless,  with  light; 
ansnuffed  ;— waiting  what  the  hours  will  bring. 

♦  See  Lameth;  Ferrieres,  &c. 


STORM  AND  VICTORY. 


13? 


I  So  at  Versailles.  But  at  Paris,  agitated  Besenval,  before  retiring 
for  the  night,  has  stept  over  to  old  M.  de  Sombreuil,  of  the  Hotel 
des  Invalides  hard  by.  M.  de  Sombreuil  has,  what  is  a  great 
secret,  some  eight-and-twenty  thousand  stand  of  muskets  deposited 
in  his  cellars  there  ;  but  no  trust  in  the  temper  of  his  Invalides. 
This  day,  for  example,  he  sent  twenty  of  the  fellows  down  to  un- 
screw those  muskets ;  lest  Sedition  might  snatch  at  them  ;  but 
scarcely,  in  six  hours,  had  the  twenty  unscrewed  twenty  gun-locks, 
or  dogsheads  {chie7is)  of  locks, — each  Invalide  his  dogshead  !  If 
ordered  to  fire,  they  would,  he  imagines,  turn  their  cannon  against 
himself. 

Unfortunate  old  military  gentlemen,  it  is  your  hour,  not  of  glory! 
Old  Marquis  de  Launay  too,  of  the  Bastille,  has  pulled  up  his 
drawbridges  long  since,  '  and  retired  into  his  interior ;  ^  with 
sentries  walking  on  his  battlements,  under  the  midnight  sky,  aloft 
over  the  glare  of  illuminated  Paris  ; — whom  a  National  Patrol, 
passing  that  way,  takes  the  liberty  of  firing  at  ;  '  seven  shots 
towards  twelve  at  night,'  which  do  not  take  effect  ^  This  was  the 
13th  day  of  July,  1789  ;  a  worse  day,  many  said,  than  the  last  13th 
was,  when  only  hail  fell  out  of  Heaven,  not  madness  rose  out  of 
Tophet,  ruining  worse  than  crops  ! 

In  these  same  days,  as  Chronology  will  teach  us,  hot  old  Marquis 
:  Mirabeaux  lies  stricken  down,  at  Argenteuil, — not  within  sound  of 
.  these  alarm-guns  ;  for  he  properly  is  not  there,  and  only  the  body 

of  him  now  lies,  deaf  and  cold  forever.  It  was  on  Saturday  night 
'  that  he,  drawing  his  last  life-breaths,  gave  up  the  ghost  there  ; — 
( leaving  a  world,  which  would  never  go  to  his  mind,  now  broken 
i  out,  seemingly,  into  deliration  and  the  culb7ite  generate.  What  is 
1  it  to  him,  departing  elsewhither,  on  his  long  journey  ?    The  old 

Chateau  Mirabeau  stands  silent,  far  off,  on  its  scarped  rock,  in  that 
!  *  gorge  of  two  windy  valleys ;  ^  the  pale-fading  spectre  now  of  a 
I  Chateau  :  this  huge  World-riot,  and  France,  and  the  World  itself, 
I  fades  also,  like  a  shadow  on  the  great  still  mirror-sea ;  and  all 
I  shall  be  as  God  wills. 

j  Young  Mirabeau,  sad  of  heart,  for  he  loved  this  crabbed  brave 
I  old  Father  ;  sad  of  heart,  and  occupied  with  sad  cares, — is  with- 
I  drawn  from  Public  History.  I'he  great  crisis  transacts  itself 
I  without  him.f 


CHAPTER  VI.  X 
STORM  AND  VICTORY. 

But,  to  the  living  and  the  struggling,  a  new.  Fourteenth  morning 
dawns.  Under  all  roofs  of  this  distracted  City,  is  the  nodus  of  a 
drama,  not  untragical,  crowding  towards  solution.  The  bustlings" 
Md  preparings,  the  tremors  and  menaces  ;  the  tears  that  fell  from 

*  Deux  Amis  de  la  Libert^,  i.  312.      f  Fil?  ^doptif,  Mirabeau ^  vi.  1.  i. 


138 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


old  eyes  !  This  day,  my  soii-s,  ye  shall  quit  you  like  men.  By  the 
m-emory  of  your  fathers'  wrongs,  by  the  hope  of  your  children's 
rights  I  Tyranny  impends  in  red  wrath  :  help  for  you  is  none  if 
not  in  your  own  right  hands.    This  day  ye  must  do  or  die. 

From  earliest  light,  a  sleepless  Permanent  Committee  has  heard 
the  old  cry,  now  waxing  almost  frantic,  mutinous  :  Arms  !  Arms! 
Provost  Flesselles,  or  what  traitors  there  are  among  you,  may 
think  of  those  Charleville  Boxes.  A  hundred-and-fifty  thousand 
of  us  ;  and  but  the  third  man  furnished  with  so  much  as  a  pike  ! 
Arms  are  the  one  thing  needful  :  with  arms  we  are  an  unconquer- 
able man-defying  National  Guard ;  without  arms,  a  rabble  to  be 
whiffed  with  grapeshot. 

Happily  the  word  has  arisen,  for  no  secret  can  be  kept, — that 
there  lie  muskets  at  the  Hotel  des  Lnvalides.  Thither  will  we  : 
King's  Procureur  M.  Ethys  de  Corny,  and  whatsoever  of  authority 
a  Permanent  Committee  can  lend,  shall  go  wdth  us.  Besenval's 
Camp  is  there  ;  perhaps  he  will  not  fire  on  us  ;  if  he  kill  us  we 
shall  but  die. 

Alas,  poor  Besenval,  with  his  troops  melting  away  in  that  manner, 
has  not  the  smallest  humour  to  tire  !  At  five  o'clock  this  morning, 
as  he  lay  dreaming,  oblivious  in  the  Ecole  Militaire,  a  '  figure ' 
stood  suddenly  at  his  bedside  :  '  with  face  rather  handsome  ;  eyes 
inflamed,  speech  rapid  and  curt,  air  audacious  :' such  a  figure 
drew  Priam's  curtains  !  The  m.essage  and  monition  of  the  figure 
was,  that  resistance  would  be  hopeless  ;  that  if  blood  flowed,  wo 
to  him  who  shed  it.  Thus  spoke  the  figure  ;  and  vanished. 
*  Withal  there  was  a  kind  of  eio^juence  that  struck  one.'  Besenval 
admits  that  he  should  have  arrested  him,  but  did  not.^  Who  this 
figure,  with  inflamed  eyes,  with  speech  rapid  and  curt,  might  be  ? 
Besenval  knows,  but  mentions  not.  Camille  Desmouhns  P\- 
thagorean  Marquis  Valadi,  inflamed  with  '  violent  motions  all  niglit 
at  the  Palais  Royal?'  Fame  names  him, '  Young  M.  Meillar'  ;t 
then  shuts  her  lips  about  him  for  ever. 

In  any  case,  behold  about  nine  in  the  morning,  our  National 
Volunteers  rolling  in  long  wide  flood,  south-westward  to  the  H die  I  des 
lnvalides ;  in  search  of  the  one  thing  needful.  King's  Procureur 
M.  Ethys  de  Corny  and  officials  are  there ;  the  Cure  of  Saint-Etienne 
du  Mont  marches  unpacific,  at  the  head  of  his  militant  Parish  ;  the 
Clerks  of  the  Bazoche  in  red  coats  we  see  marching,  now  Volunteers 
of  the  Ijazoche  ;  the  Volunteers  of  the  Palais  Royal  : — Nationl 
Volunteers,  numerable  by  tens  of  thousands  ;  of  one  heart  and  mind. 
The  King's  muskets  are  the  Nation's  ;  think,  old  M.  de  Sombreuil, 
how,  in  this  extremity,  thou  wilt  refuse  them  !  Old  M.  de  Som- 
breuil  would  fain  hold  parley,  send  Couriers  ;  but  it  skills  not ; 
the  walls  are  scaled,  no  Invalide  firing  -  a  shot ;  the  gates  must  be 
flung  open,  l^atriotism  rushes  in,  tumultuous,  from  grundsel  up  to 
ridge-tile,   through  all   rooms  and  passages  ;   rummaging  dis- 

*  Besenval,  iii.  414. 

'\  Tableaux  </c  la  Rh'ol iit'wn.  Prise  dc  la  Bastille  (a  folio  Collection  oi 
Pic  ture.s  .'uul  i^jitraits,  willi  It  ilcr  press,  not  always  uninstrurtive, — part  of  it 
said  to  bu  by  C.'hainfort) 


STORM  AND  VICTORY. 


i39 


tractedly  for  arms.  What  cellar,  or  what  cranny  can  escape  it  ? 
The  arms  are  found;  all  safe  there;  lying  packed  in  straw,— 
apparently  with  a  view  to  being  burnt.  More  ravenous  than 
famishing  lions  over  dead  prey,  the  multitude,  with  clangour  and 
vociferation,  pounces  on  them ;  struggling,  dashing,  clutching  \— 
to  the  jamming-up,  to  the  pressure,  fracture  and  probable  extinc- 
tion, of  the  weaker  Patriot.*  And  so,  with  such  protracted  crash 
of  deafening,  most  discordant  Orchestra-music,  the  Scene  is 
changed  :  and  eight-and-twenty  thousand  sufficient  firelocks  are 
on  the  shoulders  of  as  many  National  Guards,  lifted  thereby  out 
of  darkness  into  fiery  light. 

Let  Besenval  look  at  the  glitter  of  these  muskets,  as  they  flash 
by  !  Gardes  Fran^aises,  it  is  said,  have  cannon  levelled  on  him ; 
eady  to  open,  if  need  w^ere,  from  the  other  side  of  the  River.f 
Motionless  sits  he ;  '  astonished,'  one  may  flatter  oneself,  *  at  the 
'proud  bearing  {filre  contenance)  of  the  Parisians.' — And  now,  to 
the  Bastille,  ye  intrepid  Parisians  !  There  grapeshot  still  threatens ; 
thither  all  men's  thoughts  and  steps  are  now  tending. 

Old  de  Launay,  as  we  hinted,  withdrew  '  into  his  interior '  soon 
after  midnight  of  Sunday.  He  remains  there  ever  since,  ham- 
pered, as  all  military  gentlem.en  now  are,  in  the  saddest  conflict  of 
uncertainties.  The  H6tel-de-Ville  '  invites '  him  to  admit  National 
Soldiers,  which  is  a  soft  name  for  surrendering.  On  the  other 
hand,  His  Majesty's  orders  were  precise.  His  garrison  is  but 
eighty-two  old  Invalides,  reinforced  by  thirty-two  young  Swiss ; 
his  walls  indeed  are  nine  feet  thick,  he  has  cannon  and  powder  ; 
but,  alas,  only  one  day's  provision  of  victuals.  The  city  too  is 
French,  the  poor  garrison  mostly  French.  Rigorous  old  de 
Launay,  think  what  thou  wait  do ! 

All  morning,  since  nine,  there  has  been  a  cry  everywhere :  To 
the  Bastille !  Repeated  *  deputations  of  citizens  '  have  been  here, 
passionate  for  arms;  whom  de  Launay  has  got  dismissed  by  soft 
speeches  through  portholes.  Towards  noon.  Elector  Thuriot  de 
la  Rosiere  gains  admittance ;  finds  de  Launay  indisposed  for 
surrender;  nay  disposed  for  blowing  up  the  place  rather.  Thuriot 
mounts  with  him  to  the  battlements  :  heaps  of  paving-stones,  old 
iron  and  missiles  lie  piled ;  cannon  all  duly  levelled ;  in  every 
embrasure  a  cannon, — only  drawn  back  a  little !  But  outwards 
behold,  O  Thuriot,  how  the  multitude  flows  on,  welling  through 
every  street;  tocsin  furiously  pealing,  all  drums  beating  the 
gtntrale :  the  Suburb  Saint-Antoine  rolling  hitherward  wholly, 
as  one  man !  Such  vision  (spectral  yet  real)  thou,  O  Thuriot,  as 
from  thy  Mount  of  Vision,  beholdest  in  this  moment:  prophetic 
of  what  other  Phantasmagories,  and  loud-gibbering  Spectral 
Realities,  which,  thou  yet  beholdest  not,  but  shalt !  "  Que  voiilez 
vous?**  said  de  Launay,  turning  pale  at  the  sight,  with  an  air  of 
reproach,  almost  of  menace.  "  Monsieur."  said  Thuriot,  rising 
into  the  moral-subhme,  "What  mtdivx  you?  Consider  if  I  could 
not  precipitate  both  of  us  from  this  height," — say  only  a  hun- 
*  Deux  Ann's/\.  302.  i  Besenval,  iii.  416. 


140 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE, 


dred  feet,  excbsive  of  the  walled  ditch  !  Whereupon  de  Launay 
fell  silent.  Thuriot  shews  himself  from  some  pinnacle,  to  comfort 
the  multitude  becoming  suspicious,  fremescent  :  then  descends  ; 
departs  with  protest  ;  with  warning  addressed  also  to  the  Inyalides, 
—on  whom,  however,  it  produces  but  a  mixed  indistinct  impres- 
sion. The  old  heads  are  none  of  the  clearest  ;  besides,  it  is  said, 
de  Launay  has  been  profuse  of  beverages  {prodigua  des  buissons). 
They  think,  they  will  not  fire,— if  not  fired  on,  if  they  can  help 
it  ;  but  must,  on  the  whole,  be  ruled  considerably  by  circum- 
stances. 

Wo  to  thee,  de  Launay,  in  such  an  hour,  if  thou  canst  not, 
taking  some  one  firm  decision,  rule  circumstances  !  Soft  speeches 
will  not  serve  ;  hard  grape-shot  is  questionable  ;  but  hovering 
between  the  two  is  ^///questionable.  Ever  wilder  swells  the  tide 
of  men  ;  their  infinite  hum  waxing  ever  louder,  into  imprecations, 
perhaps  into  crackle  of  stray  musketry,-— which  latter,  on  walls 
nine  feet  thick,  cannot  do  execution.  The  Outer  Drawbridge  has 
been  lowered  for  Thuriot  ;  new  deputation  of  citizens  (it  is  the 
third,  and  noisiest  of  all)  penetrates  that  way  into  the  Outer 
Court  :  soft  speeches  producing  no  clearance  of  these,  de  Launay 
gives  fire  ;  pulls  up  his  Drawbridge.  A  slight  sputter  which 
kindled  too  combustible  chaos  ;  made  it  a  roaring  fire- 
chaos  !  Bursts  forth  insurrection,  at  sight  of  its  own  blood  (for 
there  were  deaths  by  that  sputter  of  fire),  into  endless  rolhng  ex- 
plosion of  musketry,  distraction,  execration  ;— and  overhead, 
from  the  Fortress,  let  one  great  gun,  with  its  grape-shot,  go  boom- 
ing, to  shew  what  we  could  do.    The  Bastille  is  besieged  ! 

On,  then,  all  Frenchmen  that  have  hearts  in  their  bodies  !  Roar 
with  all  your  throats,  of  cartilage  and  metal,  ye  Sons  of  Liberty  ; 
stir  spasmodically  whatsoever  of  utmost  faculty  is  in  you,  soul, 
body  or  spirit ;  for  it  is  the  hour  !  Smite,  thou  Louis  Tournay, 
cartwright  of  the  Marais,  old-soldier  of  the  Regiment  Dauphine  ; 
smite  at  that  Outer  Drawbridge  chain,  though  the  fiery  hail  whistles 
round  thee  !  Never,  over  nave  or  felloe,  did  thy  axe  strike  such  a 
stroke.  Down  with  it,  man  ;  down  with  it  to  Orcus  :  let  the  whole 
accursed  Edifice  sink  thither,  and  Tyranny  be  swallowed  up  for 
ever  !  Mounted,  some  say  on  the  roof  of  the  guard-room,  some 
^  on  bayonets  stuck  into  joints  of  the  wall,'  Louis  Tournay  smites, 
brave  Aubin  Bonnemere  (also  an  old  soldier)  seconding  him  :  the 
chain  yields,  breaks  ;  the  huge  Drawbridge  slams  down,  thunder- 
ing (avec  fracas).  Glorious  :  and  yet,  alas,  it  is  still  but  the  out- 
works. The  P:ight  grim  Towers,  with  their  Invalides'  musketry, 
their  paving  stones  and  cannon-mouths,  still  soar  aloft  intact ; — 
Ditch  yawning  impassable,  stone-faced  ;  the  inner  Drawbridge 
with  its  back  towards  us  :  the  Bastille  is  still  to  take  ! 

To  describe  this  Siege  of  the  Bastille  (thought  to  be  one  of  the 
most  important  in  History)  perhaps  transcends  the  talent  of 
mortals.  '  Could  one  but,  after  infinite  reading,  get  to  understand 
so  much  as  the  plan  of  the  building  !  But  there  is  open  Espla- 
nade, at  the  end  of  the  Rue  Saint- Antoine ;  there  are  such  Fore- 


STORM  AND  VICTORY, 


141 


courts,  Cotir  Avance,  Cour  de  POnne,  arched  Gateway  (where 
Louis  Tournay  now  fights)  ;  then  new  drawbridges,  dormant- 
bridges,  rampart-bastions,  and  the  grim  Eight  Towers  :  a  labyrin- 
thic  Mass,  high-frowning  there,  of  all  ages  from  twenty  years  to 
four  hundred  and  twenty  ;— beleagured,  in  this  its  last  hour,  as  we 
said,  by  mere  Chaos  come  again  !  Ordnance  of  all  calibres  ; 
throats  of  all  capacities  ;  men  of  all  plans,  every  man  his  own 
engineer  :  seldom  since  the  war  of  Pygmies  and  Cranes  was  there 
seen  so  anomalous  a  thing.  Half-pay  Elie  is  home  for  a  suit  of 
regimentals  ;  no  one  would  heed  him  in  coloured  clothes  :  half- 
pay  Hulin  is  haranguing  Gardes  Frangaises  in  the  Place  de  Greve. 
Frantic  Patriots  pick  up  the  grape- shots  ;  bear  them,  still  hot  (or 
seemingly  so),  to  the  H6tel-de-Ville  : — Paris,  you  perceive,  is  to 
be  burnt !  Flesselles  is  '  pale  to  the  very  lips,'  for  the  roar  of  the 
multitude  grows  deep.  Paris  wholly  has  got  to  the  acme  of  its 
frenzy  ;  whirled,  ail  ways,  by  panic  madness.  At  every  street- 
barricade,  there  whirls  simmering,  a  minor  whirlpool, — strengthen- 
ing the  barricade,  since  God  knows  what  is  coming  ;  and  all  minor 
whirpools  play  distractedly  into  that  grand  Fire-Mahlstrom  which 
is  lashing  round  the  Bastille. 

And  so  it  lashes  and  it  roars.  Cholat  the  wine-merchant  has  ^ 
become  an  impromptu  cannoneer.  See  Georget,  of  the  Marine 
Service,  fresh  from  Brest,  ply  the  King  of  Siam's  cannon.  Singular 
(if  we  were  not  used  to  the  like)  :  Georget  lay,  last  night,  taking 
his  ease  at  his  inn  ;  the  King  of  Siam's  cannon  also  lay,  knowing 
nothing  of  him,  for  a  hundred  years.  Yet  now,  at  the  right  instant, 
they  have  got  together,  and  discourse  eloquent  music.  For,  hear- 
ing what  was  toward,  Georget  sprang  from  the  Brest  Diligence, 
and  ran.  Gardes  Francaises  also  will  be  here,  with  real  artillery  : 
were  not  the  walls  so"  thick  !— Upwards  from  the  Esplanade, 
horizontally  from  all  neighbouring  roofs  and  windows,  flashes  one 
irregular  deluge  of  musketry, — without  effect.  The  Invahdes  lie 
flat,  firing  comparatively  at  their  ease  from  behind  stone  ;  hardly 
through  portholes,  shew  the  tip  of  a  nose.  We  fall,  shot ;  and 
make  no  impression  !  ^ 

Let  conflagration  rage  ;  of  whatsoever  is  combustible  !  Guard- 
rooms are  burnt,  Invalides  mess-rooms.  A  distracted  ^  Peruke- 
'  maker  with  two  fiery  torches '  is  for  burning  '  the  saltpetres  of  the 
'Arsenal  ;' — had  not  a  woma;/run  screaming  ;  had  not  a  Patriot, 
with  some  tincture  of  Natural  Philosophy,  instantly  struck  the 
wind  out  of  him  (butt  of  musket  on  pit  of  stomach),  overturned 
barrels,  and  stayed  the  devouring  element.  A  young  beautiful 
lady,  seized  escaping  in  th.se  Outer  Courts,  and  thought  falsely 
to  be  de  Launay's  daughter,  shall  be  burnt  in  de  Launay's  sight ; 
she  lies  swooned  on  a  paillasse  :  but  again  a  Patriot,  it  is  brave 
Aubin  Bonnemere  the  old  soldier,  dashes  in,  and  rescues  her. 
■'Straw  is  burnt ;  three  cartloads  of  it,  hauled  thither,  go  up  in 
white  smoke  :  almost  to  the  choking  of  Patriotism  itself  ;  so  that 
Elie  had,  with  singed  brows,  to  drag  back  one  cart ;  and  Reole 
the  ^  gigantic  haberdasher '  another.  Smoke  as  of  Tophet ;  con- 
fusion as  of  Babel ;  noise  as  of  the  Crack  of  Doom  ! 


142  THE  THIRD  ESTATE.   

Blood  flows  ;  the  aliment  of  new  madness.    The  wounded  are 
carried  into  houses  of  the  Rue  Cerisaie  ;  the  dying  leave  their  last 
mandate  not  to  vield  till  the  accursed  Stronghold  fall.    And  yet, 
alas  how  fall  ?  'The  walls  are  so  thick  !    Deputations,  three  in 
number,  arrive  from  the  H6tel-de-Ville  ;  Abbe  Fouchet  (who  was 
of  one)  can  sav,  with  what  almost  superhuman  courage  of  benevo- 
lence.*   These  wave  their  Town-flag  in  the  arched  Gateway  ;  and 
stand,  rolling  their  drum  ;  but  to  no  purpose.    In  such  Crack  ot 
Doom,  de  Launay  cannot  hear  them,  dare  not  believe  them  :  they 
return,  with  justified  rage,  the  whew  of  lead  still  singing  in  their 
ears     What  to  do  ?    The  Firemen  are  here,  squirting  vyith  their 
fire-pumps  on  the  Invalides'  cannon,  to  wet  the  touchholes  ;  they 
unfortunately  cannot  squirt  so  high  ;  but  produce  only  clouds  of 
spray.    Individuals  of  classical  knowledge  propose  catapults. 
Sant-rre,  the  sonorous  Brewer  of  the  Suburb  Saint- Antoine, 
advises  rather  that  the  place  be  fired,  by  a  '  mixcure  of  phos- 
'  phorous  and  oil-of-turpentine  spouted  up  through  forcing  pumps  : 
6  Spinola-Santerre,  hast  thou  the  mixture  ready  ?  Every  man  his 
own  engineer  !    And  still  the  fire-deluge  abates  not  ;  even  women 
are  firing,  and  Turks  ;  at  least  one  woman  (with  her  sweetheart), 
and  one  Turk.t    Gardes  Frangaises  have  come  :  real  cannon,  real 
cannoneers.     Usher  Maillard  is  busy  ;  half-pay  Ehe,  half-pay 
Hulin  rage  in  the  midst  of  thousands.        .  ,  ,  .    .     ,  ^ 

How  tile  great  Z  astille  Clock  ticks  (inatidible)  in  its  Inner  Court 
there,  at  its  ease,  hour  after  hour  ;  as  if  nothing  special,  for  it  or 
the  world,  were  passing  !    It  tolled  One  when  the  firing  began  ;  ^ 
and  is  now  pointing  towards  Five,  and  still  the  hring  sla^:es  not-  , 
Far  down,  in  their  vaults,  the  seven  Prisoners  hear  mufiled  dm  as  ■ 
of  earthquakes  ;  their  Turnkeys  answer  vaguely. 

Wo  to  thee,  de  Launay,  with  thy  poor  hundred  Inval  des ! 
Bro-lie  is  distant,  and  his  ears  heavy  :  Besenval  hears,  but  can 
send  no  help.  One  poor  troop  of  Hussars  has  crept  reconnoitr- 
ing, cautiously  along  the  Ouais,  as  far  as  the  Pont  Neuf  We 
are  come  to  join  you,"  said  the  Captain;  for  the  crowd  seems 
Shoreless.  A  large-headed  dwarfish  individual,  of  smoke-bleared 
aspect,  shambles  forward,  opening  his  blue  lips,  for  there  is  scmse 
in  him;  and  croaks:  "Alight  then,  and  give  up  your  aims  ! 
The  Hussar-Captain  is  too  happy  to  be  escorted  to  the  Harr^rs 
and  dismissed  on  parole.  Who  the  squat  ,ml,v,dual  ^^•as  ?  Men 
answer,  it  is  M.  Marat,  author  of  the  excel  cnt  pacific  ^tv^^ 
Pcuple!  Great  truly,  O  thou  rcmarlcabic  Doglccch,  >s  tins  thy  day 
of  emergence  and  new  birth  :  and  yet  tliis  same  day  come  four 
vears—  !— But  let  the  curtains  of  the  future  hang. 

What  shall  de  Launay  <l<i?  One  thing  only  de  Launay  could 
have  done  :  what  he  said  he  w,.ul<l  do.  Fancy  him  sitting,  from 
the  %st,  with  lighted  taper,  within  arm's  length  of  the  Powdcr- 
Ma<razine  ;  motionless,  like  old  Roman  Senator  or  bronze  Lamp- 
'm.ldcr  coldly  apprising  Thuriot,  and  all  men,  by  a  shght  motion 
Sfhis  eye,  wliat  his  rcsdulion  was  .-Harmless  he  sat  there,  while 
*  Fauchet's  'Saxxixi'wQ  {Deux  Amis,  i.  324). 
I  Deux  Amis  (i.  319);  Dusaulx,  &c. 


9 

STORM  AND  VICTORY, 


143 


unharmed  ;  but  the  King^s  Fortress^  meanwhile,  could,  might? 
would,  or  should,  in  nowise,  be  surrendered,  save  to  the  King's 
Messenger  :  one  old  man's  life  is  worthless,  so  it  be  lost  with 
honour  ;  but  think,  ye  brawHng  canaille^  how  will  it  be  when  a 
whole  Bastille  springs  skyward  ! — In  such  statuesque,  taper-hold- 
ing attitude,  one  fancies  de  Launay  might  have  left  Thuriot,  the 
red  Clerks  of  the  Bazoche,  Cure  of  Saint- Stephen  and  all  the 
tagrag-and-bobtail  of  the  world,  to  work  their  will. 

And  yet,  withal,  he  could  not  do  it.  Hast  thou  considered  how 
each  man's  heart  is  so  tremulously  responsive  to  the  hearts  of  all 
men  ;  hast  thou  noted  how  omnipotent  is  the  very  sound  of  many 
men  ?  How  their  shriek  of  indignation  palsies  the  strong  soul ; 
their  howl  of  contumely  withers  with  unfelt  pangs  ?  The  Ritter 
Gliick' confessed  that  the  ground-tone  of  the  noblest  passage,  ii? 
one  of  his  noblest  Operas,  was  the  voice  of  the  Populace  he  had 
heard  at  Vienna,  crying  to  their  Kaiser  :  Bread  !  Bread  !  Great 
is  the  combined  voice  of  men  ;  the  utterance  of  their  i?tstincts, 
which  are  truer  than  their  thoughts  :  it  is  the  greatest  a  man 
encounters,  among  the  sounds  and  shadows,  which  make  up  this 
World  of  Time.  He  who  can  resist  that,  has  his  footing  some 
where  beyond  Time.  De  Launay  could  not  do  it.  Distracted,  he 
hovers  betv/een  the  two ;  hopes  in  the  middle  of  despair ; 
surrenders  not  his  Fortress  ;  declares  that  he  will  blow  it  up, 
seizes  torches  to  blow  it  up,  and  does  not  blow  it.  Unhappy  old 
de  Launay,  it  is  the  death-agony  of  thy  Bastille  and  Thee  !  Jail, 
Jailoring  and  Jailor,  all  three,  such  as  they  may  have  been,  must 
finish. 

For  four  hours  now  has  the  World-Bedlam  roared  :  call  it  the 
World- Chimaera,  blowing  fire  !  The  poor  Invalides  have  sunk 
under  their  battlements,  or  rise  only  with  reversed  muskets  :  they 
have  made  a  white  flag  of  napkins  ;  go  beating  the  chamade^  or 
seeming  to  beat,  for  one  can  hear  nothing.  The  very  Swiss  at  the 
Portcullis  look  weary  of  firing  ;  disheartened  in  the  fire-deluge  : 
a  porthole  at  the  drawbridge  is  opened,  as  by  one  that  would 
speak.  See  Huissier  Maillard,  the  shifty  man  !  On  his  plank, 
swinging  over  the  abyss  of  that  stone-Ditch  ;  plank  resting  on 
parapet,  balanced  by  weight  of  Patriots, — he  hovers  perilous  : 
such  a  Dove  towards  such  an  Ark  !  Deftly,  thou  shifty  Usher  : 
one  m.an  already  fell ;  and  lies  smashed,  far  down  there,  against 
the  masonry  !  Usher  Maillard  falls  not  :  deftly,  unerring  he 
walks,  with  outspread  palm.  The  Swiss  holds  a  paper  through  his 
porthole  ;  the  shifty  Usher  snatches  it,  and  returns.  Terms  of 
surrender:  Pardon,  immunity  to  all  P  Are  they  accepted  ?—" /^6>/ 
ojjicier,  On  the  word  of  an  officer,"  answers  half-pay  Hulin, — or 
.half-pay  Elie,  for  men  do  not  agree  on  it,  "  they  are  I  "  Sinks  the 
drawbridge, — Usher  Maillard  bolting  it  when  down  ;  rushes-in  the 
living  deluge  :  the  Bastille  is  fallen  !  Victoire  I  La  Bastille  est 
prise  I"^ 

*  Histoire  de  la  Rivoliiiion,  par  Deuv  Amis  de  la  Liberte,  i.  ^.o^-o^oG  ; 
Besenval,  iii.  410-434;  I^ms^mIx,  Prise  de  la  Bastille,  291-301.  Bailly,  Mc- 
moires  ^Collection  de  Berville  et  Bar  riire),  i.  322  et  seqq. 


144 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

NOT  A  REVOLT. 


WHY  dwell  on  what  follows  ?  Hulin's>.  d^officer  should  have  been 
kern  but  could  not.  The  Swiss  stand  drawn  up  ;  disguised  m 
whke  canvass  smocks  ;  the  Invalides  without  disguise  ;  their  arms 
Tu  iLTIgainsrthe  ^all.  The  first  rush  of  victors,  in  ecstacy 
tharthe  death-peril  is  passed,  '  leaps  joyfully  on  their  necKS  ;  but 
new  V  ctoi^  rush,  and  ever  new,  also  in  ecstacy  not  wholly  of  joy 
Is  we  said,  it  was  a  living  deluge,  plunging  headlong  ;  had  not 
the  Gardes  Francaises,  in  their  cool  military  way  '  wheeled  round 
l^?h  a™s  '  3ed,'  it' would  have  plunged  suicidally,  by  the  hun- 
dred  or  the  thousand,  into  the  Bastille-ditch.  -  . 

And  sou  goes  plunging  through  court  a'^d  corndor  ;  billowmg 
uncontrollable,  firing  from  wmdows-on  itself  :  in  hot  frenzy^of 
triumoh  of  grief  and  vengeance  for  its  slain.  The  poor  invauaes 
w  IHare  ill  ■  one  Swiss,  running  off  in  his  white  smock  is  driven 
Wk  with  a  death-thrust.  Let  all  prisoners  be  marched  to  the 
Townhall  to  be  judged  !-Alas,  already  one  poor  Invalide  has  his 
IZ  hand  slashed^fT  him  ;  his  maimed  body  dragged  to  he 
pface  de  Grtve,and  hanged  there.  This  same  right  hand,  it  is 
said,  turned  back  de  Launay  from  the  Powder- Magazine,  and 

'"Delaunay,  'discovered  in  gray  frock  h  P°PPy-coloured 
riband'  is  for  killing  himself  with  the  sword  of  his  cane.  He 
shSrto  the  H6tel-de"ville  ;  Hulin  Maillard  and  others  escorting 
S  E he  ma?clfing  foremost  '  with  the  capitulation-paper  on  his 
sword?  po^t.'  /hrough  roarings  and  cursmgs  ;  th  jgh  hus - 
lines  clutchings,  and  at  last  through  strokes  !  Your  escort  is 
hnftl'ed  as^de  felled  down  ;  Hulin  sinks  exhausted  on  a Jieap  of 
.  c  Mi.pVnhlp  de  Launpv  '  He  shall  never  enter  the  Hotel 
de  Vme     nT;hi^  blood"^^^^^ 

that  shall  enter,  for  a  sign.  The  bleeding  trunk  hes  on  the  steps 
!Ee;  the  head  is  off  through  the  streets;  ghastly,  aloft  on  a 

Rigorous  de  Launrty  has  died  ;  crying  out,  "  O  frieiids,  kill  me 
fast      Merciful  dc  Losme  must  die  ;  though  Gratitude  enibraces 
him'  in  this  fearful  hour,  and  will  die  for  him;  it  avails  not. 
?  r^lhers  your  wrath  is  cruel  !    Your  Place  de  Greve  ,s  become  a 
Thtato'fZe  Tiger;  full  of  mere         /ellowrngs  and  tl.^^^^^  o 
Wood    One  other  officer  is  massacred  ;  one  other  invaiiae  is 
han  ed  on  the  Lamp-iron  :  with  difficulty,  with  generous  persever. 
anrc  the  Gardes  Franqaises  will    ve  the  rest.    Provost  Flesselles . 
s  dck  n  lon^  since  .A  the  paleness  of  death  ^ ^ote^hS^ 
his  scat  'to  be  judged  at  the  P.alais  Royal:  —alas,  to  be  snoi 
Sead,  S'an  unknclwn  hand,  at  the  turning  of  the  first  street  !- 

O  evening  sun  of  July,  how,  at  this  hour,  thy  beams  fall  slant  OH, 


NOT  A  REVOLT. 


reapers  amid  peaceful  woody  fields  ;  on  old  women  spinning  in 
cottages  ;  on  ships  far  out  in  file  silent  main  ;  on  Balls  at  the 
Orangerie  of  Versailles,  v/here  hig-h-rouged  Dames  of  the  Palace 
are  even  now  dancing  with  double-jacketted  Hussar-Officers  ; — and 
also  on  this  roaring  Hell -porch  of  a  H6tel-  de-Ville  !  Babel  Tower, 
with  the  confusion  of  tongues,  were  not  Bedlam  added  with  the 
conflagration  of  thoughts,  was  no  type  of  it.  One  forest  of  dis- 
tracted steel  bristles,  endless,  in  front  of  an  Electoral  Committee  ; 
points  itself,  in  horrid  radii,  against  this  and  the  other  accused 
breast.  It  was  the  Titans  warring  with  Olympus  ;  and  they 
scarcely  crediting  it,  have  co7iqitered:  prodigy  of  prodigies  ; 
delirious,— as  it  could  not  but  be.  Denunciation,  vengeance  ; 
blaze  of  triumph  on  a  dark  ground  of  terror  :  all  outward,  all 
inward  things  fallen  into  one  general  wreck  of  madness  ! 

Electoral  Committee  ?  Had  it  a  thousand  throats  of  brass,  it 
would  not  suffice.  Abbe  Lefevre,  in  the  Vaults  down  below,  is 
black  as  Vulcan,  distributing  that  '  five  thousand  weight  of 
Powder  ; '  with  what  perils,  these  eight-and-forty  hours  !  Last 
night,  a  Patriot,  in  liquor,  insisted  on  sitting  to  smoke  on  the  edge 
of  one  of  the  Powder-barrels  ;  there  smoked  he,  independent  of 
the  world,— till  the  Abbe  '  purchased  his  pipe  for  three  francs/ 
and  pitched  it  far. 
,     Elie,  in  the  grand  Hall,  Electoral  Committee  looking  on,  sits 

*  with  drawn  sv/ord  bent  in  three  places  ; '  with  battered  helm,  for 
I  he  was  of  the  Queen's  Regiment,  Cavalry  ;  with  torn  regimentals, 
'  face  singed  and  soiled  ;  comparable,  some  think,  to  'an  antique 
I  warrior  ; ' — ^judging  the  people  ;  forming  a  list  of  Bastillo  Heroes. 
;  O  Friends,  stain  not  with  blood  the  greenest  laurels  ever  gained 

in  this  world  :  such  is  the  burden  of  Elie's  song  ;  could  it  but  be 
listened  to.  Courage,  Elie  1  Courage,  ye  Municipal  Electors  ! 
A  declining  sun  ;  the  need  of  victuals,  and  of  telling  news,  will 
bring  assuagement,  dispersion  :  all  earthly  things  must  end. 

Along  the  streets  of  Paris  circulate  Seven  Bastille  Prisoners, 
'  borne  shoulder-high  :  seven  Heads  on  pikes  ;  the  Keys  of  the 
I  Bastille  ;  and  much  else.    See  also  the  Garde  Frangaises,  in  their 
I  steadfast  military  way,  marching  home  to  their  barracks,  with  the 
I  Invahdes  and  Swiss  kindly  enclosed  in  hollow  square.    It  is  one 
I  year  and  two  months  since  these  same  men  stood  unparticipating, 
with  Brennus  d'Agoust  at  the  Palais  de  Justice,  when  Fate  over- 
took d'Espremenil  ;  and    now  they  have  participated  ;  and  will 
participate.     Not    Gardes    Francaises    henceforth,  but  Ce7itre 
Grenadiers  of  the  National  Guard:  men  of  iron  discipline  and 
humour, — not  without  a  kind  of  thought  in  them  ! 

Likewise  ashlar  stones  of  the  Bastille  continue  thundering 
through  the  dusk  ;  its  paper-archives  shall  fly  white.  Old  secrets 
come  to  view  ;  and  long-buried  Despair  finds  voice.  Read  this 
portion  of  an  old  Letter      '  If  for  my  consolation  Monseigneur 

*  would  grant  me  for  the  sake  of  God  and  the  Most  Blessed 

*  Dated,  a  la  Bastille,  7  Octobre,  1752  ;  stgiicd  Queret-Demery.  Bastille 
DdvoilUe;  in  Linguet,  Mdmoires  sur  la  Bastille  (Paris,  1821),  p.  199. 


146  THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


'Trinity,  that  I  could  have  news  of  my  dear  wife  ;  were  it  only 
^her  name  on  card  to  shew  thrt   she  is  alive  !    It  were  the 

*  greatest  consolation  I  could  receive  ;  and  I  should  for  ever  bless 

*  the  greatness  of  Monseigneur.'  Poor  Prisoner,  who  namest  thy- 
self Qiteret  Demery,  and  hast  no  other  history —she  is  deai,  that 
dear  wife  of  thine,  and  thou  art  dead  !  'Tis  fifty  years  smce  thy 
breaking  heart  put  this  question  ;  to  be  heard  now  first,  and  long 
heard,  in  the  hearts  of  men.  .  . 

But  so  does  the  July  twihght  thicken  ;  so  must  Pans,  as  sick 
children,  and  all  distracted  creatures  do,  brawl  itself  finally  mto  a 
kind  of  sleep.  Municipal  Electors,  astonished  to  find  their  heads 
still  uppermost,  are  home  :  only  Moreau  de  Saint-Mery  ol  tropical 
birth  and  heart,  of  coolest  judgment  :  he,  with  two  others,  shall 
sit  permanent  at  the  Townhall.  Paris  sleeps  ;  gleams  upward  the 
illuminated  City :  patrols  go  clashing,  without  Common  watch- 
word ;  there  go  rumours  ;  alarms  of  war,  to  the  extent  of  fifteen 
'  thousand  men  marching  through  the  Suburb  Samt-Antome, — 
who  never  got  it  marched  through.  Of  the  day's  distraction  judge 
by  this  of  the  night  :  Moreau  dc  Saint-Mery,  ^before  rising  from 
*his  seat,  gave  upwards  of  three  thousand  orders.'^  What  a, 
head  ;  comparable  to  Friar  Bacon^G  Brass  Head  1  Withm  it  lies 
all  Paris.  Prompt  must  the  ansv/er  be,  right  or  wrong  ;  m  i  aris 
is  no  other  Authority  extant.  Seriously,  a  most  cool  clear  head  ; , 
^for  which  also  thou  O  brave  Saint- IMery,  m  many  capacities, 
from  august  Senator  to  Merchant's-Clerk,  Book-dealer,  Vice-. 
King  ;  in  many  places,  from  Virginia  to  Sardinia,  shalt,  ever  as  a  , 
brave  man,  find  employment.t  .     ^  i    i    ^  -a 

Besenval  has  decamped,  under  cloud  of  dusk,  amid  a  great 
'afiPAience  of  people,'  who 'did  not  harm  him  ;  he  marches,  with 
faint-growing  tread,  down  the  left  bank  of  the  Seme,  all  nigli  , 
-towards  infinite  space.  Resummoned  shall  Besenval  himself 
be  ;  for  trial,  for  difficuU  acquittal.  His  King's-troops,  his  Royal 
Allemand,  are  gone  hence  for  ever. 

The  Versailles  Ball  and  lemonade  is  done  ;  the  Orangery  is 
silent  except  for  nightbirds.  Over  in  the  Salle  des  Menus  Vice- 
president  La^avette,  with  unsnuffed  lights,  Svith  some  hundred  of 
'members,  stretched  on  tables  round  him/  sits  erect  ;  outwatching 
the  Bear.  This  day;  a  second  solemn  Deputation  went  to  his 
Majesty  ;  a  second,  and  then  a  third  :  with  no  effect.  What  will 
the  end  of  these  things  be  ?  ,  .       .        r  .^..^^  . 

In  the  Court,  all  is  mystery,  not  without  ivhisperings  of  terror  , 
though  ye  dream  of  lemonade  and  epaulettes,  ye  foohsh  women  ! 
His  Majesty,  kept  in  happy  ignorance,  perhaps  dreams  of  double- 
barrels  and  the  Woods  of  Meudon.  Late  at  night,  the  Du^e  de 
Liancourt,  having  official  right  of  entrance  gains  ^^^^^5  to  the 
Royal  Aoartments;  unfolds,  with  earnest  cle^n-ness,^  m  his^con- . 
stitutional  way,  the  Job's-news.  ^'Mms^;  said  poor 
une  revolte.V^hy,  that  is  a  revolt  !  Sire,"  answered  Liancourt, 
It  is  not  a  revolt,  it  is  a  revolution.'' 


t  Sr^p^^/A/^  UnivcrscUc,  §  Moreau  Saint-Mery  (by  Fournier-Pescay). 


CONQUERING  YOUR  KING. 


147 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

CONQUERING  YOUR  KING. 

On  the  morrow  a  fourth  Deputation  to  the  Chateau  is  On  foot  : 
of  a  more  solemn,  not  to  say  awful  character,  for,  besides  '  orgies 
Mn  the  Orangery,'  it  seems,  'the  grain  convoys  are  all  stopped;' 
nor  has  Mirabeau's  thunder  been  silent.  Such  Deputation  is 
on  the  poijit  of  setting  out— when  lo,  his  Majesty  himself 
attended  only  by  his  two  Brothers,  step  in  ;  quite  in  the  paternal 
manner  ;  announces  that  the  troops,  and  all  causes  of  offence,  are 
gone,  and  henceforth  there  shall  be  nothing  but  trust,  reconcde- 
ment,  good-will  ;  whereof  he  '  permits  and  even  requests,^  a 
National  Assembly  to  assure  Paris  in  his  name  !  Acclamation, 
as  of  men  suddenly  delivered  from  death,  gives  answer.  The 
whole  Assembly  spontaneously  rises  to  escort  his  Majesty  back ; 
'  interlacing  their  arms  to  keep  off  the  excessive  pressure  from 
'  him  for  all  Versailles  is  crowding  and  shouting.  The  Chateau 
Musicians,  with  a  felicitous  promptitude,  strike  up  the  Sein  de  sa 
Fainille  (Bosom  of  one's  Family)  :  the  Queen  appears  at  the 
Balcony  with  her  little  boy  and  girl,  '  kissing  them  several  times 
infinite  Vivats  spread  far  and  wide  ;— and  suddenly  there  has 
come,  as  it  were,  a  new  Heaven-on-Earth. 

Eightv-eight  august  Senators,  Bailly,  Lafayette,  and  our  repen- 
tant Archbishop  among  them,  take  coach  for  Paris,  with  the  great 
intelligence  ;  benedictions  without  end  on  their  heads.  From  the 
Place  Louis  Ouinze,  v/herc  they  alight,  all  the  way  to  the  Hotel-de- 
Ville,  it  is  one  sea  of  Tricolor  cockades,  of  clear  National  muskets  ; 
one  fempest  of  huzzaings,  hand-clappings,  aided  by  '  occasional 
*  rollings  '  of  drum-music.  Harangues  of  due  fervour  are  delivered ; 
especially  by  Lally  Tollendal,  pious  son  of  the  ill-fated  murdered 
Lally ;  on  whose  head,  in  consequence,  a  civic  crown  (of  oak  or 
parsley)  is  forced,— which  he  forcibly  transfers  to  Bailly's. 

But  surely,  for  one  thing,  the  National  Guard  must  have  a 
General  !  Moreau  de  Saint-Mery,  he  of  the  '  three  thousand 
'  orders,'  casts  one  of  his  significant  glances  on  the  Bust  of  Lafayette, 
which  has  st®od  there  ever  since  the  American  War  of  Liberty. 
\Vhereupon,by  acclamation,  Lafayette  is  nominated.  Again,  in  room 
of  the  slain  traitor  or  quasi-traitor  Flesselles,  President  Bailly  shall 
be— Provost  of  the  Merchants  ?  No  :  Mayor  of  Paris  !  So  be  it. 
Maire  de  Paris  I  Mayor  Bailly,  General  Lafayette  ;  vive  Bailly^ 
vive  Lafayette— ih^  universal  out-of-doors  multitude  rends  the 
welkin  in  confirmation.— And  now,  finally,  let  us  to  Notre-Dame 
for  a  7>  Deu7n. 

Towards  Notre-Dame  Cathedral,  in  glad  procession,  these 
Regenerators  of  the  Country  walk,  tlu'ough  a  jubilant  people  :  in 
fraternal  manner  ;  Abbe  Lefcvrc,  still  black  with  his  gunpowder 
services,  walking  arm  in  arnawith  the  white-stoled  Archbishop, 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


Poor  Bailly  comes  upon  the  Foundling  Children,  sent  to  kneel  to 
him  ;  and  '  weeps.'  Te  Deum^  our  Archbishop  officiating,  is  not 
only  sung,  but  i-//^/— with  blank  cartridges.  Our  joy  is  boundless 
as  our  wo  threatened  to  be.  Paris,  by  her  own  pike  and 
musket,  and  the  valour  of  her  own  heart,  has  conquered  the  very 
wargods,— to  the  satisfaction  now  of  Majesty  itself.  A  courier  is, 
this  night,  getting  under  way  for  Necker  :  the  People's  Minister, 
invited  back  by  King,  by  National  Assembly,  and  Nation,  shall 
traverse  France  amid  shoutings,  and  the  sound  of  trumpet  and 
timbrel. 

Seeing  which  course  of  things,  Messeigneurs  of  the  Court  Trium- 
virate, Messieurs  of  the  dead-born  Broglie-Ministry,  and  others 
such,  consider  that  their  part  also  is  clear  :  to  mount  and  ride. 
Off,  ye  too-loyal  Broglies,  Polignacs,  and  Princes  of  the  Blood  ; 
off  while  it  is  yet  time  !  Did  not  the  Palais-Royal  in  its  late 
nocturnal  '  violent  motions,'  set  a  specific  price  (place  of  payment 
not  mentioned)  on  each  of  your  heads  ?— With  precautions,  with 
the  aid  of  pieces  of  cannon  and  regiments  that  can  be  depended 
on,  Messeigneurs,  between  the  i6th  night  and  tf  3  17th  morning, 
get  to  their  several  roads.  Not  without  risk  !  Prince  Conde  has 
(or  seems  to  have)  '  men  galloping  at  full  speed  ; '  with  a  view,  it  is 
thought,  to  fling  him  into  the  river  Oise,  at  Pont-Sainte-Mayence."^ 
The  Polignacs  travel  disguised  ;  friends,  not  servants,  on  their 
coach-box.  Broglie  has  his  own  difficulties  at  Versailles,  runs  his 
own  risks  at  Metz  and  Verdun  ;  does  nevertheless  get  safe  to 
Luxemburg,  and  there  rests. 

This  is  what  they  call  the  First  Emigration  ;  determined  on,  as 
appears,  in  full  Court- conclave  ;  his  Majesty  assisting  ;  prompt  he, 
for  his  share  of  it,  to  follow  any  counsel  whatsoever.  '  Three  Sons 
'of  France,  and  four  Princes  of  the  blood  of  Saint  Louis,'  says 
Weber,  '  could  not  more  effectually  humble  the  Burghers  of  Paris 
'  than  by  appearing  to  withdraw  in  fear  of  their  life.'  Alas,  the 
Burghers  of  Paris  bear  it  with  unexpected  Stoicism  !  The  Man 
d'Artois  indeed  is  gone ;  but  has  he  carried,  for  example,  the  Land 
D'Artois  with  him?  Not  even  Bagatelle  the  Country-house 
(which  shall  be  useful  as  a  Tavern)  ;  hardly  the  four-valet 
Breeches,  leaving  the  Breeches-maker  !— As  for  old  Foulon,  one 
learns  that  he  is  dead  ;  at.  least  a  '  sumptuous  funeral  '  is  going 
on  ;  the  undertakers  honouring  him,  if  no  other  will  Inten- 
dant  Berthier,  his  son-in-law,  is  still  living  ;  lurking  :  he  joined 
Besenval,  on  that  Eumenides'  Sunday  ;  appearing  to  treat  it  with 
levity  ;  and  is  now  fled  no  man  knows  whither. 

The  Emigration  is  not  gone  many  miles,  Prince  Conde  hardly 
across  the  Oise,  when  his  Majesty,  according  to  arrangement, 
for  the  Emigration  also  thought  it  might  do  good,  —  under- 
t  ikes  a  rather  daring  enterprise  :  that  of  visiting  Paris  in  person. 
With  a  Hundred  Members  of  Assembly;  with  small  or  no 
military  escort,  which  indeed  he  dismissed  at  the  Bridge  of 
.  *  Weber,  ii.  126. 


THE  LANTERNS.  149 


Sevres,  poor  Louis  sets  out  ;  leaving  a  desolate  Palace  ;  a  Queen 
weeping,  the  Present,  the  Past,  and  the  Future  all  so  unfriendly  for 
her 

At  the  Barrier  of  Passy,  Mayor  Bailly,  in  grand  gala,  presents 
him  with  the  keys  ;  harangues  him,  in  Academic  style  ;  mentions 
that  it  is  a  great  day  ;  that  in  Henri  Ouatre's  case,  the  King  had 
to  make  conquest  of  his  People,  but  in  this  happier  case,  the 
Ppople  makes  conquest  of  its  King  {a  conqtds  son  Roi).  The  King, 
so  happily  conquered,  drives  forward,  slowly,  through  a  steel 
people,  all  silent,  or  shouting  only  Vive  la  Nation;  is  harangued 
at  the  Townhall,  by  Moreau  of  the  three-thousand  orders,  by 
King's  Procureur  M.  Ethys  de  Corny,  by  Lally  Tollendal,  and 
others  :  knows  not  what  to  think  of  it,  or  say  of  it  ;  learns  that  he 
is  '  Restorer  of  French  Liberty,'— as  a  Statue  of  him,  to  be  raised 
on  the  site  of  the  Bastille,  shall  testify  to  all  men.  ^  Finally,  he  is 
shewn  at  the  Balcony,  with  a  Tricolor  cockade  in  his  hat ;  is 
greeted  now,  with  vehement  acclamation,  from  Square  and  Street, 
from  all  windows  and  roofs  :— and  so  drives  home  again  amid 
glad  mingled  and,  as  it  were,  intermarried  shouts,  of  Vive  le  Rot 
and  Vive  la  Nation  j  wearied  but  safe. 

It  was  Sunday  when  the  red-hot  balls  hung  over  us,  in  mid  air  : 
it  is  now  but  Friday,  and  'the  Revolution  is  sanctioned.'  An 
August  National  Assembly  shall  make  the  Constitution ;  and 
neither  foreign  Pandour,  domestic  Triumvirate,  with  levelled  Can- 
non, Guy-Faux  powder-plots  (for  that  too  was  spoken  of)  ;  nor 
any  tyrannic  Power  on  the  Earth,  or  under  the  Earth,  shall  say 
ot  it.  What  dost  thou  ?— So  jubilates  the  people  ;  sure  now  of  a 
Constitution.  Cracked  Marquis  Saint-Huruge  is  heard  under  the 
windows  of  the  Chateau  ;  murmuring  sheer  speculative-treason."^ 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  LANTERNE. 

The  Fall  of  the  Bastille  may  be  said  to  have  shaken  all  France 
to  the  deepest  foundations  of  its  existence.  The  rumour  of  these 
wonders  flies  every  where  :  with  the  natural  speed  of  Rumour  ; 
with  an  effect  thought  to  be  preternatural,  produced  by  plots.  Did 
d'Orleans  or  Laclos,  nay  did  Mirabeau  (not  overburdened  with 
money  at  this  time)  send  riding  Couriers  out  from  Paris ;  to  gallop 
*on  all  radii,'  or  highways,  towards  all  points  of  France  ?  It  is  a 
miracle,  which  no  penetrating  man  will  call  in  question.t 

Already  in  most  Towns,  Electoral  Committees  were  met  ;  to 
regret  Necker,  in  harangue  and  resolution.  In  many  a  Town,  as 
Rennes,  Caen,  Lyons,  an  ebullient  people  was  already  regretting 
him  in  brickbats  and  musketry.    But  now,  at  every  Town's-end 


•  Campan,  ii.  46-64,  f  Toulongeon,  (i.  95) ;  Weber,  &c.  &cx 


ijo  THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 

in  France,  there  do  arrive,  in  these  days  of  terror, — '  men/  as  men 
will  arrive  ;  nay,  '  men  on  horseback,'  since  JRumour  oftenest 
travels  riding.  These  men  declare,  with  alarmed  countenance. 
The  Brigands  to  be  coming,  to  be  just  at  hand  ;  and  do  then- 
ride  on,  about  then-  further  business,  be  what  it  might  !  Where- 
upon the  whole  population  of  such  Town,  defensively  flies  to  arms. 
Petition  is  soon  thereafter  forwarded  to  National  Assembly  ;  in 
such  peril  and  terror  of  peril,  leave  to  organise  yourself  cannot  be 
withheld  :  the  armed  population  becomes  everywhere  an  enrolled 
National  Guard.  Thus  rides  Rumour,  careering  along  all  radii, 
from  Paris  outwards,  to  such  purpose  :  in  few  days,  some  say  in 
not  many  hours^  all  France  to  the  utmost  borders  bristles  with 
bayonets.  Singular,  but  undeniable, — miraculous  or  not  ! — But 
thus  may  any  chemical  liquid,  though  cooled  to  the  freezing-point, 
or  far  lower,  still  continue  liquid  ;  and  then,  on  the  slightest  stroke 
or  shake,  it  at  once  rushes  wholly  into  ice.  Thus  has  f^rance,  for 
long  months  and  even  years,  been  chemically  dealt  with  ;  brought 
below  zero  ;  and  now,  shaken  by  the  Fall  of  a  Bastille,  it  instan- 
taneously congeals  :  into  one  crystallised  mass,  of  sharp-cutting 
steel  !    Guai  a  chi  la  toccaj  'Ware  who  touches  it  ! 

In  Paris,  an  Electoral  Committee,  with  a  new  Mayor  and  , 
General,  is  urgent  with  belligerent  workmen  to  resume  their  handi- 
crafts. Strong  Dames  of  the  Market  {Danies  de  la  Halle)  deliver 
congratulatory  harangues  ;  present  ^  bouquets  to  the  Shrine  of 
'  Sainte  Genevieve.'  Unenrolled  men  deposit  their  arms, — not  so 
readily  as  could  be  wished  ;  and  receive  '  nine  francs.'  With  Te 
DeiimSj  Royal  Visits,  and  sanctioned  Revolution,  there  is  halcyon 
weather  ;  weather  even  of  preternatural  brightness  ;  the  hurricane 
Doing  overblown. 

Nevertheless,  as  is  natural,  the  waves  still  run  high,  ho!lo\' 
rocks  retaining  their  murmur.    We  are  but  at  the  22nd  of  tli 
month,  hardly  above  a  week  since  the  Bastille  fell,  when  ; 
suddenly  appears  that  old  Foulon  is  alive  ;  nay,  that  he  is  hert 
in  early  morning,  in  the  streets  of  '  Paris  ;  the  extortioner,  tli 
plotter,  who  would  make  the  people  eat  grass,  and  was  a  liar  froi 
the  beginning  ! — It  is  even  so.  The  deceptive  '  sumptuous  funeral 
(of  some  domestic  that  died) ;  the  hiding-place  at  Vitry  towards  • 
Fontainbleau,  have  not  availed  that  wretched  old  man.  Some 
living  domestic  or  dependant,  for  none  loves  Foulon,  has  betrayed 
him  to  the  Village.   Merciless  boors  of  Vitry  unearth  him  ;  pounce  . 
on  him,  like  hell-hounds  :  Westward,  old  InfLimy  ;  to  Pans,  to  be  i 
jutlged  at  the  II6tel-de- Ville  !    His  old  head,  which  seventy-four  ) 
years  have  bleached,  is  bare  ;  they  have  tied  an  emblematic 
bundle  of  grass  on  his  back  ;  a  garland  of  nettles  and  thistles  is 
round  his  neck  :  in  this  manner  ;  led  with  ropes  ;  goaded  on  with  . 
curses  and  menaces,  must  he.  with  his  old  limbs,  sprawl  forward  ;  1 
the  pitiablest,  most  unpitied  of  all  old  men. 

Sooty  Saint- Antoine,  and  every  street,  mustering  its  crowds  as  | 
he  passes,— the  Place  de  (ircve,  the  Hall  of  the  H6tel-de- Ville  j 
will  scarcely  hold  his  escort  and  him.    Foulon  must  not  only  bo  J 


THE  LANTERNE,  tgi 

iido-ed  rio-hteouslv  ;  but  judged  there  where  he  stands,  without 
mv  delay!   Appoint  seven  judges,  ye  Municipals,  or  seventy-and- 
^even  ;  name  them  yourselves,  or  we  will  name  them  :  but  judge 
ihn       Electoral  rhetoric,  eloquence  of  Mayor  Bailly,  is  wasted 
^^xplaining  the  beauty  of  the  Law's  delay.    Delay,  and  still  delay  ! 
Behold  O  Mayor  of  the  People,  the  morning  has  worn  itself  into 
:QOon  ;  'and  he  is  still  unjudged  1— Lafayette,  pressmgly  sent  for, 
, arrives  ;  gives  voice  :  This  Foulon,  a  known  man,  is  guilty  almost 
"beyond  'doubt  ;  but  may  he  not  have  accomplices  ?    Ought  not  the 
truth  to  be  cunningly  pumped  out  of  him,— in  the  Abbaye  Prison  f 
It  is  a  new  light  !  Sansculottism  claps  hands      at  which  hand- 
clapping,  Foulon  (in  his  fainness,  as  his  Destiny  would  have  it) 
also  claps       See  !   they  understand  one  another  ! "  cries  dark 
Sansculottism,  blazing  into  fury  of  suspicion.— "  Friends/' said  a 
'  person  in  good  clothes,'  stepping  forward,     what  is  the  use  ot 
'fudging  this  man  ?    Has  he  not  been  judged  these  thirty  years  ? 
With  wild  yells,  Sansculottism  clutches  him,  m  its  hundred  hands  : 
he  is  whirled  across  the  Place  de  Greve,  to  the  '  Lanterned  Lamp- 
=  iron  which  there  is  at  the  corner  of  the  RueJe  la  Vannerie  j  plead- 
'  ing  bitterly  for  life,— to  the  deaf  winds.    Qnly  with  the  third  rope 
(for  two  ropes  broke,  and  the  quavering  voice  still  pleaded),  can 
he  be  so  much  as  got  hanged  !    His  Body  is  dragged  through 
J  the  streets  ;  his  Head  goes  aloft  on  a  pike,  the  mouth  filled  with 
I  grass  :  amid  sounds  as  of  Tophet,  from  a  grass-eatmg  people.t 
Surely  if  Revenge  is  a  '  kind  of  Justice,'  it  is  a  '  wild    kind  I 
O  mad  Sansculottism  hast  thou  risen,  in  thy  mad  darkness,  m  thy 
1  soot  and  rags  ;  unexpectedly,  like  an  Enceladus,  livmg-'buried, 
'  from  under  his  Trinacria  ?    They  that  would  make  grass  be  eaten 
do  now  eat  grass,  in  this  manner  ?    After  long  dumb-groanmg 
generations,  has  the  turn  suddenly  become  thine  ?— To  such  abys- 
mal overturns,  and  frightful  instantaneous  inversions  of  the  centre- 
of-gravity,  are  human  Solecisms  all  liable,  if  they  but  knew  it  ;  the 
more  hable,  the  falser  (and  topheavier)  they  are  !— 

To  add  to  the  horror  of  Mayor  Bailly  and  his  Municipals,  word 
comes  that  Berthier  has  also  been  arrested  ;  that  he  is  on  his  way 
hither  from  Compiegne.  Berthier,  Intendant  (say,  Tax-levier)  ot 
Paris  ;  sycophant  and  tyrant  ;  forestaller  of  Corn  ;  contriver  ot 
Camps  against  the  people  ;— accused  of  many  things  :  is  he  not 
Foulori's  son-in-law;  and,  in  that  one  point,  guilty  of  all.''  In 
these  hours  too,  when  Sansculottism  has  its  blood  up  !  ihe 
shuddering  Municipals  send  one  of  their  numlDcr  to  escort  him, 
with  mounted  National  Guards.  .        r  r 

At  the  fall  of  day,  the  wretched  Berthier,  still  wearing  a  face  ot 
courage,  arrives  at  the  Barrier  ;  in  an  open  carriage  ;  with  the 
Municipal  beside  him  ;  five  hundred  horsemen  withdrawn  sabres  ; 
unarmed  footmen  enough  ;  not  without  noise  !  Placards  go 
brandished  round  him  ;  bearing  legibly  his  indictment,  as  Sans- 


*  Histoire  Par  lenient  aire,  ii.  146-0- 
^  Deux  Amisde  la  Liberty,  ii.  6q-& 


THE  THIRD  ESTATE. 


cuiottism,  with  unlegal  brevity,  'in  huge  letters,'  draws  it  up  * 
Paris  is  come  forth  to  meet  him  :  with  hand-clappings,  with 'win- 
dows flung  up  ;  with  dances,  triumph-songs,  as  of  the  Furies  ! 
Lastly  the  Head  of  Foulon  :  this  also  meets  him  on  a  pike.  Well 
might  his  '  look  become  glazed,'  and  sense  fail  him,  at  such  sight ! 

 Nevertheless,  be  the  man's  conscience  what  it  may,  his  nerves 

are  of  iron.  At  the  H6tel-de-Ville,  he  will  answer  nothing.  He 
says,  he  obeyed  superior  order  ;  they  have  his  papers  ;  they  may 
judge  and  determine  :  as  for  himself,  not  having  closed  an  eye 
these  two  nights,  he  demands,  before  all  things,  to  have  sleep. 
Leaden  sleep,  thou  miserable  Berthier  !  Guards  rise  with  him, 
in  motion  towards  the  Abbaye.  At  the  very  door  of  the  H6tel-de~ 
Ville,  they  are  chitched  ;  flung  asunder,  as  by  a  vortex  of  mad 
arms  ;  Berthier  whirls  towards  the  Lanterne.  He  snatches  a 
musket  ;  fells  and  strikes,  defending  himself  like  a  mad  lion  ;  is 
borne  down,  trampled,  hanged,  mangled  :  his  Head  too,  and  even 
his  Heart,  flies  over  the  City  on  a  pike. 

Horrible,  in  Lands  that  had  known  equal  justice  !  Not  so  un- 
natural in  Lands  that  had  never  known  it.  Ee  sang  qui  coule  est- 
il  done  si  pitr  ?  asks  Bamave  ;  intimating  that  the  Gallows,  though 
by  irregular  methods,  has  its  own.— Thou  thyself,  O  Reader,  when 
thou  turnest  that  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Vannerie,  and  discernest 
still  that  same  grim  Bracket  of  old  Iron,  wih  not  want  for  reflec- 
tions. '  Over  a  grocer's  shop,'  or  otherwise  ;  with  '  a  bust  of  Louis 
'  XIV.  in  the  niche  under  it,'  or  now  no  longer  in  the  niche,—-// 
still  sticks  there  :  still  holding  out  an  ineffectual  light,  of  fish-oil ; 
and  has  seen  worlds  wrecked,  and  says  nothing. 

But  to  the  eye  of  enlightened  Patriotism,  what  a  thunder-cloud 
was  this  ;  suddenly  shaping  itself  in  the  radiance  of  the  halcyon 
weather  !  Cloud  of  Erebus  blackness  :  betokening  latent  elec- 
tricity without  limit.  Mayor  BaiUy,  General  Lafayette  throw  up 
their  commissions,  in  an  indignant  manner  ;— need  to  be  flattered 
back  again.  The  cloud  disappears,  as  thunder-clouds  do.  The 
halcyon  weather  returns,  though  of  a  grayer  complexion  ;  of  a 
character  more  and  more  evidently  not  supernatural. 

Thus,  in  any  case,  with  w^hat  rubs  soever,  shall  the  Bastille  be 
abolished  from  our  Earth  ;  and  with  it.  Feudalism,  Despotism  ; 
and,  one  hopes,  Scoundrelism  generally,  and  all  hard  usage  of  man 
by  his  brother  man.  Alas,  the  Scoundrelism  and  hard  usage  are 
not  so  easy  of  abolition  !  But  as  for  the  Bastille,  it  sinks  day 
after  day,  and  month  after  month  ;  its  ashlars  and  boulders 
tumbling  down  continually,  by  express  order  of  our  Municipals. 
Crowds  of  the  curious  roam  through  its  caverns  ;  gaze  on  the 
skeletons  found  walled  up,  on  the  oubliettes,  iron  cages,  monstrous 
stone-blocks  with  padlock  chains.    One  day  we  discern  Mirabeau 

*  '  II  a  voU  le  Rot  et  la  France  (He  robbed  the  King  and  France).'  '  He 
'devoured  the  substance  of  the  People.'  '  He  was  the  slave  of  the  rich  and 
'  the  tyrant  of  the  poor.'  '  He  drank  the  blood  of  the  widow  aiid  orphan. 
*  He  betrayed  his  country.'    See  Deux  Amis,  ii.  67-73. 


THE  LANTERNE. 


153 


there  •  along  with  the  Genevese  Dumont.^  Workers  and  on- 
lookers make  reverent  way  for  him  ;  fling  verses,  flowers  on  his 
path  Bastille-papers  and  curiosities  into  his  carriage,  with  vtvats. 

Able  Editors  compile  Books  from  the  Bastille  Archives  ;  from 
what  of  them  remain  unburnt.  The  Key  of  that  Robber- Den 
shall  cross  the  Atlantic  ;  shall  lie  on  Washington's  hall-table.  The 
ereat  Clock  ticks  now  in  a  private  patriotic  Clockmaker's  apart- 
ment ;  no  longer  measuring  hours  of  mere  heaviness.  Vanished 
is  the  Bastille,  what  we  call  vanished  :  the  body,  or  sandstones,  of 
it  hanging,  in  benign  metamorphosis,  for  centuries  to  come,  over 
the  Seine  waters,  as  Pont  Louis  Seize  ;t  the  soul  of  it  living,  per- 
haps still  longer,  in  the  memories  of  men. 

So  far,  ye  august  Senators,  with  your  Tennis-Court  Oaths,  your 
inertia  and  impetus,  your  sagacity  and  pertinacity,  have  ye 
brought  us.  "  And  yet  think.  Messieurs,"  as  the  Petitioner  justly 
urged,  "  you  who  were  our  saviours,  did  yourselves  need  saviours," — 
the  brave  Bastillers,  namely  ;  workmen  of  Paris  ;  many  of  them 
in  straightened  pecuniary  circumstances  !J  Subscriptions  are 
opened  ;  Lists  are  formed,  more  accurate  than  Elie's  ;  harangues 
are  delivered.  A  Body  of  Ba'stille  Heroes^  tolerably  complete, 
did  get  together  comparable  to  the  Argonauts  ;  hoping  to 
endure  like  them.  But  in  little  more  than  a  year,  the  whirlpool  of 
things  threw  them  asunder  again,  and  they  sank.  So  many 
highest  superlatives  achieved  by  man  are  followed  by  new  higher  ; 
and  dwindle  into  comparatives  and  positives  !  The  Siege  of  the 
Bastille,  weighed  with  which,  in  the  Historical  balance,  most  other 
sieges,  including  that  of  Troy  Town,  are  gossamer,  cost,  as  we 
find,  in  killed  and  mortally  wounded,  on  the  part  of  the  Besiegers, 
some  Eighty-three  persons  :  on  the  part  of  the  Besieged,  after  all 
that  straw-burning,  fire-pumping,  and  deluge  of  musketry.  One 
poor  solitary  invalid,  shot  stone-dead  (roide-mort)  on  the  battle- 
ments ;§  The  Bastille  Fortress,  like  the  City  of  Jericho,  was 
overturned  by  miraculous  sound, 

*  Dumont,  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,  p.  305. 
f  Dulaure  :  Histoirc  de  Paris,  viii.  434. 

X  Moniteur  :  Stance  du  Samedi  18  Juillet  1789  (in  Histoire  Parlementairs, 

a.  137)- 

§  Dusaulx  :  Prise  de  la  Bastille,  p.  447,  &c. 


154 


BOOK  SIXTH- 


CONSOLIDATION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

MAKE  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

HEREDerhaps  is  the  place  to  fix,  a  little  more  precisely,  what 
these  two^  words,  Fre7tch  Revolution,  shall  mean  ;  for,  strictly  con- 
sidered, they  may  have  as  many  meanings  as  there  are  speakers  of 
them.  All  things  are  in  revolution  ;  in  change  from  monient  to 
moment,  which  becomes  sensible  from  epoch  to  epoch  :  m  this 
Time-World  of  ours  there  is  properly  nothing  else  but  revolution 
and  mutation,  and  even  nothing  else  conceivable.  Revolution, 
you  answer,  means  speedier  change.  Whereupon  one  has  still  to 
ask  :  How  speedy  1  At  what  degree  of  speed  ;  in  what  particular 
points  of  this  variable  course,  which  varies  in  velocity,  but  can 
never  stop  till  Time  itself  stops,  does  revolution  begin  and  end  ; 
cease  to  be  ordinary  mutation,  and  again  become  such  ?  It  is  a 
thing  that  will  depend  on  definition  more  or  less  arbitrary. 

For  ourselves  we  answer  that  French  Revolution  means  here 
the  open  violent  Rebellion,  and  Victory,  of  disimprisoned  Anarchy 
against  corrupt  worn-out  Authority  :  how  Anarchy  breaks  prison  ; 
bursts  up  from  the  infinite  Deep,  and  rages  uncontrollable,  im- 
measurable, enveloping  a  world  ;  in  phasis  after  phasis  of  fever- 
frenzy  till  the  frenzy  burning  itself  out,  and  what  elements  of 
new  Order  it  held  (since  all  Force  holds  such)  developing  them- 
selves, the  Uncontrollable  be  got,  if  not  reimprisoned,  yet 
harnessed,  and  its  mad  forces  made  to  work  towards  their  object 
as  sane  regulated  ones.  For  as  Hierarchies  and  Dynasties  of  all 
kinds.  Theocracies,  Aristocracies,  Autocracies,  Strumpetocracies, 
have  ruled  over  the  world  ;  so  it  was  appointed,  in  the  decrees  of 
Providence,  that  this  same  Victorious  Anarchy,  Jacobinism, 
Sansculottism,  French  Revolution,  Horrors  of  French  Revolution, 
or  what  else  mortals  name  it,  should  have  its  turn.  The  '  destruc- 
*tive  wrath  '  of  Sansculottism  :  this  is  what  we  speak,  having  un- 
happily no  voice  for  singing. 

Surely  a  great  Phenomenon  :  nay  it  is  a  transcendental  one, 
overstepping  all  rules  and  experience  ;  the  crowning  Phenomenon 


MAKE  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


155 


I  )f  our  Modern  Time.  For  here  again,  most  unexpectedly,  comes 
mtique  Fanaticism  in  new  and  newest  vesture  ;  miraculous,  as  all 
Fanaticism  is.  Call  it  the  Fanaticism  of  '  making  away  with 
formulas,  de  hiuner  les  formules'  The  world  of  formulas,  the 
formed  x^gvXdXt^  world,  which  all  habitable  world  is,— must  needs 
I  late  such  Fanaticism  like  death  ;  and  be  at  deadly  variance  with 
lit  The  world  of  formulas  must  conquer  it  ;  or  failing  that,  must 
'  lie  execrating  it,  anathematising  it ;— can  nevertheless  in  nowise 
■  prevent  its  being  and  its  having  been.  The  Anathemas  are  there, 
md  the  miraculous  Thing  is  there. 

Whence  it  cometh  ?    Whither  it  goeth  ?    These  are  questions  ! 
When  the  age  of  Miracles  lay  faded  into  the  distance  as  an  in- 
:redible  tradition,  and  even  the  age  of  Conventionalities  was  now 
Did  ;  and  Man's  Existence  had  for  long  generations  rested  on  mere 
formulas  which  were  grown  hollow  by  course  of  time  ;  and  it 
i  seemed  as  if  no  Reahty  any  longer  existed  but  only  Phantasms  of 
reahties,  and  God's  Universe  were  the  work  of  the  Tailor  and 
i  Upholsterer  mainly,  and  men  were  buckram  masks  that  went 
about  becking  and  grimacing  there,— on  a  sudden,  the  Earth 
I  yawns  asunder,  and  amid  Tartarean  smoke,  and  glare  of  fierce 
'brightness,  rises  Sansculottism,  many-headed,  fire-breathing, 
and  asks  :  What  think  ye  of  me  ?    Well  may  the  buckram  masks 
j start  together,   terror-struck;    'into   expressive   well- concerted 
rgroups!'    It  is  indeed,  Friends,  a  most  singular,  most  fatal 
thing.    Let  whosoever  is  but  buckram  and  a  phantasm  look  to  it  : 
ill  verily  may  it  fare  with  him  ;  here  methinks  he  cannot  much 
longer  be.    Wo  also  to  many  a  one  who  is  not  wholly  buckram, 
but  partially  real  and  human  !    The  age  of  Miracles  has  come 
back!    'Behold  the  W^orld-Phcenix,  in  fire-consummation  and 

*  fire-creation  ;  wide  are  her  fanning  wings  ;  loud  is  her  death- 
^  melody,  of  battle-thunders  and  falling  towns  ;  skyward  lashes 

*  the  funeral  flame,  enveloping  all  things  :  it  is  the  Death-Birth  of 
a  World!' 

Whereby,  however,  as  we  often  say,  shall  one  unspeakable  bless- 
ing seem  attainable.  This,  namely  :  that  Man  and  his  Life  rest 
no  more  on  hollowness  and  a  Lie,  but  on  solidity  and  some  kind 
of  Truth*  Welcome,  the  beggarliest  truth,  so  it  be  one,  in  ex- 
,  change  for  the  royallest  sham  !  Truth  of  any  kind  breeds  ever 
new  and  better  truth  ;  thus  hard  granite  rock  will  crumble  down 
into  soil,  under  the  blessed  skyey  influences  ;  and  cover  itself  with 
verdure,  with  fruitage  and  umbrage.  But  as  for  Falsehood,  which 
in  like  contrary  manner,  grows  ever  falser,— what  can  it,  or  what 
should  it  do  but  decease,  being  ripe  ;  decompose  itself,  gently  or 
even  violently,  and  return  to  the  Father  of  it, — too  probably  in 
flames  of  fire  ? 

Sansculottism  will  burn  much  ;  but  what  is  incombustible  it 
will  not  burn.    Fear  not  Sansculottism  ;  recognise  it  for  what  it 
is,  the  portentous,  inevitable  end  of  much,  the  miraculous  begin- 
ning of  much.    One  other  thing  thou  mayest  understand  of  it  : 
i  that  it  too  came  from  God  ;  for  has  it  not  been  ?    From  of  old,  as 


156 


CONS  OLID  A  TION. 


it  is  writtem,  are  His  goings  forth  ;  in  the  great  Deep  of  things  j 
fearful  and  wonderful  now  as  in  the  beginning  :  in  the  whirlwind 
also  He  speaks  !  and  the  wrath  of  men  is  made  to  praise  Him.— 
But  to  gauge  and  measure  this  immeasurable  Thing,  and  what  is 
called  account  for  it,  and  reduce  it  to  a  dead  logic-formula,  at- 
tempt not  !  Much  less  shalt  thou  shriek  thyself  hoarse,  cursing 
it  ;  for  that,  to  all  needful  lengths,  has  been  already  done.  As  an 
actually  existing  Son  of  Time,  look,  with  unspeakable  manifold 
interest,  oftenest  in  silence,  at  what  the  Time  did  bring  :  there- 
with edify,  instruct,  nourish  thyself,  or  were  it  but  to  amuse  and 
gratify  thyself,  as  it  is  given  thee. 

Another  question  which  at  every  new  turn  will  rise  on  us,  requiring, 
ever  new  reply  is  this  :  Where  the  French  Revolution  specially 
is  ?  In  the  King's  Palace,  in  his  Majesty's  or  her  Majesty's  man-' 
agements,  and  maltreatments,  cabals,  imbecilities  and  woes,; 
answer  some  few  : — whom  we  do  not  answen  In  the  National^ 
Assembly,  answer  a  large  mixed  multitude  :  who  accordingly  seat' 
themselves  in  the  Reporter's  Chair  ;  and  therefrom  noting  what^. 
Proclamations,  Acts,  Reports,  passages  of  logic-fence,  bursts  ofj 
parliamentary  eloquence  seem  notable  within  doors,  and  whatj 
tumults  and  rumours  of  tumult  become  audible  from  without,-r-', 
produce  volume  on  volume  ;  and,  naming  it  History  of  the  French; 
Revolution,  contentedly  publish  the  same.  To  do  the  like,  to' 
almost  any  extent,  with  so  mang  Filed  Newspapers,  Choix  des\ 
Rapports,  Histoires  Parlemmtaires  as  there  are,  amounting  to' 
many  horseloads,  were  easy  for  us  Easy  but  unprofitable.  Thef 
National  Assembly,  named  now  Constituent  Assembly,  goes  its! 
course  ;  making  the  Constitution  ;  but  the  French  Revolution  alsoi 
goes  its  course.  \ 

In  general,  may  we  not  say  that  the  French  Revolution  lies  in^ 
the  hear  tand  head  of  every  violent-speaking,  of  every  violent- 1 
thinking  French  Man  ?  How  the  Twenty-five  Millions  of  such,  in 
their  perplexed  combination,  acting  and  counter-acting  may  give 
birth  to  events  ;  which  event  successively  is  the  cardinal  one  ;  and 
from  what  point  of  vision  it  may  best  be  surveyed  :  this  is  a 
problem.  Which  problem  the  best  insight,  seeking  hght  from  all 
possible  sources,  shifting  its  point  of  vision  whithersoever  vision  or 
glimpse  of  vision  can  be  had,  may  employ  itself  in  solving ;  and  be 
well  content  to  solve  in  some  tolerably  approximate  way. 

As  to  the  National  Assembly,  in  so  far  as  it  still  towers  eminent 
over  Prance,  after  the  manner  of  a  car-borne  Carroccio,  though  now 
no  longer  in  the  van  ;  and  rings  signals  for  retreat  or  for  advance, 
— it  is  and  continues  a  reahty  among  other  reahties.  But  in  so  far 
as  it  sits  making  the  Constitution,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  fatuity 
and  chimera  mainly.  Alas,  in  the  never  so  heroic  building  of 
Montesquieu-Mably  card-castles,  though  shouted  over  by  the 
world,  what  interest  is  there?  Occupied  in  that  way,  an  august 
National  Assembly  becomes  for  us  little  other  than  a  wSanhedrim  of 
Pedants,  not  of  the  gerund-grinding,  yet  of  no  fruitfuller  sort ;  and 
its  loud  debatings  and  recriminations  about  Rights  of  Man,  Right 


MARE  THE  CONSTITUTION^^  iS7 

"J^^^i^A^^Vet^pensif,  Veto  absolu,  what  are  they  but 
so  many  Pedant's-curses, '  May  God  confound  you  for  your  Theory 
^  af  Irregular  Verbs  !  ' 

A  Constitution  can  be  built,  Constitutions  enough  d  la  Sieyes: 
but  the  frightful  difficulty.is  that  of  getting  men  to  come  and  ive 
in  them  !  Could  Sieyes  have  drawn  thunder  and  lightnmg  out  of 
Heaven  to  sanction  his  Constitution,  it  had  been  well :  but  without 
any  thunder?  Nay,  strictly  considered,  is  it  not  still  true  that 
without  some  such  celestial  sanction,  given  visibly  in  thunder  or 
invisibly  otherwise,  no  Constitution  can  in  the  long  run  be  worth 
much  more  than  the  waste-paper  it  is  written  on  ?  The  Constitu- 
tion, the  set  of  Laws,  or  prescribed  Habits  of  Acting,  that  men  will 
live  under,  is  the  one  which  images  their  Convictions,— their  Faith 
as  to  this  wondrous  Universe,  and  what  rights,  duties  capabihties 
they  have  there  ;  which  stands  sanctioned,  therefore,  by  Necessity 
itself  •  if  not  by  a  seen  Deity,  then  by  an  unseen  one.  Other  Laws, 
whe-e'of  there  are  always  enough  r^«rfj/-made  are  usurpations  ; 
which  men  do  not  obey,  but  rebel  against,  and  abolish,  by  their 
earhest  convenience.  .    .  , 

The  question  of  questions  accordingly  were.  Who  is  it  that 
especially  for  rebellers  and  abolishers,  can  make  a  t  onstitution 
He  that  can  image  forth  the  general  Behef  when  there  is  one ; 
that  can  impart  one  when,  as  here,  there  is  none.  A  most  rare 
man  ;  ever  as  of  old  a  god-missioned  man  !  Here,  however,  m 
defect  of  such  transcendent  supreme  man,  Time  with  its  inhnite 
succession  of  merely  superior  men,  each  yielding  his  httle  contri- 
bution, does  much.  Force  likewise  (for,  as  Antiquarian  Philo- 
sophers teach,  the  royal  Sceptre  was  from  the  first  something  of  a 
Hammer,  to  crack  such  heads  as  could  not  be  convinced)  will  all 
along  find  somewhat  to  do.  And  thus  in  perpetual  abolition  and 
repa?ation,  rending  and  mending,  with  struggle  and  striie,  with 
pres-nt  evil  and  the  hope  and  effort  towards  future  good,  must  the 
Constitution,  as  all  human  things  do,  build  itself  forward ;  or 
unbuild  itself,  and  sink,  as  it  can  and  may.  O  Sieyes,  and  ye  other 
Committeemen,  and  Twelve  Hundred  miscellaneous  individuals 
from  all  parts  of  France  !  What  is  the  Belief  of  France,  and  yours 
if  ye  knew  it?  Properly  that  there  shall  be  no  Belief;  that  all 
formulas  be  swallowed.  The  Constitutiqn  which  will  suit  that  ? 
Alas,  too  clearly,  a  No-Constitution,  an  Anarchy  which  also,  m 
due  season,  shall  be  vouchsafed  you.  .      ,  ,        ui  j  s 

;     But  after  all,  what  can  an  unfortunate  National  Assembly  do  { 
'  Consider  only  this,  that  there  are  Twelve  Hundred  miscellaneous 
individuals  ;  not  a  unit  of  whom  but  has  his  own  thinking-apparatus, 
'  his  own  speaking-apparatus  !    In  every  unit  of  them  is  some  belief 
'  and  wish,  difierent  for  each,  both  that  France  should  be  regenerated, 
and  also  that  he  individually  should  do  it.    Twelve  Hundred 
separate  Forces,  yoked  miscellaneously  to  any  object,  miscellane- 
ously to  all  sides  of  it ;  and  bid  pull  for  life  I  ,       ■  u 
1      Or  is  it  the  nature  of  National  Assemblies  generally  to  do,  .vith 
I  endless  labour  and  clangour,  Nothing  ?   Are  Representative  Goy- 


158 


CONSOLIDATION, 


ernnients  mostly  at  bottom  Tyrannies  too  ?  Shall  we  say,  the 
Tyrants^  the  ambitious  contentious  Persons,  from  all  corners  of 
the  country  do,  in  this  manner,  get  gathered  into  one  place  ;  and 
there,  with  motion  and  counter-motion,  with  jargon  and  hubbub, 
ctmcel  one  another,  like  the  fabulous  Kilkenny  Cats  ;  and  produce, 
for  net-result,  zero ; — the  country  meanwhile  governincr  or  guiding 
itself^  by  such  wisdom,  recognised  or  for  most  part  unrecognised, 
as  may  exist  in  individual  heads  here  and  there? — Nay,  even  that 
were  a  great  improvement  :  for,  of  old,  with  their  Guelf  Factions 
and  Ghibelline  Factions,  with  their  Red  Roses  and  White  Roses, 
they  were  wont  to  cancel  the  whole  country  as  well.  Besides  they 
do  it  now  in  a  much  narrower  cockpit  ;  within  the  four  walls  of 
their  Assembly  House,  and  here  and  there  an  outpost  of  Hustings 
and  Barrel-heads  ;  do  it  with  tongues  too,  not  with  swords  : — all 
which  improvements,  in  the  art  of  producing  zero,  are  they  not 
great?  Nay,  best  of  all,  some  happy  Continents  (as  the  Western 
one,  with  its  Savannahs,  where  whosoever  has  four  willing  limbs 
finds  food  under  his  feet,  and  an  infinite  sky  over  his  head)  can  do 
without  governing. — What  Sphinx-questions ;  which  the  distracted 
world,  in  these  very  generations,  must  answer  or  die  !  ! 


CHAPTER  II.  . 

THE  CONSTITUENT  ASSEMBLY.  J 

One  thing  an  elected  Assembly  of  Twelve  Hundred  is  fit  for  \ 
Destroying.  Which  indeed  is  but  a  more  decided  exercise  of  it^ 
natural  talent  for  Doing  Nothing.  Do  nothing,  only  keep  agitat-' 
ing,  debating  ;  and  things  will  destroy  themselves. 

So  and  not  otherwise  proved  it  with  an  august  National  Assembly. 
It  took  the  name,  Constituent,  as  if  its  mission  and  function  had 
been  to  construct  or  build  ;  which  also,  with  its  whole  soul,  it 
endeavoured  to  do  :  yet,  in  the  fates,  in  the  nature  of  things,  there 
lay  for  it  precisely  of  all  functions  the  most  opposite  to  that.; 
Singukir,  wha^  Gospels  men  will  believe  ;  even  Gospels  according 
to  Jean  Jacques  !  It  was  the  fixed  Faith  of  these  National 
Deputies,  as  of  all  thinking  Frenchmen,  that  the  Constitution 
coukl  be  made;  that  they,  there  and  then,  were  called  to  make  it. 
How,  with  the  toughness  of  Old  Hebrews  or  Ishmaelite  Moslem, 
did  the  otherwise  light  unbelieving  People  persist  in  this  their 
Credo  quia  ijiipossibile ;  and  front  the  armed  world  with  it  ;  and 
grow  fanatic,  and  even  heroic,  and  do  exploits  by  it  !  The  Con- 
stituent Assembly's  Constitution,  and  several  others,  will,  being 
jjrintcd  and  not  manuscript,  survive  to  future  generations,  as  an 
instructive  wcl)-ni<;h  incredible  document  of  the  Time  :  the  most 
signi(icant  Picture  of  the  then  existing  l- ranee  ;  or  at  lowest.  Picture 
of  these  men's  Picture  of  it. 


THE  CONSTITUENT  ASSEMBLY.  159 


But  in  truth  and  seriousness,  what  could  the  National  Assembly 
have  done  ?  The  thing  to  be  done  was,  actually  as  they  said,  to  re- 
generate France  ;  to  abolish  the  old  France,  and  make  a  new  one  ; 
quietly  or  forcibly,  by  concession  or  by  violence,  this,  by  the  Law 
of  Nature,  has  become  inevitable.  With  what  degree  of  violence, 
depends  on  the  wisdom  of  those  that  preside  over  it.  With  perfect 
wisdom  on  the  part  of  the  National  Assembly,  it  had  all  been 
otherwise  ;  but  whether,  in  any  wise,  it  could  have  been  pacific^ 
nay  other  than  bloody  and  convulsive,  may  still  be  a  question. 

Grant,  meanwhile,  that  this  Constituent  Assembly  does  to  the 
last  continue  to  be  something.  With  a  sigh,  it  sees  itself  mces- 
santly  forced  away  from  its  infinite  divine  task,  of  perfecting  '  the 
'  Theory  of  Irregular  Verbs,' — to  finite  terrestrial  tasks,  which 
latter  have  still  a  significance  for  us.  It  is  the  cynosure  of  revo- 
lutionary France,  this  National  Assembly.  All  work  of  Govern- 
ment has  fallen  into  its  hands,  or  under  its  control ;  all  men  look 
to  it  for  guidance.  In  the  middle  of  that  huge  Revolt  of  Twenty- 
nve  millions,  it  hovers  always  aloft  as  Carroccio  or  Battle- Standard, 
impelling  and  impelled,  in  the  most  confused  way  ;  if  it  cannot  give 
much  guidance,  it  will  still  seem  to  give  some.  It  emits  pacifica- 
catory  Proclamations,  not  a  few  ;  with  more  or  with  less  result. 
It  authorises  the  enrolment  of  National  Guards, — lest  Brigands 
come  to  devour  us,  and  reap  the  unripe  crops.  It  sends  missions 
to  quell  ^effervescences  to  deliver  men  from  the  Lanterne.  It 
can  listen  to  congratulatory  Addresses,  which  arrive  daily  by  the 
sackful ;  mostly  in  King  Cambyses'  vein  :  also  to  Petitions  and 
complaints  from  all  mortals  ;  so  that  every  mortal's  complaint,  if 
it  cannot  get  redressed,  may  at  least  hear  itself  complain.  For 
the  rest,  an  august  National  Assembly  can  produce  Parliamentary 
Eloquence  ;  and  appoint  Committees.  Committees  of  the  Con- 
stitution, of  Reports,  of  Researches  ;  and  of  much  else  :  which 
again  yield  mountains  of  Printed  Paper  ;  the  theme  of  new  Par- 
liamentary Eloquence,  in  bursts,  or  in  plenteous  smooth-flowing 
floods.  And  so,  from  the  waste  vortex  whereon  all  things  go 
whirling  and  grinding,  Organic  Laws,  or  the  similitude  of  such, 
slowly  emerge. 

With  endless  debating,  we  get  the  Rights  of  Man  written  down 
and  promulgated  :  true  paper  basis  of  all  paper  Constitutions. 
Neglecting,  cry  the  opponents,  to  declare  the  Duties  of  Man  ! 
Forgetting,  answer  we,  to  ascertain  the  Mights  of  Man  ;— one  of 
the  fatalest  omissions  ! — Nay,  sometimes,  as  on  the  Fourth  of 
August,  our  National  Assembly,  fired  suddenly  by  an  almost  preter- 
natural enthusiasm,  will  get  through  whole  masses  of  work  in  one 
night.  A  memorable  night,  this  Fourth  of  August  :  Dignitaries 
temporal  and  spiritual  ;  Peers,  Archbishops,  Parlement-Presidents, 
each  outdoing  the  other  in  patriotic  devotedness,  come  successively 
to  throw  their  (untenable)  possessions  on  the  '  altar  of  the  father- 
Mand.'  With  louder  and  louder  vivats,  for  indeed  it  is  '  after 
'dinner'  too,- -they  abolish  Tithes,  Seignorial  Dues,  Gabelie,  ex- 
^ssive  Preservation  of  Game  ;  nay  Privilege,  Immunity,  Feudal- 


l6o  CON  SOLID  A  TION. 


ism  root  and  branch  ;  then  appoint  a  Te  Deum  for  it ;  and  so, 
finally,  disperse  about  three  in  the  morning,  striking  the  stars  with 
their  subhme  heads.  Such  night,  unforeseen  but  for' ever  memor- 
able, was  this  of  the  Fourth  of  August  1789.  Miraculous,  or  semi- 
miraculous,  some  seem  to  think  it.  A  new  Night  of  Pentecost 
shall  we  say,  shaped  according  to  the  new  Time,  and  new  Church 
of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  ?    It  had  its  causes  ;  also  its  effects. 

In  such  manner  labour  the  National  Deputies  ;  perfecting  their 
Theory  of  Irregular  Verbs  ;  governing  France,  and  being  governed 
by  it ;  with  toil  and  noise  ; — cutting  asunder  ancient  intolerable 
bonds;  and,  for  new  ones,  assiduously  spinning  ropes  of  sand/ 
Were  their  labours  a  nothing  or  a  something,  yet  the  eyes  of  all 
France  being  reverently  fixed  on  them,  History  can  never  very' 
long  leave  them  altogether  out  of  sight. 

For  the  present,  if  we  glance  into  that  Assembly  Hall  of  theirs,^ 
it  will  be  found,  as  is  natural,  '  most  irregular.'    As  many  as  '  a 
'  hundred  members  are  on  their  feet  at  once ; '  no  rule  in  making' 
motions,  or  only  commencements  of  a  rule  ;  Spectators'  Gallery- 
allowed  to  applaud,  and  even  to  hiss      President,  appointed  once' 
a  fortnight,  raising  many  times  no  serene  head  above  the  waves. 
Nevertheless,  as   in  all  human  Assemblages,  like  does  begin 
arranging  itself  to  like  ;  the  perennial  rule,  UbiJioinines  stint  modi- 
sunt,  proves  valid.    Rudiments  of  Methods  disclose  themselves  ; 
rudiments  of  Parties.    There  is  a  Right  Side  i^Cote  Droit),  a  Left, 
Side  (Cote  Gauche)  ;  sitting  on  M.  le  President's  right  hand,  or  on' 
his  left :  the  Cote  Droit  conservative;  the  Cote  Gauche  d^sirncA 
tive.    Intermediate  is  Anglomaniac  Constitutionalism,  or  Two-'' 
Chamber  Royalism  ;  with  its  Mouniers,  its  Lallys,— fast  verging; 
towards  nonentity,    rreeminent,  on  the  Right  Side,  pleads  and  ! 
perorates  Cazales,  the  Dragoon-captain,  eloquent,  mildly  fervent ; ' 
earning  for  himself  the  shadow  of  a  name.    There  also  blusters 
Barrel-Mirabeau,  the  Younger  Mirabcau,  not  without  wit  :  dusky 
d'Espremenil  does  nothing  but  sniff  and  ejaculate  ;  ;///>Z7,  it  is 
fondly  thought,  lay  prostrate  the  Elder  Mirabeau  himself,  would 
he  but  try ,t— which  he  does  not.    Last  and  greatest,  see,  for  one 
moment,  the  Abbe  Maury  ;  with  his  Jesuitic  eyes,  his  impassive 
brass  face,  '  image  of  all  the  cardinal  sins.'    Indomitable,  un- 
quenchable, he  fights  jesuitico-rhetorically  ;  with  toughest  lungs 
and  heart ;  for  Throne,  especially  for  Altar  and  Tidies.    So  that 
a  shrill  voice  exclaims  once,  from  the  Gallery  :  "  Messieurs  of  the 
"  Clergy,  you  have  to  be  shaved  ;  if  you  wriggle  too  much,  you  v/ill 
"get  cut. "J 

The  Left  side  is  also  called  the  d'Orleans  side  ;  and  sometimes 
derisively,  the  Palais  Royal.  And  yet,  so  confused,  real-imaginary 
seems  everything,  'it  is  doubtful,'- as  Mirabeau  said,  'whether 
'  d'Orleans  himself  belong  to  that  same  d'Orleans  Part\ .'  What 
can  be  known  and  seen  is,  that  his  moon-visage  does  beam  forth 

*  Arthur  YounfT,  i.  ITT.  I 
f  Bionfrapliic  Ur/h>ersellc,  §  1  j'Espremciiil  (by  lioaulieu).  M 
J  DicHounatrc  dcs  Homvics  Mar^tiauSf  ii.  519.  Jl 


THE  CONSTITUENT  ASSEMBLY.  i6l 


!  from  that  point  of  space.  There  likewise  sits  seagreen  Robe- 
i  spierre  ;  throwing  in  his  Hght  weight,  with  decision,  not  yet  with 
i  effect.  A  thin  lean  Puritan  and  Precisian  ;  he  would  make  away 
I  with  formulas  ;  yet  lives,  moves,  and  has  his  being,  wholly  in  for- 
I  mulas,  of  another  sort.  ^  Peuple^  such  according  to  Robespierre 
j  ought  to  be  the  Royal  method  of  promulgating  Laws,  '  Peuple^ 
[  *this  is  the  Law  I  have  framed  for  thee  ;  dost  thou  accept  it  — 
I  answered  from  Right  Side,  from  Centre  and  Left,  by  inextinguish- 
able laughter."^  Yet  men  of  insight  discern  that  the  Seagreen 
may  by  chance  go  far  :  "  this  man,"  observes  Mirabeau,  "  will  do 
,  somewhat ;  he  believes  every  word  he  says.''  • 

Abbe  Sieyes  is  busy  with  mere  Constitutional  work  :  wherein, 
unluckily,  fellow-workmen  are  less  pliable  than,  with  one  who  has 
completed  the  Science  of  Polity,  they  ought  to  be.  Courage, 
Sieyes  nevertheless  !  Some  twenty  months  of  heroic  travail,  of 
contradiction  from  the  stupid,  and  the  Constitution  shall  be  built  ; 
I  the  top-stone  of  it  brought  out  with  shouting,  —say  rather,  the  top- 
paper,  for  it  is  all  Paper ;  and  thoti  hast  done  in  it  what  the  Earth 
or  the  Heaven  could  require,  thy  utmost.  Note  likewise  this 
Trio  ;  memorable  for  several  things  ;  memorable  were  it  only  that 
their  history  is  written  in  an  epigram  :  '  whatsoever  these  Three 
*  have  in  hand,'  it  is  said,  '  Duport  thinks  it,  Barnave  speaks  it, 
^Lameth  does  it.'f 

But  royal  Mirabeau  ?  Conspicuous  among  all  parties,  raised 
above  and  beyond  them  all,  this  man  rises  more  and  more.  As 
we  often  say,  he  has  an  eye^  he  is  a  reality ;  while  others  are 
formulas  and  eye-glasses.  In  the  Transient  he  will  detect  the 
Perennial ;  find  some  firm  footing  even  among  Paper-vortexes. 
His  fame  is  gone  forth  to  all  lands  ;  it  gladdened  the  heart  of  the 
crabbed  old  Friend  of  Men  himself  before  he  died.  The  very 
Postilions  of  inns  have  heard  of  Mirabeau  :  when  an  impatient 
Traveller  complains  that  the  team  is  insufficient,  his  Postilion 
answers,  "  Yes,  Monsieur,  the  wheelers  are  weak  ;  but  my  mirabeau 
"  (main  horse),  you  see,  is  a  right  one,  mais  inon  inirabeau  est 
excellent rX 

And  now.  Reader,  thou  shalt  quit  this  noisy  Discrepancy  of  a 
National  Assembly  ;  not  (if  thou  be  of  humane  mind)  without 
pity.  Twelve  Hundred  brother  men  are  there,  in  the  centre  of 
Twenty-five  Millions  ;  fighting  so  fiercely  with  Fate  and  with  one 
'another  ;  strugghng  their  hves  out,  as  most  sons  of  Adam  do,  for 
that  which  profiteth  not.  Nay,  on  the  whole,  it  is  admitted 
Further  to  be  very  dull,  "  Dull  as  this  day's  Assembly,"  said 
some  one.    "  Why  date,  Pourquoi  daterl^'  answered  Mirabeau. 

Consider-  that  they  are  Twelve  Hundred  ;  that  they  not  only 
speak,  but  read  their  speeches  ;  and  even  borrow  and  steal 
speeches  to  read  !_  With  Twelve  Hundred  fluent  speakers,  and 
:heir  Noah's  Deluge  of  vociferous  commonplace,  unattainable 
iilence  may  well  seem  the  one  blessing  of  Life.    But  figure 

*  Moniteur,  No.  67  (in  Hist.  Pari. ).         f  See  Toulongeon,  i.  c.  3, 
J  Dumont,  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeaii,  p.  255. 


CONS  OLID  A  TION. 


Twelve  Hundred  pamphleteers  ;  droning  forth  perpetual  pam- 
phlets ;  and  no  man  to  gag  them  I  Neither,  as  in  the  Amencaa 
Congress,  do  the  arrangements  seem  perfect.  A  Senator  has  not 
his  own  Desk  and  Newspaper  here  ;  of  Tobacco  (much  less  of 
Pipes)  there  is  not  the  slightest  provision.  Conversation  itsdf 
must  be  transacted  in  a  l©w  tone,  with  continual  interruption  • 
only  '  pencil  Notes  '  circulate  freely  ;  '  in  incredible  numbers  to 
'  the  foot  of  the  very  tribune.'*— Such  work  is  it,  regenerating  a 
Nation  ;  perfecting  one's  Theory  of  Irregular  Verbs  ' 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  GENERAL  OVERTURN. 


Of  the  Kings  Court,  for  the  present,  there  is  almost  nothing 
whatever  to  be  said.  Silent,  deserted  are  these  halls;  Royalty 
^3^'  forsaken  of  its  war-god  and  all  its  hopes,  till  once  the 
Utii-de-Boeuf  rally  again.  The  sceptre  is  departed  from  Kin^ 
Louis  ;  IS  gone  over  to  the  Salles  des  Menus,  to  the  Paris  Town- 
hall,  or  one  knows  not  whither.  In  the  July  days,  while  all  ears 
were  yet  deafened  by  the  crash  of  the  Bastile,  and  Ministers  and 
Princes  were  scattered  to  the  four  winds,  it  seemed  as  if  the  very 
Valets  had  grown  heavy  of  hearing.  Besenval,  also  in  flight 
towards  Infinite  Space,  but  hovering  a  little  at  Versailles,  was 
addressing  his  Majesty  personally  for  an  Order  about  post-horses  : 
when  Jo,  the  Valet  m  waiting  places  himself  familiarly  between 

his  Majesty  and  me,^  stretching  out  his  rascal  neck  to  learn  what 
It  was  !  His  Majesty,  in  sudden  choler,  whirled  round  ;  made  a 
clutch  at  the  tongs:  'I  gently  prevented  him ;  he  grasped  my 

hand  m  thankfulness  ;  and  1  noticed  tears  in  his  eyes  t 
i  oor  King  ;  for  French  Kings  also  are  men  !  Louis  Fourteenth 
himse  f  once  clutched  the  tongs,  and  even  smote  with  them  ;  but 
inen  it  was  at  Louvois,  and  Dame  Maintenon  ran  up.— The  Oueen 
sits  weeping  in  her  inner  apartments,  surrounded  by  weak  wo7nen : 
sne  IS  at  the  height  of  unpopularity  ; '  universally  regarded  as  the 
eval  genius  of  Prance.  Her  friends  and  familiar  counsellors  have 
all  Hed  ;  and  fled,  surely,  on  the  foolishest  errand.  The  Chateau 
l  ohgnac  still  frowns  aloft,  on  its  ^bold  and  enormous'  cubical 
rock,  amid  the  blooming  champaigns,  amid  the  blue  girdlin- 
moun  ains  of  Auvergne  but  no  Duke  and  Duchess  Poligna? 
look  tor  h  f^-om^it;  they  have  fled,  they  have  ^  met  Neckir  at 
Bale  ;  they  shal  not  return.  That  France  should  see  her  Nobles 
resist  the  Irresistible,  Inevitable,  with  the  face  of  angry  men,  was 
unhai)py,  not  unexpected  :  but  with  the  face  and  sense  of  pettish 

I  ^^'^  (PP-  159-67)  >•  Arthur  Young.  <S-c. 

t  Lesenval,  u,.  j  Young,  i.  165. 


THE  GENERAL  OVERTURN, 


163 


children  ?  This  was  her  peculiarity.  They  understood  nothing  ; 
would  understand  nothing.  Does  not,  at  this  hour,  a  new  Polignac, 
first-born  of  these  Two,  sit  reflective  in  the  Castle  of  Ham  in 
an  astonishment  he  will  never  recover  from  ;  the  most  confused  of 
existing  mortals  ? 

King  Louis  has  his  new  Ministry  :  mere  Popularities ;  Old- 
President  Pompignan  ;  Necker,  coming  back  in  triumph  ;  and 
other  such.f  But  what  will  it  avail  him?  As  was  said,  the 
sceptre,  all  but  the  wooden  gilt  sceptre,  has  departed  elsewhither. 
Vohtion,  determination  is  not  in  this  man  :  only  innocence,  in- 
dolence ;  dependence  on  all  persons  but  himself,  on  all  circum- 
stances but  the  circumstances  he  were  lord  of.  So  troublous  in- 
ternally is  our  Versailles  and  its  work.  Beautiful,  if  seen  from 
afar,  resplendent  like  a  Sun  ;  seen  near  at  hand,  a  mere  Sun's- 
Atmosphere,  hiding  darkness,  confused  ferment  of  ruin  ! 

But  over  France,  there  goes  on  the  indisputablest  ^  destruction 
^of  formulas;'  transaction  of  realities  that  follow  therefrom.  So 
many  millions  of  persons,  all  gyved,  and  nigh  strangled,  with  for- 
mulas ;  whose  Life  nevertheless,  at  least  the  digestion  and  hunger 
of  it,  was  real  enough  !  Heaven  has  at  length  sent  an  abundant 
harvest ;  but  what  profits  it  the  poor  man,  when  Earth  with  her 
formulas  interposes  t  Industry,  in  these  times,  of  Insurrection, 
must  needs  lie  dormant ;  capital,  as  usual,  not  circulating,  but 
stagnating  timorously  in  nooks.  The  poor  man  is  short  of  work, 
is  there^'"ore  short  oi  money  ;  nay  even  had  he  money,  bread  is 
not  to  be  bought  for  it.  Were  it  plotting  of  Aristocrats,  plotting 
of  d'Orleans  ;  v/ere  it  Prigands,  preternatural  terror,  and  the 
clang  of  Phoebus  Apollo's  silver  bow, — enough,  the  markets  are 
scarce  of  grain,  plentiful  only  in  tumult.  Farmers  seem  lazy  to 
thresh  ;— being  either  *  bribed  or  needing  no  bribe,  with  Drices 
ever  rising,  with  perhaps  rent  itself  no  longer  so  pressing.  Neither, 
what  is  singular,  do  municipal  enactments,  ^  That  along  with  so 
*  many  measures  of  wheat  you  shall  sell  so  many  of  rye,'  and  other 
the  like,  much  mend  the  matter.  Dragoons  with  drawn  swords 
stand  ranked  among  the  corn-sacks,  often  more  dragoons  than 
sacks. t  Meal-mobs  abound  ;  growing  into  mobs  of  a  still  darker 
quality.  , 

Starvation  has  been  known  among  the  French  Commonalty 
before  this  ;  known  and  familiar.  Did  we  not  see  them,  in  the 
year  1775,  presenting,  in  sallow  faces,  in  wretchedness  and  ragged- 
ness,  their  Petition  of  Grievances  ;  and,  for  answer,  getting  a 
brand-new  Gallows  forty  feet  high  ?  Hunger  and  Darkness, 
through  long  years  !  For  look  back  on  that  earlier  Paris  Riot, 
when  a  Great  Personage,  worn  out  by  debauchery,  was  believed 
to  be  in  want  of  Blood-baths ;  and  Mothers,  in  worn  raiment,  yet 
with  hving  hearts  under  it,  '  filled  the  public  places '  with  their 
wild  Rachel-cries,— stilled  also  by  the  Gallows.  Twenty  years 
ago,  the  Friend  of  Men  (preaching  to  the  deaf)  described  the 

*  A.D.  1835.  t  Montgaillard,  ii.  10^ 

J  Arthur  Young,  i.  129,  &c. 


164 


CONSOLIDATION. 


Limousin  Peasants  as  wearing  a  pain-stricken  {souffre-douleur) 
look,  a  look  past  complaint,  '  as  if  the  oppression  of  the  great  were 
'  like  the  hail  and  the  thunder,  a  thing  irremediable,  the  ordinance 
of  Nature.'"^  And  now,  if  in  some  great  hour,  the  shock  of  a  fall- 
ing Bastille  should  awaken  you  ;  and  it  were  found  to  be  the  ordi- 
nance of  Art  merely;  and  remediable,  reversible  ! 

Or  has  the  Reader  forgotten  that  '  flood  of  savages,'  which,  in 
sight  of  the  same  Friend  of  Men,  descended  from  the  mountains 
at  Mont  d'Or?  Lank-haired  haggard  faces  ;  shapes  rawboned,  in 
.  high  sabots  ;  in  woollen  jupes,  with  leather  girdles  studded  with 
copper  nails  !  They  rocked  from  foot  to  foot,  and  beat  time  with 
their  elbows  too,  as  the  quarrel  and  battle  which  was  not  long  in 
beginning  went  on  ;  shouting  fiercely ;  the  lank  faces  distorted 
into  the  similitude  of  a  cruel  iaugh.  For  they  were  darkened  and 
hardened  :  long  had  they  been  the  prey  of  excise-men  and  tax- 
men  ;  of  ^  clerks  with  the  cold  spurt  of  their  pen/  It  was  the 
fixed  prophecy  of  our  old  Marquis,  which  no  man  would  Hsten  to, 
that  '  such  Government  by  Blind-man's-buff,  stumbling  along  too 
'  far,  would  end  by  the  General  Overturn,  the  Culbute  Generale  P 

No  man  would  listen,  each  went  his  thoughtless  way  ; — and 
Time  and  Destiny  also  travelled  on.  The  Government  by  Blind- 
man's-buff,  stumbling  along,  has  reached  the  precipice  inevitable 
for  it.  Dull  Drudgery,  driven  on,  by  clerks  with  the  cold  dastard 
spurt  of  their  pen,  has  been  driven — into  a  Communion  of 
Drudges  !  For  now,  moreover,  there  have  come  the  strangest 
confused  tidings  ;  by  Paris  Journals  with  their  paper  wings  ;  or 
still  more  portentous,  where  no  Journals  are,t  by  rumour  and  con- 
jecture :  Oppression  not  inevitable  ;  a  Bastille  prostrate,  and  the 
Constitution  fast  getting  ready  !  Which  Constitution,  if  it  be 
something  and  not  nothing,  what  can  it  be  but  bread  to  eat  ? 

The  Traveller, 'walking  up  hill  bridle  in  hand,'  overtakes 
'  poor  woman. ; '  the  image,  as  such  commonly  are,  of  drudgery 
and  scarcity  ;  booking  sixty  years  of  age,  though  she  is  not  yet 
'  twenty-eight.'  They  have  seven  children,  her  poor  drudge  and 
she  :  a  farm,  with  one  cow,  which  helps  to  make  the  children 
soup  ;  also  one  little  horse,  or  garron.  They  have  rents  and  quit- 
rents.  Hens  to  pay  to  this  Seigneur,  Oat-sacks  to  that  ;  King's 
taxes,  Statute-labour,  Church-taxes,  taxes  enough  ; — and  think  the 
times  inexpressible.  She  has  heard  that  som.^where^  in  some 
manner,  somQihhij^  is  to  be  done  for  the  poor  :  "  God  send  it  soon  ; 
for  the  dues  and  taxes  crush  us  down  {jtoiis  ecrasent)  !  "J 

P^air  prophecies  are  spoken,  but  they  are  not  fulfilled.  There 
have  been  Notables,  Assemblages,  turnings  out  and  comings  in. 
Intriguing  and  man(i:uvring  ;  Parliamentary  eloquence  and  argu- 
ing, ( J  reek  meeting  Greek  in  high  places,  has  long  gone  on  ;  yet 
still  bread  comes  not.  The  harvest  is  reaped  and  garnered  ;  yet 
still  we  have  no  bread.  Urged  by  despair  and  by  hope,  what  can 
Drudgery  do,  but  rise,  as  predicted,  and  produce  the  General 
Overturn  ? 

*  Fils  Adoptif .  Mfhnoires  de  Mirahcatt,  i.  364-394. 

f  Sec  Ailluir  Youni^,  i.  137,  150,  &c.  X  Ibid.  i.  134, 


THE  GENERAL  OVERTURN. 


Fancy,  then,  some  Five  full-ffrown  Millions  of  such  gaunt 
figures,  with  their  haggard  faces  {ji^i-res  haves)  ;  in  woollen  jupes, 
with  copper-studded  leather  girths,  and  high  sabots, — starting  up 
to  ask,  as  in  forest-roarings,  their  washed  Upper-Classes,  after 
long  unreviewed  centuries,  virtually  this  question  :  How  have  ye 
treated  us  ;  how  have  ye  taught  us,  fed  us,  and  led  us,  while  we 
toiled  for  you  ?  The  answer  can  be  read  in  flames,  over  the  nightly 
summer  sky.  This  is  the  feeding  and  leading  w3  have  had  of 
you  :  Emptiness,— of  pocket,  of  stomach,  of  head,  ^nd  of  heart. 
Behold  there  is  710 thing  in  us  j  nothing  but  what  NatUxS  gives  her 
wild  children  of  the  desert  ;  Ferocity  and  Appetite  ;  Strength 
grounded  on  Hunger.  Did  ye  mark  among  your  Rights  of  l>2an, 
that  man  was  not  to  die  of  starvation,  while  there  wac  bread 
reaped  by  him  1    It  is  among  the  Mights  of  Man. 

Seventy-two  Chateaus  have  flamed  aloft  in  the  Maconn  Js  and 
Beaujolais  alone  :  this  seems  the  centre  of  the  conflagration  ;  but 
it  has  spread  over  Dauphine,  Alsace,  the  Lyonnais  ;  the  whole 
South-East  is  in  a  blaze.  All  over  the  North,  from  Rouen  to 
Metz,  disorder  is  abroad  :  smugglers  of  salt  go  openly  in  arme^. 
bands  :  the  barriers  of  towns  are  burnt  ;  toll-gatherers,  tax- 
gatherers,  official  persons  put  to  flight.  '  It  was  thought,'  says 
Young,  '  the  people,  from  hunger,  would  revolt ;  •  and  we  see  they 
have  done  it.  Desperate  Lackalls,  long  prowling  airrless,  now 
finding  hope  in  desperation  itself,  everywhere  form  a  nucleus. 
They  ring  the  Church  bell  by  way  of  tocsin  :  and  the  rarish  turns 
out  I'D  the  work/^  Ferocity,  atrocity  ;  hunger  and  revenge  :  such 
work  as  we  can  imagine  ! 

Ill  stands  it  now  with  the  Seigneur,  who,  for  example,  '  ha?^ 
"walled  up  the  only  Fountain  of  the  Township  who  has  ridden 
high  on  his  chartier  and  parchments  ;  who  has  preserved  Game 
not  wisely  but  too  well.  Churches  also,  and  Canonries,  are  sacked, 
without  mercy  ;  which  have  shorn  the  flock  too  close,  forgetting  to 
feed  it.  Wo  to  the  land  over  which  Sansculottism,  in  its  day  of 
vengeance,  tramps  roughshod,— shod  in  sabots  !  Highbred  Seig- 
neurs, with  their  delicate  women  and  little  ones,  had  to  '  fly  half- 
*  naked,'  under  cloud  of  night ;  glad  to  escape  the  flames,  and  even 
worse.  You  meet  them  at  the  tables-d'hdie  of  inns  ;  making  wise 
reflections  or  foolish  that  '  rank  is  destroyed  ; '  uncertain  whither 
they  shall  now  wend.f  The  metayer  will  find  it  convenient  to  be 
slack  in  paying  rent  As  for  the  Tax-gatherer,  he,  long  hunting  ^ 
as  a  biped  of  prey,  may  now  get  hunted  as  one  ;  his  Majesty's 
Exchequer  will  not  '  fill  up  the  Deficit,'  this  season  :  it  is  the  notion 
of  many  that  a  Patriot  Majesty,  being  the  Restorer  of  French 
Liberty,  has  abolished  most  taxes,  though,  for  their  private  ends, 
some  men  make  a  secret  of  it. 

Where  this  will  end  1  In  the  Abyss,  one  may  prophecy  ; 
whither  all  Delusions,  are,  at  all  moments,  travelling  ;  where  this 
Delusion  has  now  arrived.  For  if  there  be  a  Faith,  from  of  old, 
it  is  this,  as  we  often  repeat,  that  no  Lie  can  live  for  ever.  The 
very  Truth  has  to  change  its  vesture,  from  time  to  time  ;  and  be 
*  See  Hist,  Part.  ii.  243-6.  f  See  Young,  i.  149,  &c. 

VOL.  L 


i66 


CONSOLIDATION. 


born  again.  But  all  Lies  have  sentence  of  death  written  down 
against  them,  in  Heaven's  Chancery  itself ;  and,  slowly  or  fast, 
advance  incessantly  towards  their  hour.  *  The  sign  of  a  Grand 
"  Seigneur  being  landlord,'  says  the  vehement  plain-spoken  Arthur 
Young,  '  are  wastes,  landes^  deserts,  ling  :  go  to  his  residence,  you 
'  will  find  it  in  the  middle  of  a  forest,  peopled  with  deer,  wild  boars 

*  and  wolves.    The  fields  are  scenes  of  pitiable  management,  as 

*  the  houses  are  of  misery.    To  see  so  many  millions  of  hands^ 

*  that  would  be  industrious,  all  idle  and  starving  :  Oh,  if  I  were 

*  legislator  of  France,  for  one  day,  I  would  make  these  great  lords 
^skip  again  !'-^  O  Arthur,  thou  now  actually  beholdest  them' 
skip  : — wilt  thou  grow  to  grumble  at  that  too  ?    '  , 

Tor  long  years  and  generations  it  lasted,  but  the  ti-me  came.  . 
Featherbrain,  whom  no  reasoning  and  no  pleading  could  touch,  > 
the  glare  of  the  firebrand  had  to  illuminate  :  there  remained  but ' 
that  method.  Consider  it,  look  at  it  !  The  widow  is  gathering 
nettles  for  her  children's  dinner  ;  a  perfumed  Seigneur,  delicately^ 
lounging  in  the  CEil-de-Bceuf,  has  an  alchemy  whereby  he  will'' 
extract  from  her  the  third  nettle,  and  name  it  Rent  and  Law  :  such  • 
an  arrangement  must  end.  Ought  it  ?  But,  O  most  fearful  is  ; 
such  an  ending  !  Let  those,  to  whom  God,  in  His  great  mercy,  i 
has  granted  time  and  space^  prepare,  another  and  milder  one. 

To  some  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder  that  the  Seigneurs  did  not  do  j 
something  to  help  themselves  ;  say,  combine,  and  arm  :  for  there 
were  a  '  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them,'  all  valiant  enough,  i 
Unhappily,  p  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  scattered  over  wide'i 
Provinces,  divided  by  mutual  ill-will,  cannot  combine.  Thai 
highest  Seigneurs,  as  we  have  seen,  had  already  emigrated, — with ! 
a  view  of  putting  France  to  the  blush.  Neither  are  arms  now  the  ' 
peculiar  property  of  Seigneurs  ;  but  of  every  mortal  who  has  ten 
shilhngs,  wherewith  to  buy  a  secondhand  firelock. 

Besides,  those  starving  Peasants,  after  all,  have  not  four  feet 
and  claws,  that  you  could  keep  them  down  permanently  in  that 
manner.  They  are  not  even  of  black  colour  ;  they  are  mere  Un- 
washed Seigneurs  ;  and  a  Seigneur  too  has  human  bowels  !— The 
Seigneurs  did  what  they  could  ;  enrolled  in  National  Guards  ; 
fled,  with  shrieks,  complaining  to  Heaven  and  Earth.  One  Seig- 
neur, famed  Memmay  of  Quincey,  near  Vesoul,  invited  all  the 
rustics  of  his  neighbourhood  to  a  banquet ;  blew  up  his  Chateau 
and  them  with  gunpowder  ;  and  instantaneously  vanished,  no  man 
yet  knows  whither.f  Some  halt  dozen  years  after,  he  came  back; 
and  demonstrated  that  it  was  by  accident. 

Nor  are  the  authorities  idle  :  though  unluckily,  all  Authorities, 
Municipalities  and  such  like,  are  in  the  uncertain  transitionary 
state  ;  getting  regenerated  from  old  Monarchic  to  new  Democratic ; 
no  Official  yet  knows  clearly  what  he  is.  Nevertheless,  Mayors  old 
or  new  do  gather  MarecJiausshs^  National  Guards,  Troops  of  the 
line  ;  justice,  of  tlic  most  sumnmry  sort,  is  not  wanting.  The 
Electoral  Committee  of  Macon,  though  but  a  Committee^  goes 
♦  Arthur  Young,  j.  12,  48,  84,  &c.  f  Hist.  Pari.  ii.  i6t. 


THE  GENERAL  OVERTURN.  167 


fr.he  length  of  hanging,  for  its  own  behoof,  as  many  as  twenty. 
The  Prevot  of  Dauphine  traverses  the  country 'with  a  movable 

*  column/  with  tipstaves,  gallows-ropes  ;  for  gallows  any  tree  wilV 
serve,  and  suspend  its  culprit,  or  '  thirteen '  culprits. 

Unhappy  country  !  How  is  the  fair  gold-and-green  of  the 
ripe  bright  Year  defaced  with  horrid  blackness  :  black  ashes  of 
Chateaus,  black  bodies  of  gibetted  Men  !  Industry  has  ceased  in 
it ;  not  sounds  of  the  hammer  and  saw,  but  of  the  tocsin  and 
alarm-drum.  The  sceptre  has  departed,  whither  one  knows  not ; 
—breaking  itself  in  pieces  :  here  impotent,  there  tyrannous. 
National  Guards  are  unskilful,  and  of  doubtful  purpose  ;  Soldiers 
are  inclined  to  mutiny  :  there  is  danger  that  they  two  may 
quarrel,  danger  that  they  may  agree.  Strasburg  has  seen  riots  :  a 
Townhall  torn  to  shreds,  its  archives  scattered  white  on  the  winds  ; 
drunk  soldiers  embracing  drunk  citizens  for  three  days,  and 
Mayor  Dietrich  and  Marshal  Rochambeau  reduced  nigh  to  des- 
peration.*^ 

Through  the  middle  of  all  which  phenomena,  is  seen,  on  his 
triumphant  transit,  'escorted,'  through  Befort  for  instance,  'by 

*  fifty  National  Horsemen  and  all  the  military  music  of  the  place,' 
— -M.  Necker,  returning  from  Bale!  Glorious  as  the  meridian; 
though  poor  Necker  himself  partly  guesses  whither  it  is  leading.t 
One  highest  culminating  day,  at  the  Paris  Townhall;  with 
immortal  vivats,  with  wife  and  daughter  kneeling  publicly  to  kiss 
his  hand  ;  with  Besenval's  pardon  granted,— but  indeed  revoked 
before  sunset  :  one  highest  day,  but  then  lower  days,  and  ever 
lower,  down  even  to  lowest  \  Such  magic  is  in  a  name  ;  and  in 
the  want  of  a  name.  Like  some  enchanted  Mambrino's  Helmet, 
essential  to  victory,  comes  this  '  Saviour  of  France  ;  '  beshouted, 
becymballed  by  the  world  :— alas,  so  soou,  to  be  /^/jenchanted,  to 
iDe  pitched  shamefully  over  the  lists  as  a  Barber's  Bason  !  Gibbon 
'could  wish  to  shew  him'  (in  this  ejected,  Barber's-Bason  state)  to 
any  man  of  solidity,  who  were  minded  to  have  the  soul  burnt  out 
of  him,  and  become  a  caput  mortinmi,  by  Ambition,  unsuccessful 
or  successful,  j 

Another  small  phasis  we  add,  and  no  more  :  how,  in  the  Autumn 
months,  our  sharp-tempered  Arthur  has  been  '  ^Destered  for  some 
^  days  past,'  by  shot,  lead-drops  and  slugs,  '  rattling  five  or  six 
times  into  my  chaise  and  about  my  ears  ; '  all  the  mob  of  the 
country  gone  out  to  kill  game  !§  It  is  even  so.  On  the  Cliffs  of 
Dover,  over  all  the  Marches  of  France,  there  appear,  this  autumn, 
two  Signs  on  the  Earth  :  emigrant  flights  of  French  Seigneurs  ; 
emigrant  winged  flights  of  French  Game  !  Finished,  one  may 
say,  or  as  good  as  finished,  is  the  Preservation  of  Game  on  this 
i^arth  ;  completed  for  endless  Time.  What  part  it  had  to  play 
m  the  History  of  Civilisation  is  played  plaiidite ;  exeat  I 

*  Arthur  Young,  i.  141.— Damproartin :  F.^'cii emeus  qui  se  sont  i)assds  sou$ 
Vtes  yeux,  i.  105-127.  ' 
t  BLographie  Unlvenelle,  §  Necker  (by  Lally-Tollendal). 
X  Gibbon's  Letters,  \  ./  / 

§  Young,  i.  176. 

G  2 


CONSOLIDA  TION, 


In  this  manner  does  Sansculottism  blaze  up,  illustrating  many 
tilings  ; — producing,  among  the  rest,  as  we  saw,  on  the  Fourth  of 
At  gust,  that  semi-miraculous  Night  of  Pentecost  in  the  National 
Assembly  ;  semi  miraculous,  which  had  its  causes,  and  its  effects. 
Feudalism  is  struck  dead  ;  not  on  parchment  only,  and  by  ink  ; 
but  in  very  fact,  by  fire  ;  say,  by  self-combustion.  This  conflagra- 
tion of  the  South-East  will  abate;  will  be  got  scattered,  to  the 
West,  or  elsewhither  :  extinguish  it  will  not,  till  the  fuel  be  all 
done. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IN  QUEUE. 

If  we  look  now  at  Paris,. one  thing  is  too  evident :  that  th6 
Baker's  shops  have  got  their  (lueues^  or  Tails  ;  their  long  strings 
of  purchasers,  arranged  m  tail,  so  that  the  first  come  be  the  first 
served, — were  the  shop  once  open  !  This  waiting  in  tail,  not  seen 
since  the  early  days  of  July,  again  makes  its  appearance  in 
August.  In  time,  we  shall  see  it  perfected  by  practice  to  the  rank 
almost  of  an  art  ;  and  the  art,  or  quasi-art,  of  standing  in  tail  be- 
come one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Parisian  People,  distinguish- 
ing them  from  all  other  Peoples  w^hatsoever. 

But  consider,  while  work  itself  is  so  scarce,  how  a  man  must 
not  onh'  realise  money  ;  but  stand  waiting  (if  his  wife  is  too  weak 
to  wait  and  struggle)  for  half  days  in  the  Tail,  till  he  get  it  changed 
for  dear  bad  bread  !  Controversies,  to  the  length,  sometimes  of 
blood  and  battery,  must  arise  in  these  exasperated  (2ueues.  Or  if  no 
controversy,  then  it  is  but  one  accordant  Pange  Lingua  of  com- 
plaint against  the  Powers  that  be.  France  has  begun  her  long 
Curriculum  of  Hungering,  instructive  and  productive  beyond 
Academic  Curriculums  ;  which  extends  over  some  seven  most 
strenuous  years.  As  Jean  Paul  says,  of  his  own  Life,  '  to  a  great 
'height  shall  the  business  of  Hungering  go.' 

Or  consider,  in  strange  contrast,  the  jubilee  Ceremonies  ;  for, 
in  general,  the  aspect  of  Paris  presents  these  two  features  : 
jubilee  ceremonials  and  scarcity  of  victual.  Processions  enough 
walk  in  jubilee  ;  of  Young  Women,  decked  and  dizened,  their 
ribands  all  tricolor  ;  moving  with  song  and  tabor,  to  the  Shrine  of 
Sainte  Genevieve,  to  thank  her  that  the  Bastille  is  down.  The 
Strong  Men  of  the  Market,  and  the  Strong  Women,  fail  not  with 
their  bouquets  and  speeches.  Abljc  Fauchet,  famed  in  such  work 
(for  Abb^  Lefevre  coukl  only  distribute  powder)  blesses  tricolor 
cloth  for  the  National  Guard  ;  and  makes  it  a  National  Tricolor 
Flag  ;  victorious,  or  to  be  victorious,  in  the  cause  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  all  over  the  world.  Fauchet,  we  say,  is  the  man 
for  J^e'Dcuins^  and  public  Consecrations  ; — to  which,  as  in  this 


IN  QUEUE. 


instance  of  the  Flag,  our  National  Guard  will  ^  reply  with  volleys  of 
•musketry/  Church  and  Cathedral  though  it  be;*  filhng  Notre 
D^me  with  such  noisiest  fuliginous  Amen,  significant  of  several 
things. 

On  the  whole,  we  will  say  our  new  Mayor  Bailly  ;  our  new 
Commander  Lafayette,  named  also  '  Scipio-Americanus,'  have 
bought  their  preferment  dear.  Bailly  rides  in  gilt  state-coach,  with 
beefeaters  and  sumptuosity ;  Camille  Desmoulins,  and  others, 
sniffing  at  him  for  it  :  Scipio  bestrides  the  ^  white  charger,'  and 
waves  with  civic  plumes  in  sight  of  all  France.  Neither  of  them, 
however,  does  it  for  nothing  ;  but,  in  truth,  at  an  exorbitant  rate. 
At  this  rate,  namely  :  of  feeding  Paris,  and  keeping  it  from  fight- 
ing. Out  of  the  City-funds,  some  seventeen  thousand  of  thft 
utterly  destitute  are  employed  digging  on  Montmartre,  at  tenpence 
a  day,  which  buys  them,  at  market  price,  ahiiost  two  pounds  of 
bad  bread  ; — they  look  very  yellow,  when  Lafayette  goes  to 
harangue  them.  The  Townhall  is  in  travail,  night  and  day  ;  it 
must  bring  forth  Bread,  a  Municipal  Constitution,  regulations  of 
all  kinds,  curbs  on  the  Sansculottic  Press  ;  above  all,  Bread, 
Bread. 

Purveyors  prowl  the  country  far  and  wide,  with  the  appetite  of 
lions  ;  detect  hidden  grain,  purchase  open  grain  ;  by  gentle  means 
or  forcible,  must  and  will  find  grain.  A  most  thankless  task  ;  and 
so  difficult,  so  dangerous, — even  if  a  man  did  gain  some  trifle  by 
it  !  On  the  19th  of  August,  there  is  food  for  one  day.t  Com- 
plaints there  are  that  the  food  is  spoiled,  and  produces  an  effect  on 
the  intestines  :  not  corn  but  plaster-of- Paris  !  Which  effect  on 
the  intestines,  as  well  as  that  '  smarting  in  the  throat  and  palate/ 
a  Townhall  Proclamation  warns  you  to  disregard,  or  even  to  con- 
sider as  drastic-beneficial.  The  Mayor  of  Saint-Denis,  so  black 
was  his  bread,  has,  by  a  dyspeptic  populace,  been  hanged  on  the 
Lanterne  there.  National  Guards  protect  the  Paris  Corn-Market : 
first  ten  suffice  ;  then  six  hundred.^  Busy  are  ye,  Bailly,  Brissot 
.  de  Warville,  Condorcet,  and  ye  others  ! 

For,  as  just  hinted,  there  is  a  Municipal  Constitution  to  be  made 
too.  The  old  Bastille  Electors,  after  some  ten  days  of  psalmodying 
over  their  glorious  victory,  began  to  hear  it  asked,  in  a  splenetic 
tone.  Who  put  yoic  there  ?  They  accordingly  had  to  give  place, 
not  without  moanings,  and  audible  growlings  on  both  sides,  to  a 
new  larger  Body,  specially  elected  for  that  post.  Which  new  Body, 
augmented,  altered,  then  fixed  finally  at  the  number  of  Three 
Hundred,  with  the  title  of  Town  Representatives  {ReJ)resentans  de 
la  Com  mime),  now  sits  there  ;  rightly  portioned  into  Committees  ; 
assiduous  making  a  Constitution  ;  at  all  moments  when  not  seek- 
ing flour. 

And  such  a  Constitution  ;  little  short  of  miraculous  :  one  that 
shall  '  consolidate  the  Revolution '  !  The  Revolution  is  finished, 
then  ?  Mayor  Bailly  and  all  respectable  friends  of  Freedom  would 
fain  think  so.    Your  Revolution,  like  jelly  sufficiently  boiled^  needs 

*  See  Hist,  Pari.  iii.  20;  Mercifcr,  lihuveau  Paris,  &c. 

f  See  Bailly,  Mdnioires^  ii.  137-409.  %  Hist,  Pari.  ii.  421. 


i7o 


CONS  O  LI  DA  TION. 


only  to  be  poured  into  shapes^  of  Constitution^  and ^  consolidated' 
therein  ?  Could  it,  indeed,  contrive  to  coolj  which  last,  however, 
is  precisely  the  doubtful  thing,  or  even  the  not  doubtful  ! 

Unhappy  friends  of  Freedom  ;  consolidating  >  a  Revolution  ! 
They  must  sit  at  work  there,  their  pavilion  spread  on  very  Chaos ; 
between  two  hostile  worlds,  the  Upper  Court-world,  the  Nether 
Sansculottic  one  ;  and,  beaten  on  by  both,  toil  painfully,  perilously, 
— doing,  in  sad  literal  earnest^  *  the  impassible.' 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FOURTH  ESTATE. 

Pamphleteering  opens  its  abysmal  throat  wider  and  wider : 
never  to  close  more.  Our  Philosophes,  indeed,  rather  withdraw  ; 
after  the  manner  6f  Marmontel,  '  retiring  in  disgust  the  first  day/ 
Abbe  Raynal,  grown  gray  and  quiet  in  his  Marseilles  domicile,  is 
little  content  with  this  work  ;  the  last  literary  act  of  the  man  will 
again  be  an  act  of  rebellion  :  an  indignant  Letter  to  the  Constittcent 
Assembly  J  answered  by  '  the  order  of  the  day.^  Thus  also  Philo- 
sophe  M'orellet  puckers  discontented  brows  ;  being  indeed  threat- 
ened in  his  benefices  by  that  Fourth  of  August  :  it  is  clearly  going 
too  far.  How  astonishing  that  those  '  haggard  figures  in  w^oollen 
*jupes'  would  not  rest  as  satisfied  with  Speculation,  and  victorious 
Analysis,  as  we  ! 

AlaSj  yes  :  Speculation,  Philosophism,  once  the  ornament  and 
wealth  of  the  saloon,  will  now  coin  itself  into  mere  Practical 
Propositions,  and  circulate  on  street  and  highway,  universally ; 
with  results  !  A  Fourth  Estate,  of  Able  Editors,  springs  up  ;  in- 
creases and  multiplies  ;  irrepressible,  incalculable.  New  Printers, 
new  Journals,  and  ever  new  (so  prurient  is  the  world),  let  our 
Three  Hundred  curb  and  consolidate  as  they  can  !  Loustalot, 
under  the  wing  of  I  Vudhomme  dull-blustering  Printer,  edits  weekly 
his  Revolutions  de  Paris ;  in  an  acrid,  emphatic  manner.  Acrid, 
corrosive,  as  the  spirit  of  sloes  and  copperas,  is  Marat,  Friend  of 
the  People  J  struck  already  with  the  fact  that  the  National  As- 
sembly, so  full  of  Aristocrats,  ^can  do  nothing,'  except  dissolve 
itself,  and  make  way  for  a  better  ;  that  the  Townhall  Representa- 
tives are  little  other  than  babblers  and  imbeciles,  if  not  even 
knaves.  Poor  is  this  man  ;  squalid,  and  dwells  in  garrets  ;  a 
man  unlovely  to  the  sense,  outward  and  inward  ;  a  man  forbid  ; — 
and  is  becoming  fanatical,  possessed  with  fixed-*idea.  Cruel  liisus 
of  Nature  !  Did  Nature,  O  poor  Marat,  as  in  cruel  sport,  knead 
thcc  out  of  her  leavinf^s,  and  miscellaneous  waste  clay  ;  and  fling 
thee  fortli  slcjxlamclikc,  a  Distraction  into  this  distracted  Eigh- 
tcentli  Century?  Work  is  a]i{)ointcd  thee  there;  which  thou  shalt 
do.    The  Tlircc  llun(h-cd  liave  summoned  and  will  again  summon 


THE  FOURTH  ESTATE. 


171 


Marat  :  but  always  he  croaks  forth  answer  sufficient ;  ahvays  he 
will  defy  them,  or  elude  them  ;  and  endure  no  gag. 

Carra,  '  Ex-secretary  of  a  decapitated  Hospodar/  and  then  of  a 
Necklace-Cardinal ;  likewise  Pamphleteer,  Adventurer  in  many 
scenes  and  lands, — draws  nigh  to  Mercier,  of  the  Tableati 
de  Paris;  and,  with  foam  on  his  lips,  proposes  an  A7t7tales 
Patriotiqiies.  The  Moniteiir  goes  its  prosperous  way  ;  Barrere 
'  weeps/  on  Paper  as  yet  loyal  ;  Rivarol,  Royou  are  not  idle. 
Deep  calls  to  deep  :  your  Dojnine  Salvuiii  Fac  Re^em  shall 
avvaken  Pange  Lingua;  with  an  Ajni-du-Peuple  there  is  a 
Kifig's-F^dtmd  Newspaper,  Ami-du-Roi,  Camille  Desmoulins 
has  appointed  himself  Pronireur-General  de  la  Lajtterne, 
Attorney- General  of  the  Lamp-iron;  and  pleads,  not  with 
atrocity,  under  an  atrocious  title  ;  editing  weekly  his  brilliant 
Revahitions  of  Paris  and  Brabant.  Brilliant,  we  say  :  for  if, 
in  that  thick  murk  of  Journalism,  with  its  dull  blustering,  with 
its  fixed  or  loose  fury,  any  ray  of  genius  greet  thee,  be  sure  it 
is  Camille's.  The  thing  that  Camille  teaches  he,  with  his  light 
finger,  adorns  :  brightness  plays,  gentle,  unexpected,  amid  horrible 
confusions  ;  often  is  the  word  of  Camille  worth  reading,  w^hen  no 
other's  is.  Questionable  Camille,  how  thou  glitterest  with  a  fallen, 
rebelHous,  yet  still  semi-celestial  light ;  as  is  the  star-light,  on  the 
brow  of  Lucifer  !  Son  of  the  Morning,  into  what  times  and  what 
lands,  art  thou  fallen  ! 

But  in  all  things  is  good     though  not  good  for  '  consohdating 

*  Revolutions.'  Thousand  wagon4oads  of  this  Pamphleteering  and 
Newspaper  matter,  lie  rotting  slowly  in  the  Pubhc  Libraries  of 
our  Europe.  Snatched  from  the  great  gulf,  like  oysters  by  biblio- 
maniac pearl-divers,  there  must  they  first  r^/,  then  what  was  pearl, 
in  Camille  or  others,  may  be  seen  as  such,  and  continue  as  such. 

Nor  has  public  speaking  declined,  though  Lafayette  and  his 
Patrols  look  sour  on  it.  Loud  always  is  the  Palais  Royal,  loudest 
the  Cafe  de  Foy ;  such  a  miscellany  of  Citizens  and  Citizenesses 
circulating  there.    '  Now  and  then,'  according  to  Camille,  'some 

*  Citizens  employ  the  liberty  of  the  press  for  a  private  purpose  ;  so 
^that'this  or  the  other  Patriot  finds  himself  short  of  his  watch  or 

*  pocket-handkerchief  ! '  But,  for  the  rest,  in  Camille's  opinion, 
^nothing  can  be  a  liveher  image  of  the  Roman  Forum.  '  A  Patriot 
^proposes  his  motion  ;  if  it  finds  any  supporters,  they  make  him 

mount  on  a  chair,  and  speak.  If  be  is  applauded,  he  prospers 
^and  redacts  ;  if  he  is  hissed,  he  goes  his  ways.'  Thus  they,  cir- 
culating and  perorating.  Tall  shaggy  Marquis  Saint-Huruge,  a 
[I  man  that  has  had  losses,  and  has  deserved  them,  is  seen  eminent, 
(and  also  heard.  '  Bellowing'  is  the  character  of  his  voice,  like 
I  that  of  a  Bull  of  Bashan  ;  voice  which  drowns  all  voices,  which 
I  causes  frequently  the  hearts  of  men  to  leap.  Cracked  or  half- 
cracked  is  this  tall  Marquis's  head  ;  uncracked  are  his  lungs  ;  the 
cracked  and  the  uncracked  shall  alike  avail  him. 

Consider  further  that  each  of  the  Forty-eight  Districts  has  its 
own  Committee  ;  speaking  and  motioning  continually  ;  aiding  in 


172 


CONSOLIDATION, 


the  search  for  grain,  in  the  search  for  a  Constitution  ;  checkin| 
and  spurring  the  poor  Three  Hundred  ot  the  TownhalL  Tha 
Danton,  with  a  '  \o\qq.  reverberating  from  the  domes/  is  Presiden 
of  the  Cordehers  District  ;  which  has  aheady  become  a  Goshei 
of  Patriotism.  That  apart  from  the  '  seventeen  thousand  utterl; 
'  necessitous,  digging  on  Montmartre/  most  of  whom,  indeed,  havi 
got  passes,  and  been  dismissed  into  Space  '  with  four  shihings,'— 
there  is  a  strike^  or  union,  of  Domestics  out  of  place  ;  who  assemble 
for  public  speaking  :  next,  a  strike  of  Tailors,  for  even  they  wil 
strike  and  speak  ;  further,  a  strike  of  Journeymen  Cordwainers 
a  strike  of  Apothecaries  :  so  dear  is  bread."^  All  these,  having 
struck,  must  speak  ;  generally  under  the  open  canopy;  and  pass 
resolutions  ; — Lafayette  and  his  Patrols  watching  them  suspiciousl) 
from  the  distance. 

Unhappy  mortals  :  such  tugging  and  lugging,  and  throttling  oi 
one  another,  to  divide,  in  some  not  intolerable  way,  the  joint 
Fehcity  of  man  in  this  Earth  ;  when  the  whole  lot  to  be  divided 
is  such  a  '  feast  of  shells  I  '—Diligent  are  the  Three  Hundred ; 
none  equals  Scipio  Americanus  in  dealing  with  mobs.  But  surely 
all  these  things  bode  ill  for  the  consolidating  of  a  Revolution. 

*  Histoire  Parlementairet  ii.  359,  417,  433. 


173 


BOOK  SEVENTH. 


THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PATROLLOTISM. 

No,  Friends,  this  Revolution  ij  not  of  the  consohdating  kitid. 
Do  not  fires,  fevers,  sown  seeds,  chemical  mixtures,  men,  events  ; 
ill  embodiments  of  Force  that  work  in  this  miraculous  Complex  of 
Forces,  named  Universe, — go  on  growing,  through  their  natural 
Dhases  and  developments,  each  according  to  its  kind  ;  reach  their 
height,  reach  their  visible  decline  ;  finally  sink  under,  vanishing, 
md  what  we  call  die'^.  They  all  grow  ;  there  is  nothing  but  what 
^rows,  and  shoots  forth  into  its  special  expansion, — once  give  it 
eave  to  spring.  Observe  too  that  each  grows  with  a  rapidity 
proportioned,  in  general,  to  the  madness  and  unhealthiness  there 
s  in  it  :  slow  regular  growth,  though  this  also  ends  in  death,  is 
vhat  we  name  health  and  sanity. 

A  Sansculottism,  which  has  prostrated  Bastilles,  which  has  got 
)ike  and  musket,  and  now  goes  burning  Chateaus,  passing  resolu- 
ions  and  haranguing  under  roof  and  sky,  may  be  said  to  have 
I  prung  ;  and,  by  law  of  Nature,  must  grow.  To  judge '  by  the 
Inadness  and  diseasedness  both  of  its'elf,  and  of  the  soil  and  ele- 
!  fient  it  is  in,  one  might  expect  the  rapidity  and  monstrosity  would 
'>e  extreme. 

Many  things  too,  especially  all  diseased  things,  grow  by  shoots 
.nd  fits.  The  first  grand  fit  and  shooting  forth  of  Sansculottism 
/as  that  of  Paris  conquering  its  King;  for  Bailly's  figure  of 
hetoric  was  ail-too  sad  a  reality.  The  King  is  conquered  ;  going 
.t  large  on  his  parole  ;  on  condition,  say,  of  absolutely  good 
»ehaviour, — which,  in  these  circumstances,  will  unhappily  mean 
o  behaviour  whatever.  A  quite  untenable  position,  that  of 
Majesty  put  on  its  good  behaviour  !  Alas,  is  it  not  natural  that 
'hateyer  lives  try  to  keep  itself  living.^  Whereupon  his  Majesty's 
ehaviour  will  soon  become  exceptionable  ;  and  so  the  Second 
rand  Fit  of  Sansculottism,  that  of  putting  him  in  durance,  can- 
Qt  be  distant. 


THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


Necker.  in  the  National  Assembly,  is  making  moan,  as  usual 
about  his  Deficit  :  Barriers  and  Customhouses  burnt  ;  the  Tax- 
gacherei  hunted,  not  hunting  ;  his  Majesty's  Exchequer  all  bat 
empty.  The  remedy  is  a  Loan  of  thirty  milUons  ;  then,  on  still 
more  enticing  terms,  a  Loan  of  eighty  millions  :  neither  of  which 
Loans,  unhappily,  will  the  Stockjobbers  venture  to  lend.  The 
Stockjobber  has  no  country,  Except  his  own  black  pool  of  Agio, 

And  yet,  in  those  days,  for  men  that  have  a  country,  Avhat  a 
glow  of  patriotism  burns  in  many  a  heart  ;  penetrating  inwards  to 
the  very  purse  !    So  early  as  the  7th  of  August,  a  Don  PatrioUqiiCy 
'a  Patriotic  Gift  of  jewels  to  a  considerable  extent,'  has  been 
solemnly  made  by  certain  Parisian  women  ;  and  solemnly  accepted,, 
with  honourable  mention.    Whom  forthwith  all  the  world  takes  to 
imitating  and  emulating.    Patriotic  Gifts,  always  with  some  heroic, 
eloquence,  which  the  President  must  answer  and  the  Assembly, 
hsten  to,  flow  in  from  far  and  near  :  in  such  number  that  thC; 
honourable  mention  can  only  be  performed  in  '  lists  published  at 
'  stated  epochs/    Each  gives  what  he  can  :  the  very  cordwamers 
have  behaved  munificently  ;  one  landed  proprietor  gives  a  forest ; 
fashionable  society  gives  its  shoebuckles,  takes  cheerfully  to  shoe- 
ties.    Unfortunate  females  give   what   they  '  have  amassed  in 
'  loving.'      The  smell  of  all  cash,  as  Vespasian  thought,  is  crood.  \ 
Beautiful,  and  yet  inadequate  !    The  Clergy  must  be  '  invited  ^ 
to  melt  their  superfluous  Church-plate,— in  the  Royal  Mint.  Nay 
finally,  a  Patriotic  Contribution,  of  the  forcible  sort,  must  be  deter-; 
mined  on,  though  unwilhngly  :  let  the  fourth  part  of  your  declared 
yearly  revenue,  for  this  once  only,  be  paid  down  ;  so  shall  a 
National  Assembly  make  the  Constitution,  undistracted  at  least  by 
insolvency.    Their  own  wages,  as  settled  on  the  17th  of  August, 
are  but  Eighteen  Francs  a  day,  each  man  ;  but  the  Public  Service 
must  have  sinews,  must  have  money.    To  appease  the  Deficit ; 
not  to  '  combler,  or  choke,  the  Deficit,'  if  you  or  mortal  could ! 
For  withal,  as  Mirabeau  was  heard  saying,  "  it  is  the  Deficit  that 
saves  us." 

Towards  the  end  of  August,  our  National  Assembly  in  its  con- 
stitutional labours,  has  got  so  far  as  the  question  of  Veto :  shall 
Majesty  have  a  Veto  on  the  National .  Enactments ;  or  not  have 
a  Veto  ?  What  speeches  were  spoken,  within  doors  and  without ; 
clear,  and  also  passionate  logic  ;  imprecations,  comminations ; 
gone  happily,  for  most  part,  to  Limbo  !  Through  the  cracked 
brain,  and  uncracked  lungs  of  Saint-Huruge,  the  Palais  Royal 
rebellows  with  Veto.    Journalism  is  busy,  France  rings  with  Veto. 

*  I  shall  never  forget,'  says  Dumont,  'my  going  to  Paris,  one  of 

*  these  days,  with  Mirabeau  ;  and  the  crowd  of  people  we  found 
'waiting  for  his  carriage,  about  Le  Jay  the  Bookseller's  shop., 
'They  flung  themselves  before  him;  conjuring  him  with  tears  in 

*  their  eyes  not  to  suffer  the  Veto  Absolu.  They  were  in  a  frenzy  : 
'  "  Monsieur  le  Comte,  you  are  the  people's  father  ;  you  must  save 

*  US  \  you  must  defend  us  against  those  villains  who  are  bringing 

*  Histoire  ParlcmcniairCi  ii.  427, 


PATROLLOTISM. 


*back  Despotism.  If  the  King  get  ^;his  Veto,  what  is  the  use  of 
^  National  Assembly  ?  We  are  slaves  ;  all  is  done."  '  Friends, 
//  the  sky  fall,  there  will  be  catching  of  larks  !  Mirabeau,  adds 
bumont,  was  eminent  on  such  occasions  :  he  answered  vaguely, 
with  a  Patrician  imperturbability,  and  bound  himself  to  nothing. 

Deputations  go  to  the  H6tei-de-Ville  ;  anonymous  Letters  to 
Aristocrats  in  the  National  Assembly,  threatening  that  fifteen 
thousand,  or  sometimes  that  sixty  thousand,  'will  march  to  illumi- 
*  nate  you.'  The  Paris  Districts  are  astir ;  Petitions  signing  : 
Saint- Huruge  sets  forth  from  the  Palais  Royal,  with  an  escort  of 
lifteen  hundred  individuals,  to  petition  in  person.  Resolute,  or 
seemingly  so,  is  the  tall  shaggy  Marquis,  is  the  Cafe  de  Foy  :  but 
resolute  also  is  Commandant- General  Lafayette.  The  streets  are 
all  beset  by  Patrols  :  Saint- Huruge  is  stopped  at  the  Barriere  des 
Bo-71  Hommesj  he  may  bellow  like  the  bulls  of  Bashan  ;  but  abso- 
lutely must  return.  The  brethren  of  the  Palais  Royal '  circulate  all 
'  night,'  and  make  motions,  under  the  open  canopy ;  all  Coffee- 
houses being  shut.  Nevertheless  Lafayette  and  the  Townhall  do 
prevail  :  Saint-Huruge  is  thrown  into  prison  ;  Veto  Absolu  adjusts 
itself  into  Suspensive  Veto,  prohibition  not  forever,  but  for  a  term 
of  time  ;  and  this  doom's-clamour  will  grow  silent,  as  the  others 
have  done. 

So  far  has  Consolidation  prospered,  though  with  difficulty  ;  re- 
Ipressing  the  Nether  Sansculottic  world  ;  and  the  Constitution 
shall  be  made.  With  difficulty  :  amid  jubilee  and  scarcity  ;  Patriotic 
Gifts,  Bakers'-queues  ;  Abbe-Fauchet  Harangues,  with  their  Aine?i 
)f  plajtoon-musketry  !  Scipio  Americanus  has  deserved  thanks 
Tom  the  National  Assembly  and  France,  They  offer  him  sti- 
oends  and  emoluments,  to  a  handsome  extent ;  all  which  stipends 
md  emoluments  he,  covetous  of  far  other  blessedness  than  mere 
;noney,  does,  in  his  chivalrous  way,  without  scruple,  refuse. 

I  To  the  Parisian  common  man,  meanwhile,  one  thing  remains 
i  nconceivable  :  that  now  when  the  Bastille  is  down,  and  French 
liberty  restored,  grain  should  contmue  so  dear.  Our  Rights 
|)f  Man  are  voted,  Feudahsm  and  all  Tyranny  abolished;  yet 
I  behold  we  stand  in  queue !  Is  it  Aristocrat  forestallers  ;  a 
Tourt  still  bent  on  intrigues  ?    Something  is  rotten,  somewhere. 

And  yet,  alas,  what  to  do  ?  Lafayette,  with  his  Patrols  prohibits 
ivery  thing,  even  complaint.  Saint-Huruge  and  other  heroes  of 
he  Veto  lie  in  durance.  People's- Friend  Marat  was  seized  ; 
r'rintersof  Patriotic  Journals  are  fettered  and  forbidden  ;  the  very 
riawkers  cannot  cry,  till  they  get  license,  and  leaden  badges. 
Blue  National  Guards  ruthlessly  dissipate  all  groups  ;  scour,  with 
evelled  bayonets,  the  Palais  Royal  itself.  Pass,  on  your  affairs, 
-long  the  Rue  Taranne,  the  Patrol,  presenting  his  bayonet,  cries, 
To  the  left!  Turn  into  the  Rue  Saint-Benoit,  he  cries,  To  the 
'ight! .  A  judicious  Patriot  (like  Camille  Desmouhns,  in  this  in- 
tance)  is  driven,  for  quietness'  sake,  to  take  the  gutter. 
O  much-suffering  People,  our  glorious  Revolution  is  evaporating 
*  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,  p.  156. 


176  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


in  tricolor  ceremonies,  and  complimentary  harangues  !  Of  which 
latter,  as  Loustalot  acridly  calculates,  '  upwards  of  two  thousand 

*  have  been  delivered  within  the  last  month,  at  the  Townhall 

*  alone.'*  And  our  mouths,  unfilled  with  bread,  are  to  be  shut, 
under  penalties  ?  The  Caricaturist  promulgates  his  emblematic 
Tablature  :  Le  Patrouillotisme  chassant  le  Patriotisme,  Patrio- 
tism driven  out  by  Patrollotism.  Ruthless  Patrols  ;  long  superfine 
harangues  ;  and  scanty  ill-baked  loaves,  more  like  baked  Bath 
bricksj — which  produce  an  effect  on  the  intestines  !  Where  will 
this  end  ?    In  consolidation  ? 


CHAPTER  II. 

O  RICHARD,  O  MY  KING. 

For,  alas,  neither  is  the  Townhall  itself  without  misgivings.  The 
Nether  Sansculottic  world  has  been  suppressed  hitherto  :  but  then: 
the  Upper  Court- world  !  Symptoms  there  are  that  the  CEil-de-; 
Boeuf  is  rallying.  ; 

More  than  once  in  the  Townhall  Sanhedrim  ;  often  enough^ 
from  those  outspoken  Bakers'-queues,  has  the  wish  uttered  itself  :| 
O  that  our  Restorer  of  French  Liberty  were  here  ;  that  he  could 
see  with  his  own  eyes,  not  with  the  false  eyes  of  Queens  and 
Cabals,  and  his  really  good  heart  be  enlightened  !  For  falsehood 
still  environs  him  ;  intriguing  Dukes  de  Guiche,  with  Bodyguards  ; 
scouts  of  Bouille  ;  a  new  flight  of  intriguers,  now  that  the  old  is 
flown.  What  else  means  this  advent  of  the  Regiment  de  Flandre ; 
entering  Versailles,  as  we  hear,  on  the  23rd  of  September,  with 
two  pieces  of  cannon  ?  Did  not  the  Versailles  National  Guard  do 
duty  at  the  Chateau  ?  Had  they  not  Swiss  ;  Hundred  Swiss  ; 
Gardes-du-Corps^  Bodyguards  so-called  Nay,  it  would  seem,  the 
number  of  Bodyguards  on  duty  has,  by  a  manoeuvre,  been 
doubled  :  the  new  reheving  Battahon  of  them  arrived  at  its  time; 
but  the  old  reheved  one  does  not  depart  I 

Actually,  there  runs  a  whisper  through  the  best  informed 
Upper-Circles,  or  a  nod  still  more  potentous  than  whispering,  of 
his  Majesty's  flying  to  Metz  ;  of  a  Bond  (to  stand  by  him  therein) 
which  has  been  signed  by  Noblesse  and  Clergy,  to  the  incredible 
amount  of  thirty,  or  even  of  sixty  thousand.  Lafayette  coldly 
whispers  it,  and  coldly  asseverates  it.  to  Count  d'Estaing  at  the 
Dinner-table  ;  and  d'Estaing,  one  of  The  bravest  men,  quakes  to 
the  core  lest  some  lackey  overhear  it ;  and  tumbles  thoughtful, 
without  sleep,  all  night.f  Regiment  Flandre,  as  we  said,  is  clearly 

*  Revolutions  de  Paris  Newspaper  (cited  in  Histoire  Parlementaire,  ii. 
357). 

t  Brouillon  de  Lettre  de  M,  d'EsiatngMa  Riine  (in  Histoire  ParlemevU 
aire^  iii.  24). 


O  RICHARD,  O  MY  KING. 


177 


arrived.  His  Majesty,  they  say,  hesitates  about  sanctioning  the 
Fourth  of  August;  makes  observati^^ns,  of  chilHng  tenor,  on  the 
very  Rights  of  Man  !  Likewise,  may  not  all  persons,  the  Bakers'- 
queues  themselves  discern  on  the  streets  of  Paris,  the  most 
astonishing  number  of  Officers  on  furlough.  Crosses  of  St.  Louis, 
and  such  like.'*    Some  reckon 'from  a  thousand  to  twelve  hun- 

*  dred.'  Officers  of  all  uniforms  ;  nay  one  uniform  never  before 
seen  by  eye  :  green  faced  wth  red  !  The  tricolor  cockade  is  not 
always  visible  :  but  what,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  may  these 
black  cockades,  which  some  wear,  foreshadow 

Hunger  whets  everything,  especially  Suspicion  and  Indignation. 
Realities  themselves,  in  this  Paris,  have  grown  unreal  :  preter- 
natural. Phantasms  once  more  stalk  through  the  brain  of  hungry 
France.  O  ye  laggards  and  dastards,  cry  shrill  voices  from  the 
Queues,  if  ye  had  the  hearts  of  men,  ye  would  take  your  pikes 
and  secondhand  firelocks,  and  look  into  it ;  not  leave  your  wives 
and  daughters  to  be  starved,  murdered,  and  worse  ! — Peace, 
women  !  The  heart  of  man  is  bitter  and  heavy ;  Patriotism, 
driven  out  by  Patrollotism,  knows  not  what  to  resolve  on. 

The  truth  is,  the  QEil-de-Boeuf  has  rallied  ;  to  a  certain  unknown 
extent.  A  changed  CEil-de-Boeuf ;  with  Versailles  National 
Guards,  in  their  tricolor  cockades,,  doing  duty  there  ;  a  Court  all 
flaring  with  tricolor  !  Yet  even  to  a  tricolor  Court  men  will  rally. 
Ye  loyal  hearts,  burnt-out  Seigneurs,  rally  round  your  Queen  ! 
With  wishes  ;  which  will  produce  hopes ;  which  will  produce 
i  attempts  ! 

I  For  indeed  self-preservation  being  such  a  law  of  Nature,  what 
j  Can  a  rallied  Court  do,  but  attempt  and  endeavour,  or  call  it  plot, 
I  — with  such  wisdom  and  unwisdom  as  it  has  1  They  will  fly, 
escorted,  to  Metz,  where  brave  Bouille  commands  ;  they  will  raise 
the  Royal  Standard  :  the  Bond-signatures  shall  become  armed 
men.  Were  not  the  King  so  languid  !  Their  Bond,  if  at  all 
signed,  must  be  signed  without  his  privity. — Unhappy  King,  he 
has  but  one  resolution  :  not  to  have  a  civil  war.  For  the  rest,  he 
still  hunts,  having  ceased  lockmaking  ;  he  still  dozes,  and  digests  ; 
■is  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter.  Ill  will  it  fare  with  him,  in  a 
world  where  all  is  helping  itself ;  where,  as  has  been  written, 
'  whosoever  is  not  hammer  must  be  stithy  ; '  and  '  the  very  hyssop 

*  on  the  wall  grows  there,  in  that  chink,  because   the  whole 

*  Universe  could  not  prevent  its  growing  !  ^ 

But  as  for  the  coming  up  of  this  Regiment  de  Flandre,  may  it 
not  be  urged  that  there  were  Saint-Huruge  Petitions,  and  continual 
meal  mobs.?  Undebauched  Soldiers,  be  there  plot,  or  only  dim 
elements  of  a  plot,  are  always  good.  Did  not  the  Versailles 
Municipality  (an  old  Monarchic  one,  not  yet  refounded  into  a 
Democratic)  instantly  second  the  proposal  Nay  the  very 
Versailles  National  Guard,  wearied  with  continual  duty  at  the 
Chateau,  did  not  object ;  only  Draper  Lecointre,*  who'  is  now 
Major  Lecointre,  shook  his  head. — Yes,  Friends,  surely  it  was 
ijatural  this  Regiment  de  Flandre  should  be  sent  for,  since  it  coiiid 


178  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN, 


be  got.  It  was  natural  that,  at  sight  of  mihtary  bandoleers,  the 
heart  of  the  rallied  Qiil-de-Boeuf  should  revive  ;  and  Maids  of 
Honour,  and  gentlemen  of  honour,  speak  comfortable  words  to 
epauletted  defenders,  and  to  one  another.  Natural  also,  and  mere 
common  civility,  that  the  Bodyguards,  a  Regiment  of  Gentlemen, 
should  invite  their  Flandre  brethren  to  a  Dinner  of  welcome  !  — 
Such  invitation,  in  the  last  days  of  September,  is  given  and 
accepted. 

Dinners  are  defined  as  ^  the  ultimate  act  of  communion  ; '  men 
that  can  have  communion  in  nothing  else,  can  sympathetically  eat 
together,  can  still  rise  into  some  glow  of  brotherhood  over  food 
and  wine»  The  dinner  is  fixed  on,  for  Thursday  the  First  of 
October ;  and  ought  to  have  a  fine  effect.  Further,  as  such 
Dinner  may  be  rather  extensive,  and  even  the  Noncommissioned 
and  the  Common  man  be  introduced,  to  see  and  to  hear,  could  not 
His  Majesty's  Opera  Apartment,  which  has  lain  quite  silent  ever 
since  Kaiser  Joseph  was  here,  be  obtained  for  the  purpose  The 
Hall  of  the  Opera  is  granted  ;  the  Salon  d'Hercule  shall  be 
drawingroom.  Not  only  the  Officers  of  Flandre,  but  of  the  Swiss, 
of  the  Hundred  Swiss,  nay  of  the  Versailles  National  Guard,  such 
of  them  as  have  any  loyalty,  shall  feast  :  it  will  be  a  Repast  like 
few. 

And  now  suppose  this  Repast,  the  solid  part  of  it,  transacted  ; 
and  the  first  bottle  over.  Suppose  the  customary  loyal  toasts 
drunk  ;  the  King's  health,  the  Queen's  with  deafening  vivats  ; 
— that  of  the  Nation  '  omitted,'  or  even  '  rejected.'  Suppose 
champagne  flowing  ;  with  pot-valorous  speech,  with  instrumental 
music  ;  empty  feathered  heads  growing  ever  the  noisier,  in  their 
own  emptiness,  in  each  other's  noise!  Her  Majesty,  who  looks 
unusually  sad  to-night  (his  Majesty  sitting  dulled  with  the  day's 
hunting),  is  told  that  the  sight  of  it  would  cheer,  her.  Behold  ! 
She  enters  there,  issuing  from  her  State-rooms,  like  the  Moon 
from  the  clouds,  this  fairest  unhappy  Queen  of  Hearts  ;  royal 
Husband  by  her  side,  young  Dauphin  in  her  arms  !  She  descends 
from  the  Boxes,  amid  splendour  and  acclaim  ;  walks  queen-hke, 
round  the  Tables  ;  gracefully  escorted,  gracefully  nodding  ;  her 
looks  full  of  sorrow,  yet  of  gratitude  and  daring,  with  the  hope  of 
France  on  her  mother-bosom  !  And  now,  the  band  striking  up, 
O  Richard^  O  nio7i  Roi,  ruiiivers  fabando7i7ie{0  Richard,  O  my 
King,  the  world  is  all  forsaking  thee) — could  man  do  other  than 
rise  to  height  of  pity,  of  loyal  valour  ?  Could  featherheadcd 
young  ensigns  do  other  than,  by  white  Bourbon  Cockades,  handed 
them  from  fair  fingers  ;  by  waving  of  swords,  drawn  to  pledge 
the  Queen's  health  :  by  trampling  of  National  Cockades  ;  by 
scaling  the  Boxes,  whence  intrusive  murmurs  may  come  ;  by 
vociferation,  tripudiation,  sound,  fury  and  distraction,  within  doors 
and  without, —  testify  what  tempest-tost  state  of  vacuity  they  are 
in  ?  Till  champagne  and  tripudiation  do  their  work  ;  and  all  lie 
silent,  horizontal  ;  passively  slumbering,  with  meed-of-battle 
dreams  ! — 

A  natural  kepast ;  in  ordinary  times,  a  harmless  one  -  now 


BLACK  COCKADES, 


179 


fatal,  as  that  of  Thyestes  ;  as  that  of  Job's  Sons,  when  a  strong 
wind  smote  the  four  corners  of  their  banquet-house  !  Poor  ill- 
advised  Marie-Antoinette  ;  with  a  woman's  vehemence,  not  with 
a  sovereign's  foresight  !  It  was  so  natural,  yet  so  unwise.  Next 
day,  in  public  speech  of  ceremony,  her  Majesty  declares  herself 
delighted  with  the  Thursday.' 

The  heart  of  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  glows  into  hope  ;  into  daring, 
which  is  premature.  Rallied  Maids  of  Honour,  waited  on  by 
Abbes,  sew  'white  cockades  ;'  distribute  them,  with  words,  with 
glances,  to  epauietted  youths  ;  who  in  return,  may  kiss,  not  with- 
out fervour,  the  fair  sewing  fingers.  Captains  of  horse  and  foot 
go  swashing  with  '  enormous  white  cockades  nay  one  Versailles 
National  Captain  had  mounted  the  like,  so  witching  were  the 
words  and  glances  ;  and  laid  aside  his  tricolor  !  Well  may  Major 
Lecointre  shake  his  head  with  a  look  of  severity ;  and  speak 
audible  resentful  words.  But  now  a  swashbuckler,  with  enormous 
white  cockade,  overhearing  the  Major,  invites  him  insolently,  once 
and  then  again  elsewhere,  to  recant ;  and  failing  that,  to  duel. 
Which  latter  feat  Major  Lecointre  declares  that  he  will  not  per- 
form, not  at  least  by  any  known  laws  of  fence  ;  that  he  neverthe- 
less will,  according  to  mere  law  of  Nature,  by  dirk  and  blade, 
^  exterminate '  any  ^  vile  gladiator,'  who  may  insult  him  or  the 
Nation  ;— whereupon  (for  the  M^jor  is  actually  drawing  his  imple- 
ment) ^they  are  parted,'  and  no  weasands  sht."^ 


CHAPTER  HI. 

BLACK  COCKADES. 

But  fancy  what  effect  this  Thyestes  Repast  and  trampling  on 
the  National  Cockade,  must  have  had  in  the  Salle  des  Memcs ;  in 
the  famishing  Bakers'-queues  at  Paris  !  Nay  such  Thyestes 
Repasts,  it  would  seem,  continue.  Flandre  has  given  its  Counter- 
Dinner  to  the  Swiss  and  Hundred  Swiss  ;  then  on  Saturday  there 
has  been  another. 

Yes,  here  with  us  is  famine  ;  but  yonder  at  Versailles  is  food  ; 
enough  and  to  spare  !  Patriotism  stands  in  queue,  shivering 
hungerstruck,  insulted  by  Patrol! otism  ;  while  bloodyminded  Aris- 
tocrats, heated  with  excess  of  high  living,  trample  on  the  National 
Cockade.  Can  the  atrocity  be  true?  Nay,  look  :  green  uniforms 
faced  with  red  ;  black  cockades, — the  colour  of  Night  !  Are  we 
to  have  military  onfall  ;  and  death  also  by  starvation  For 
behold  the  Corbeil  Cornboat,  which  used  to  come  twice  a-day, 
with  its  Plaster-of-Paris  meal,  now  comes  only  once.    And  the 

'  *  Moniteur  Histohe  Parl&mentaire,  iii.  59);  Deux  (Amis  m,  128-141); 
Campan  (ii.  70-85),  &c.  &c. 


tSo  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN 


Townhall  is  deaf ;  and  the  men  are  laggard  and  dastard  !— At 
the  Cafe  de  Foy,  this  Saturday  evening,  a  new  thing  is  seen,  not 
the  last  of  its  kind  :  a  woman  engaged  in  public  speaking.  Her 
poor  man,  she  says,  was  put  to  silence  by  his  District ;  their 
Presidents  and  Officials  would  not  let  him  speak.  Wherefore  she 
here  with  her  shrill  tongue  will  speak  ;  d~enouncing,  while  her 
breath  endures,  the  Corbeil-Boat,  the  Plaster-of-Paris  bread,  sac- 
rilegious Opera-dinners,  green  uniforms,  Pirate  Aristocrats,  and 
those  black  cockades  of  theirs  ! — 

Truly,  it  is  time  for  the  black  cockades  at  least,  to  vanish. 
Them  Patrollotism  itself  will  not  protect.  Nay,  sharp-tempered 
*  M.  Tassin,'  at  the  Tuileries  parade  on  Sunday  morning,  forgets 
all  National  military  rule  ;  starts  from  the  ranks,  wrenches  down 
one  black  cockade  which  is  swashing  ominous  there  ;  and  tramples 
it  fiercely  into  the  soil  of  France.  Patrollotism  itself  is  not  without 
suppressed  fury.  Also  the  Districts  begin  to  stir  ;  the  voice  of 
President  Danton  reverberates  in  the  Cordeliers  :  People's-Friend 
Marat  has  flown  to  Versailles  and  back  again  ; — swart  bird,  not  of 
the  halcyon  kind  !* 

And  so  Patriot  meets  promenading  Patriot,  this  Sunday  :  and 
sees  his  own  grim  care  reflected  on  the  face  of  another.  Groups, 
in  spite  of  Patrollotism,  which  is  not  so  alert  as  usual,  fluctuate 
deliberative  :  groups  on  the  Bridges,  on  the  Ouais,  at  the  patriotic 
Cafds.  And  ever  as  any  black  cockade  may  emerge,  rises  the 
many-voiced  growl  and  bark  :  Z  bas,  Down  !  All  black  cockades 
are  ruthlessly  plucked  off :  one  individual  picks  his  up  r.gaii:  ; 
kisses  it,  attempts  to  refix  it ;  but  a  '  hundred  canes  start'  in^o  the 
*•  air,'  and  he  desists.  Still  worse  went  it  with  another  indivicual ; 
doomed,  by  extempore  Plebiscitum,  to  the  Lanterne  ;  saved,  with  > 
difficulty,  by  some  active  Corps-de-Garde. — Lafayette  sees  signs 
of  an  effervescence  ;  which  he  doubles  his  Patrols,  doubles  his 
diligence,  to  prevent.  So  passes  Sunday,  the  4th  of  October 
1789. 

Sullen  is  the  male  heart,  repressed  by  Patrollotism  ;  vehement 
is  the  female,  irrepressible.  The  public-speaking  woman  at  the 
Palais  Royal  was  not  the  only  speaking  one  : — Men  know  not  what 
the  pantry  when  it  grows  empty,  only  house-mothers  know.  O 
viTomen,  wives  of  men  that  will  only  calculate  and  not  act  !  Patrol- 
lotism is  strong  ;  but  Death,  by  starvation  and  miUtary  onfall,  is 
stronger.  Patrollotism  represses  male  Patriotism  :  but  female 
Patriotism  ?  Will  Guards  named  National  thrust  their  bayonets 
into  the  bosoms  of  women  Such  thought,  or  rather  such  dim 
unshaped  raw-material  of  a  thought,  ferments  universally  under 
the  female  night-cap  ;  and,  by  earliest  daybreak,  on  slight  hint, 
will  explode. 

*  Cam i lie's  Newspaper,  Revolutions  de  Paris  et  de  Brabant  (in  Histoirt 
ParlemeniairSt  iii.  io8). 


THE  MENADS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

^THE  MENADS. 

If  Voltaire  once,  in  splenetic  humour,  asKed  his  countrymen  2 
"But  you,  Gualches,  what  have  you  invented?"  they  can  now 
answer  :  The  Art  of  Insurrection.  It  was  an  art  needed  in  these 
last  singular  times  :  an  art,  for  which  the  French  nature,  so  full 
of  vehemence,  so  free  from  depth,  was  perhaps  of  all  others  the 
fittest. 

Accordingly,  to  what  a  height,  one  may  well  say  of  perfection, 
has  this  branch  of  human  industry  been  carried  by  France,  within 
the  last  half-century  !  Insurrection,  which,  Lafayette  thought, 
might  be  *the  most  sacred  of  duties,'  ranks  now,  for  the  French 
people,  among  the  duties  which  they  can  perform.  Other  mobs 
are  dull  masses  ;  which  roll  onwards  with  a  dull  fierce  tenacity,  a 
dull  fierce  heat,  but  emit  no  light-flashes  of  genius  as  they  go. 
The  French  mob,  again,  is  among  the  liveliest  phenomena  of  our 
world.  So  rapid,  audacious  ;  so  clear-sighted,  inventive,  prompt 
to  seize  the  moment ;  instinct  with  life  to  its  finger-ends  !  That 
talent,  were  there  no  other,  of  spontaneously  standing  in  queue, 
distinguishes,  as  we  said,  the  French  People  from  all  Peoples, 
ancient  and  modern. 

Let  the  Reader  confess  too  that,  taking  one  thing  with  another, 
perhaps  few  terrestrial  Appearances  are  better  worth  considering 
than  mobs.  Your  mob  is  a  genuine  outburst  of  Nature  ;  issuing 
from,  or  communicating  with,  the  deepest  deep  of  Nature.  When 
so  much  goes  grinning  and  grimacing  as  a  lifeless  Formality,  *and 
under  the  stiff  buckram  no  heart  can  be  felt  beating,  here  once 
more,'  if  nowhere  else,  is  a  Sincerity  and  Reality.  Shudder  at  It  ; 
or  even  shriek  over  it,  if  thou  must ;  nevertheless  consider  it. 
Such  a  Complex  of  human  Forces  and  Individualities  hurled  forth, 
in  their  transcendental  mood,  to  act  and  react,  on  circumstances 
and  on  one  another  ;  to  work  out  what  it  is  in  them  to  work.  The 
thing  they  will  do  is  known  to  no  man  ;  least  of  all  to  themselves. 
It  is  the  inflammablest  immeasurable  Fire- work,  generating,  con- 
suming itself.  With  what  phases,  to  what  extent,  with  what  re- 
sults it  will  burn  off,  Philosophy  and  Perspicacity  conjecture  in 
vain. 

'  Man,'  as  has  been  written,  *  is  for  ever  interesting  to  man  ; 
^  nay  properly  there  is  nothing  else  interesting.'  In  which  light 
also,  may  we  not  discern  why  most  Battles  have  become  so  weari- 
some ?  Battles,  in  these  ages,  are  transacted  by  mechanism  ;  with 
the  slightest  possible  developement  of  human  individuality  or 
spontaneity  :  men  now  even  die,  and  kill  one  another,  in  an  arti- 
ficial mann-^r.  Battles  ever  since  Homer's  time,  when  they  were 
Fighting  Mobs,  have  mostly  ceased  to  be  worth  looking  at,  worth 
reading  of,  or  remembering.  How  many  wearisome  bloody  Battles 


THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


does  History  strive  to  represent ;  or  even,  in  a  husky  way,  to  sing  - 
— and  she  would  omit  or  carelessly  slur-over  this  one  Insurrectiqn  / 
of  Women  ? 

A  thought,  or  dim  raw-material  of  a  thought,  was  fermenting 
all  night,  universally  in  the  female  head,  and  might  explode.  In 
squalid  garret,  on  Monday  morning.  Maternity  awakes,  to  hear 
children  weeping  for  bread.  Maternity  ^nust  forth  to  the  streets, 
to  the  herb-markets  and  Bakers'-queues  ;  meets  there  with  hunger- 
stricken  Maternity,  sympathetic,  exasperative.  O  we  unhappy 
women  !  But,  instead  of  Bakers'-queues,  why  not  to  Aristocrats^ 
palaces,  the  root  of  the  matter?  A  lions  I  Let  us  assemble.  To 
the  H6tel-de-Ville  ;  to  Versailles  ;  to  the  Lanterne  ! 

In  one  of  the  Guardhouses  of  the  Quartier  Saint-Eustache, 

*  young  woman '  seizes  a  drum, — for  how  shall  National  Guards 
give  fire  on  women,  on  a  young  woman  ?  The  young  woman 
seizes  the  drum  ;  sets  forth,  beating  it,  '  uttering  cries  relative  to 

*  the  dearth  of  grains.'  Descend,  O  mothers  ;  descend,  ye  Judiths,  . 
to  food  and  revenge  ! — All  women  gather  and  go  ;  crowds  storm 
all  stairs,  force  out  all  women  :  the  female  Insurrectionary  Force, 
according  to  Camille,  resembles  the  Enghsh  Naval  one  ;  there  is 
a  universal  ^  Press  of  women.'  Robust  Dames  of  the  Halle,  slim 
Mantua-makers,  assiduous,  risen  with  the  dawn  ;  ancient  Virginity 
tripping  to  matins  ;  the  Housemaid,  with  early  broom  ;  all  must 
go.  Rouse  ye,  O  women  ;  the  laggard  men  will  not  act ;  they  say, 
we  ourselves  may  act ! 

And  so,  like  snowbreak  from  the  mountains,  for  every  staircase 
is  a  melted  brook,  it  storms  ;  tumultuous,  wild-shrilling,  towards 
the  Hotel- de-Ville.  Tumultuous  ;  with  or  without  drum-music  : 
for  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  also  has  tucked  up  its  gown  ; 
and,  with  besom-staves,  fire-irons,  and  even  rusty  pistols  (void  of 
ammunition),  is  flowing  on.  Sound  of  it  flies,  with  a  velocity  of 
sound,  to  the  utmost  Barriers.  By  seven  o'clock,  on  this  raw 
October  morning,  fifth  of  the  month,  the  Townhall  will  see  wonders. 
Nay,  as  chance  would  have  it,  a  male  party  are  already  there ; 
clustering  tumultuously  round  some  National  Patrol,  and  a  Baker 
who  has  been  seized  with  short  weights.  They  are  there  ;  and 
have  even  lowered  the  rope  of  the  Lanterne.  So  that  the  oflicial 
persons  have  to  smuggle  forth  the  short-weighing  Baker  by  back 
doors,  and  even  send  '  to  all  the  Districts  '  for  more  force. 

Grand  it  was,  says  Camille,  to  see  so  many  Judiths,  from  eight 
to  ten  thousand  of  them  in  all,  rushing  out  to  search  into  the  root 
of  the  matter  !  Not  unfrightful  it  must  have  been  ;  ludicro-terrific, 
and  most  unmanageable.  At  such  hour  the  overwatched  Three 
Hundred  are  not  yet  stirring  :  none  but  some  Clerks,  a  company  of 
National  Guards  ;  and  M.  de  Gouvion,  the  Major-general.  (Jouvion 
has  fought  in  America  for  the  cause  of  civil  Liberty  ;  a  man  of  no 
inconsiderable  heart,  but  deficient  in  head.  He  is,  for  the  moment, 
in  his  back  apartment  ;  assuaging  Usher  Maillard,  the  Bastille- 
serjeant,  who  has  come,  as  too  many  do,  with  '  representations.' 
The  assuagement  is  still  incomplete  when  our  Judiths  arrive. 

The  National  Cniards  form  on  the  outer  stairs,  with  levelled 


USHER  MAILLARD, 


bayonets  ;  the  ten  thousand  Judiths  press  up,  resistless ;  with 
obtestations,  with  outspread  hands, — merely  to  speak  to  the 
Mayor.  The  rear  forces  them ;  nay,  from  male  hands  in  the  rear, 
stones  already  fly  :  the  National  Guards  must  do  one  of  two 
things  ;  sweep  the  Place  de  Greve  with  cannon,  or  else  open  to 
right  and  left.  They  open  ;  the  living  deluge  rushes  in.  Through 
all  rooms  and  cabinets,  upwards  to  the  topmost  belfry  :  ravenous  ; 
seeking  arms,  seeking  Mayors,  seeking  justice  ; — while,  again^  the 
better- cressed  speak  kindly  to  the  Clerks  ;  point  out  the  misery  of 
these  poor  women  ;  also  their  ailments,  some  even  of  an  interest- 
ing sort.* 

Poor  M.  de  Gouvion  is  shiftless  in  this  extremity  ; — a  man  shift- 
less, perturbed ;  who  will  one  day  commit  suicide.  How  happy 
for  him  that  Usher  Maillard,  the  shifty,  was  there,  at  the  moment, 
though  making  representations  !  Fly  back,  thou  shifty  Maillard  ; 
seek  the  Bastille  Company  ;  and  O  return  fast  with  it ;  above  all, 
with  thy  own  shifty  head  !  For,  behold,  the  Judiths  can  find  no 
Mayor  or  Municipal  ;  scarcely,  in  the  topmost  belfrey,  can  they 
find  poor  Abbe  Lefevre  the  Powder-distributor.  Him,  for  want 
of  a  better,  they  suspend  there  ;  in  the  palp  morning  light  ;  over 
the  top  of  all  Paris,  which  swims  in  one's  failing  eyes  : — a  horrible 
end  ?  Nay,  the  rope  broke,  as  French  ropes  often  did  ;  or  else  an 
Amazon  cut  it.  Abbe  Lefevre  falls,  'some  twenty  feet,  ra.ttling 
among  the  leads  ;  and  iives  long  years  after,  though  always  with 
*  a  tr emblement  in  the  limbs/f 

And  now  doors  fly  under  hatchets  ;  the  Judiths  have  broken  the 
Armoury ;  have  seized  guns  and  cannons,  three  money-bags, 
paper-heaps  ;  torches  flare  :  in  few  minutes,  our  brave  Hotel- 
de-Ville  which  dates  from  the  Fourth  Henry,  will,  with  all  that  it 
kolds,  be  in  flames  ' 


CHAPTER  V. 

USHER  MAILLARD. 

In  flames,  truly, — were  it  not  that  Usher  Maillard,  swift  of  foot, 
shifty  of  head,  has  returned  ! 

Maillard,  of  his  own  motion,  for  Gouvion  or  the  rest  would  not 
even  sanction  him, — snatches  a  drum  ;  descends  the  Porch-stairs, 
ran-tan,  beating  sharp,  with  loud  rolls,  his  Rogues'-march  :  To 
Versailles  !  A  lions  j  a  Versailles  I  As  men  beat  on  kettle  or 
warmingpan,  when  angry  she-bees,  or  say,  flying  desperate  wasps, 
are  to  be  hived  ;  and  the  desperate  insects  hear  it,  and  cluster 
round  it, — simply  as  round  a  guidance,  where  there  was  none  :  so 
now  these  Menads  round  shifty  Maillard,  Riding- Usher  of  the 

*  Deuyi  Amis,  iii.  141-166, 

f  Dusaulx,  Frise  de  la  Bastille  (note,  p.  281), 


l84  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  V/OMEN. 


Ch.itelet.  The  axe  pauses  iipMfted  ;  Abbe  Lefevre  is  left  ha^ 
hanged  ;  from  the  belfry  downwards  all  vomits  itself.  What  rub- 
a-dubis  that?  Stanislas  Maillard,  Bastille-hero,  will  lead  us  to 
Versailles?  Joy  to  thee,  Maillard ;  blessed  art  thou  above 
Ridmg- Ushers  !    Away  then,  away  ! 

The  seized  cannon  are  yoked  with  seized  cart-horses  :  brown- 
locked  Demoiselle  Theroigne,  with  pike  and  helmet,  sits  there  as 
gunneress,  '  with  haughty  eye  and  serene  fair  countenance  ; '  com- 
parable, some  thmk,  to  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  or  even  recallino^ 
;  the  idea  of  Pallas  Athene/^  Maillard  (for  his  drum  still  rollsl 
IS,  by  heaven-rending  acclamation,  admitted  General.  Maillard' 
hastens  the  languid  march.  Maillai'd,  beating  rhythmic,  with' 
sharp  ran-tan,  all  along  the  Ouais,  leads  forward,  with  difficulty, 
his  Menadic  host.  Such  a  host— marched  not  in  silence  1  The' 
bargeman  pauses  on  the  River  ;  all  wagoners  and  coachdrivers' 
fly;  men  peer  from  windows,— not  women,  lest  they  be  pressed.' 
Sight  of  sights  :  Bacchantes,  in  these  ultimate  Formalized  Ao-es  i 
Bronze  Henri  looks  on,  fi-om  his  Pont-Neuf;  the  Monarchic 
Louvre,  Medicean  Tuileries  see  a  day  not  theretofore  seen. 

And  now  Maillard  has  his  Menads  in  the  Champs  Ely  sees 
(Fields  Tartarean  rather);  and  the  Hotel-de-ViHe  has  suffered- 
con.paratively  nothing.  Broken  doors  ;  an  Abbe  Lefevre,  who  1 
shall  never  more  distribute  powder  ;  three  sacks  of  monev,  most  i 
part  of  which  (for  Sansculottism,  though  fsfmishing,  is  not  without' 
honour)  shall  be  returned  :t  this  is  all  the  damage.  Great ' 
Maillard  !  A  small  nucleus  of  Order  is  round  his  drum  ;  but  his  ' 
outskirts  fluctuate  like  the  mad  Ocean  :  for  Rascality  male  and  ' 
female  is  flowing  in  on  him,  from  the  four  winds  ;  guidance  there 
is  none  but  in  his  single  head  and  two  drumsticks. 

O  Maillard,  when,  since  War  first  was,  had  General  of  Force 
such  a  task  before  him,  as  thou  this-  day?  Walter  the  Penniless 
still  touches  the  feehng  heart  :  but  then  Walter  had  sanction  ;  had 
space  to  turn  m  ;  and  also  his  Crusaders  were  of  the  male  sex. 
Thou,  this  day,  disowned  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  art  General  of 
Menads  Their  inarticulate  frenzy  thou  must  on  the  spur  of  the  . 
instant,  render  into  articulate  words,  into  actions  that  are  not 
frantic.  Fail  in  it,  this  way  or  that  !  Pragmatical  Officiality, 
with  Its  penalties  and  law-books,  waits  before  thee  ;  Menads  storm 
behind.  If  such  hewed  off  the  melodious  head  of  Orpheus,  and 
hurled  it  into  the  Pcneus  waters,  what  may  they  not  make  of  thee, 
—thee  rhytlimic  merely,  with  no  music  but  a  she-pskin  drum 
Maillard  did  not  fail.  Remarkable  Maillard,  if  fame  were  not  an 
accident,  and  History  a  distillation  of  Rumour,  how  remarkable 
wert  thou  ! 

On  theElysian  Fields,  there  is  pause  and  fluctuation;  but,  for 
Maillard,  no  return.  He  persuacles  his  Menads,  clamorous  for 
arms  and  the  Arsenal,  that  no  arms  are  in  the  Arsenal  ;  that  an 
unarmed  attitude,  and  petition  to  a  National  Assembly,  will  be 
the  best  :  he  hastily  nominates  or  <-\arctions  generalesscs,  captains 
*  Deux  Amis,  iii.  157.  •(■  lUst,  Pari.  iii.  31a 


USHER  MAILLARD,  18$ 


^  tens  and  fifties  and  so,  in  loosest-flowing  order,  to  the  rhythm 
of  some  ^  eight  drums'  (having  laid  aside  his  own),' with  the 
Bastille  Volunteers  bringing  up  his  rear,  once  more  takes  the 
road. 

Chaillot,  which  will  promptly  yield  baked  loaves,  is  not 
plundered  ;  nor  are  the  Sevres  Potteries  broken.  The  old  arches 
3f  Sevres  Bridge  echo  under  Monadic  feet;  Seine  River  gushes 
3n  with  his  perpetual  murmur  ;  and  Paris  flings  after  us  the  boom 
a  tocsin  and  alarm-drum, — inaudible,  for  the  present,  amid  shrill- 
sounding  hosts,  and  the  splash  of  rainy  weather.  To  Meudon, 
;o  Saint  Cloud,  on  both  hands,  the  report  of  them  is  gone  abroad  ; 
md  hearths,  this  evening,  will  have  a  topic.  The  press  of  women 
5till  continues,  for  it  is  the  cause  of  all  Eve's  Daughters,  mothers 
;hat  are,  or  that  hope  to  be.  No  carnage-lady,  were  it  with  never 
such  hysterics,  but  must  dismount,  in  the  mud  roads,  in  her  silk 
shoes,  and  walk.*  In  this  manner,  amid  wild  October  weather, 
;hey  a  wild  unwinged  stork-flight,  through  the  astonished  country, 
vend  their  way.  Travellers  of  all  sorts  they  stop  ;  especially 
Tavellers  or  couriers  from  Paris.  Deputy  Lechapelier,  in  his 
elegant  vesture,  from  his  elegant  vehicle,  looks  forth  amazed 
hrough  his  spectacles  ;  apprehensive  for  life  ; — states  eagerly  that 
le  is  Patriot-Deputy  Lechapelier,  and  even  Old-President  Lecha- 
)elier,  who  presided  on  the  Night  of  Pentecost,  and  is  original 
nember  of  the  Breton  Club.  Thereupon  '  rises  huge  shout  of  Vive 
Lechapelier,  and  several  armed  persons  spring  up  behind  and 
before  to  escort  him.'t 

Nevertheless,  news,  despatches  from  Lafayette,  or  vague  noise 
)f  rumour,  have  pierced  through,  by  side  roads.  In  the  National 
\ssembly,  while  all  is  busy  discussing  the  order  of  the  day ;  re- 
gretting that  there  should  be  Anti-national  Repasts  in  Opera- 
ialis ;  that  his  Majesty  should  still  hesitate  about  accepting  the 
lights  of  Man,  and  hang  conditions  and  peradventures  on  them, — 
Vlirabeau  steps  up  to  the  President,  experienced  Mounier  as  it 
:hanced  to  be  ;  and  articulates,  in  bass  under-tone  :  *^  Mounier, 
^aris  marche  stir  nous  (Paris  is  marching  on  us)." — May  be 
Je  n^en  sais  rien)  V — "Believe  it  or  disbelieve  it,  that  is  not  my 
;oncern ;  but  Paris,  I  say,  is  marching  on  us.  Fall  suddenly 
mwell ;  go  over  to  the  Chateau  ;  tell  them  this.  There  is  not  a 
Qoment  to  lose." Paris  marching  on  us?''  responds  Mounier, 
/ith  an  atrabiliar  accent  :  "  Well,  so  much  the  better  !  We  shall 
he  sooner  be  a  Republic."  Mirabeau  quits  him,  as  one  quits  an 
xperienced  President  getting  blindfold  into  deep  waters  ;  and  the 
,»rder  of  the  day  continues  as  before. 

Yes,  Paris  is  marching  on  us  ;  and  more  than  the  women  of 
^aris !  Scarcely  was  Maillard  gone,  when  M.  de  Gouvion's 
aessage  to  all  the  Districts,  and  such  tocsin  and  drumming  of  the 
^enerale,  began  to  .take  effect.  Armed  National  Guards  from 
jvery  District ;  especially  the  Grenadiers  of  the  Centre,  who  are 
*  Deux  Amisyin.  159. 

f  Ibid.  iii.  177 ;  Dictionnaire  de^  flonimfs  Rfar^uans,  !i,  379 


I85  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


our  old  Gardes  Frangaises.  arrive,  in  quick  sequence,  on  the  Place 
de  Greve.  An  ^  immense  people  ^  is  there  ;  Saint- Antoine,  with 
pike  and  rusty  firelock,  is  all  crowding  thither,  be  it  welcome  or 
unwelcome.  The  Centre  Grenadiers  are  received  with  cheering : 
it  is  not  cheers  that  we  want,'^  answer  they  gloomily  ;  "  the 
Nation  has  been  insulted  ;  to  arms,  and  come  with  us  for 
orders  !"  Ha,  sits  the  wind  so  ?  Patriotism  and  Patrollotism  are 
now  one ! 

The  Three  Hundred  have  assembled  ;  '  all  the  Committees  are. 
*  in  activity  ; '  Lafayette  is  dictating  despatches  for  Versailles, 
when  a  Deputation  of  the  Centre  Grenadiers  introduces  itself  to 
him.  The  Deputation  makes  military  obeisance  ;  and  thus  speaks, 
not  without  a  kind  of  thought  in  it  :  Mon  General,  we  are 
deputed  by  the  Six  Companies  of  Grenadiers.  We  do  not  think 
you  a  traitor,  but  we  think  the  Government  betrays  you  ;  it  is  time 
that  this  end.  We  cannot  turn  our  bayonets  against  women 
crying  to  us  for  bread.  The  people  are  miserable,  the  source  of 
the  mischief  is  at  Versailles  :  we  must  go  seek  the  King,  and  brings 
him  to  Paris.  We  mu>t  exterminate  {exterininer)  the  Regiment  de 
Flandre  and  the  Gardes-du-Corps,  who  have  dared  to  trample  on 
the  National  Cockade.  If  the  .  King  be  too  weak  to  wear  his 
crown,  let  him  lay  it  down.  You  will  crown  his  Son,  you  will 
name  a  Council  of  Regency  ;  and  all  will  go  better.'^^  Reproach- 
ful astonishment  paints  itself  on  the  face  of  Lafayette  ;  speaks 
itself  from  his  eloquent  chivalrous  lips  :  in  vain.  "  My  General, 
we  would  shed  the  last  drop  of  our  blood  for  you  ;  but  the  root  of 
the  mischief  is  at  Versailles  ;  we  must  go  and  bring  the  King  to 
Paris  ;  all  the  people  wish  it,  tout  le  peiiple  le  vent.^^ 

My  General  descends  to  the  outer  staircase  ;  and  harangues  : 
once  more  in  vain.  "  To  Versailles  !  To  Versailles  ! Mayor 
Bailly,  sent  for  through  floodc  of  Sansculottism,  attempts  academic 
oratory  from  his  gilt  state-coach  ;  realizes  nothing  but  infinite 
hoarse  cries  of :  ^'  Bread  !  To  Versailles  !  — and  gladly  shrinks 
within  doors.  Lafayette  mounts  the  vv^hite  charger  ;  and  again 
harangues  and  reharangues  :  with  eloquence,  with  firmness,  indig- 
nant demonstration  ;  with  all  things  but  persuasion.  "  To  Ver- 
sailles !  To  Versailles  ! "  So  lasts  it,  hour  after  hour  ;  for  the 
space  of  half  a  day. 

The  great  Scipio  Amcricanus  can  do  nothing  ;  not  so  much  as 
escape.  Morbleii,  vion  General^'  cry  the  Grenadiers  scrrying 
their  ranks  as  the  white  charger  makes  a  motion  that  way,  "  You 
will  not  leave  us,  you  will  abide  with  us  !  "  A  perilous  juncture  : 
Mayor  Bailly  and  the  Municipals  sit  quaking  within  doors  ;  My 
General  is  prisoner  without  :  the  Place  de  Grcve,  with  its  thirty 
thousand  Regulars,  its  whole  irregular  Saint-Antoine  and  Saint- 
Marceau,  is  one  minatory  mass  of  clear  or  rusty  steel  ;  all  hearts 
set,  with  a  moody  fixedness,  on  one  object.  Moody,  fixed  are  all 
hearts  :  tranquil  i-^  no  heart,— if  it  be  not  that  of  the  white 
charger,  who  paws  there,  with  arched  neck,  composedly  champing 
his  bit  \  as  if  no  world,  with  its  Dynasties  and  Eras,  were  now 
*  Deux  Amis,  iii.  i6i. 


TO  VERSAILLES.  1S7 


Stiahing  down.  The  drizzly  day  tends  westward  ;  the  cry  is  still : 
'^To  Versailles  ! 

Nay  now,  borne  from  afar,  come  quite  sinister  cries  ;  hoarse, 
reverberating  in  longdrawn  hollow  murmurs,  with  syllables  too  like 
those  of  Laiiterne  I  Or  else,  irregular  Sansculottism  may  be 
marching  off,  of  itself  ;  with  pikes,  nay  with  cannon.  The  in- 
flexible Scipio  does  at  length,  by  aide-de-camp,  ask  of  the  Muni- 
cipals :  Whether  or  not  he  may  go  ?  A  Letter  is  handed  out  to 
him,  over  armed  heads  ;  sixty  thousand  faces  flash  fixedly  on  his, 
there  is  stillness  and  no  bosom  breathes,  till  he  have  read.  By 
Heaven,  he  grows  suddenly  pale  !  Do  the  Municipals  permit  1 
*  Permit  and  even  order,' — since  he  can  no  other.  Clangour  of 
approval  rends  the  welkin.    To  your  ranks,  then  ;  let  us  march  ! 

It  is,  as  we  compute,  towards  three  in  the  afternoon.  Indignant 
National  Guards  may  dine  for  once  from  their  haversack  :  dined 
or  undined,  they  march  with  one  heart.  Paris  flings  up  her 
windows,  claps  hands,  as  the  Avengers,  with  their  shrilling  drums 
and  shalms  tramp  by  ;  she  will  then  sit  pensive,  apprehensive,  and 
pass  rather  a  sleepless  night."^  On  the  white  charger,  Lafayette, 
in  the  slowest  possible  manner,  going  and-  coming,  and  eloquently 
haranguing  among  the  ranks,  rolls  onward  with  his  thirty  thousand, 
Saint-Antoine,  with  pike  and  cannon,  has  preceded  him  ;  a  mixed 
multitude,  of  all  and  of  no  arms,  hovers  on  his  flanks  and  skirts ; 
She  country  once  more  pauses  agape  :  Paris  niarche  sur  nous. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TO  VERSAILLES. 

For,  indeed,  about  this  same  moment,  Maillard  has  halted  his 
draggled  Menads  on  the  last  hill-top  ;  and  now  Versailles,  and 
the  Chateau  of  Versailles,  and  far  and  wide  the  inheritance  of 
Royalty  opens  to  the  wondering  eye.    From  far  on  the  right,  over 
Marly  and  Saint- Germains-en-Laye  ;  round  towards  Ramboillet^ 
on  the  left  :  beautiful  all  ;  softly  embosomed  ;  as  if  in  sadness,  in 
the  dim  moist  weather  !    And  near  before  us  is  Versailles,  New 
and  Old  ;  with  that  broad  frondent  Avenue  de  Versailles  between, 
— stately-frondent,  broad,  three  hundred  Yeet   as  men  reckon, 
with  four  Rows  of  Elms  ;  and  then  the  Chateau  de  Versailles^ 
j  ending  in  royal  Parks  and  Pleasances,  gleaming  lakelets,  arbours, 
\  Labyrinths,  the  Menagerie,  and  Great  and  Little  Trianon.  High- 
;  towered  dwellings,  leafy  pleasant  places  ;  where  the  gods  of  this 
I  lower  world  abide  :  whence,  nevertheless,  black  Care  cannot  be 
excluded  ;  wh:±er  Menadic  Hunger  is  even  now  advancing,  armed 
with  pike-thyrsi ! 

Deux  Amis,  iii.  165. 


188  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


Yes,  yonder,  Mesdames,  where  our  straight  frondent  Avenue^ 
joined,  as  you  note,  by  Two  frordent  brother  Avenues  from  this 
hand  and  from  that,  spreads  out  into  Place  Royale  and  Palace 
Forecourt ;  yonder  is  the  Salle  des  Menus.  ¥onder  an  august 
Assembly  sits  regenerating  France.  Forecourt,  Grand  Court, 
Court  of  Marble,  Court  narrowing  into  Court  you  may  discern 
next,  or  fancy  i  on  the  extreme  verge  of  which  that  glass-dome, 
visibly  glittering  hke  a  star  of  hope,  is  the— CEil-de-Boeuf ! 
Yonder,  or  nowhere  in  the  world,  is  bread  baked  for  us.  But,  O 
Mesdames,  were  not  or/?  thing  good  :  That  our  cannons,  with 
Demoiselle  Theroigne  and  all  show  of  war,  be  put  to  the  rear  ? 
Submission  beseems  petitioners  of  a  National  Assembly  \  we  are 
strrngers  in  Versailles^—wheiice.  too  audibly,  theio  come::  even 
now  sound  as  of  tocsin  and  gc?/^':rale  /  Also  to  put  on,  TDcssible, 
a  cheerfrl  countenance,  hiding  our  ciorrowr^  nri  even  Co  sing? 
Sorrow,  pitied  of  the  Heavens,  is  hateful,  sucpi  -ior/v  to  the  Earth. 
—So  counsels  shifty  Maillard  •  haranguing  his  Menads,  on  the 
heights  near  Versailles.*' 

Cunning  Maillard's  dispositions  are  obeyed.  The  draggled 
Insurrectionists  advance  up  the  Avenue,  '\n  three  columns," 
among  the  four  Elm-rows  ;  '  singing  Henri  Quatre^  wit' i  what 
melody  they  can  ;  and  shouting  Vive  le  Roi,  Versailles,  though 
the  Elm-rows  are  dripping  wet,  crowds  from  both  sides,  with  : 
"  Vivcjzi;  7Z0S  Parzsiennes,  Our  Paris  ones  for  ever  ! 

Prickers,  scouts  have  been  out  towards  Paris,  r/:  the  rumour 
deepened  :  whereby  his  Majesty,  gone  to  shoot  in  the  Woods  of 
Meudon,  has  been  happily  discovered,  and  got  home  ;  and  the 
gdnerale  and  tocsin  set  a-sounding.  The  Bodyguards  are  already 
drawn  up  in  front  of  the  Palace  Grates  ;  and  loo!:  dov  n  the 
Avenuo  de  Versailles  ;  sulky,  in  wet  buckskins.  Flandre  too  is 
there,  repentant  of  the  Opera-Repast.  Also  Dragoons  dismounted 
are  there.  Finally  Major  Lecointre,  and  what  he  can  gather  of 
the  Versailles  National  Guard  ;  though,  it 's  to  bo  observed,  our 
Colonel,  that  c-mc  sleepless  Count  d'Estaing,  givLn^j  neither  order 
nor  ammunition,  has  vanished  most  improperly  ;  one  supposes, 
'  ito  the  CEil-de-Bceuf.  Red-coated  Swiss  stand  within  the  Grates, 
under  arms.  There  likewise,  in  their  inner  room,  *  all  the 
'Ministers,'  Saint-Priest,  Lamentation  Pompignan  and  the  rest, 
arc  assembled  with  M.  Neck:r  :  they  sit  witii  him  there  ;  blank, 
expecting  what  the  hour  will  bring. 

P -esident  Mounier,  though  he  answered  Mirabeau  with  a  tant 
mi^ux^  and  affected  to  :  •'ght  the  matter,  had  his  own  forebodings. 
Surely,  for  these  four  weary  hours,  he  has  reclined  not  on  roses  ! 
The  order  of  the  day  is  getting  forward  :  a  Deputation  to  his 
Majesty  seems  proper,  that  it  might  please  him  to  grant  'Accept- 
*ancc  pure  and  simple'  to  those  Constitution-Articles  of  ours; 
the  '  mixed  qualified  Acceptance,'  with  its  peradventures,  is  satis- 
factory to  neither  gods  nor  men. 

So  much  is  clear.  And  yet  there  is  more,  which  no  man  speakS| 
*  'S'ZQ  IJist.  Pari.  iii.  70-117;  Deux  Amis,  iii.  166-177,  &c. 


i89 


which  all  men  now  vaguely  understand.  Disquietude,  absence  of 
mind  is  on  every  face  ;  Membesrs  whisper,  uneasily  come  and  go  : 
the  order  of  the  day  is  evidently  not  the  day's  want.  Till  at 
length,  from  the  outer  gates,  is  heard  a  rustling  and  justling,  shrill 
uproar  and  squabbling,  muffled  by  walls  ;  which  testifies  that  the 
hour  is  come  !  Rushing  and  crushing  one  hears  now  ;  then  enter 
Usher  Maillard,  with  a  Deputation  of  Fifteen  muddy  dripping 
Women, — having  by  incredible  industry,  and  aid  of  all  the  macers, 
persuaded  the  rest  to  wait  out  of  doors.  National  Assembly  shall 
now,  therefore,  look  its  august  task  directly  in  the  face  :  regenera- 
tive Constitutionalism  has  an  unregenerate  Sansculottism  bodily 
in  front  of  it ;  crying,  "  Bread  !  Bread  !  " 

Shifty  Maillard,  translating  frenzy  into  articulation  ;  repressive 
with  the  one  hand,  expostulative  with  the  other,  does  his  best  ; 
,  and  really,  though  not  bred  to  public  speaking,  manages  rather 
well  :— In  the  present  dreadful  rarity  of  grains,  a  Deputation  of 
Female  Citizens  has,  as  the  august  Assembly  can  discern,  come 
out  from  Paris  to  petition.  Pl^jts  of  Aristocrats  are  too  evident  in 
the  matter  ;  for  example,  one  miller  has  been  bribed  '  by  a  bank- 
^  note  of  200  livres '  not  to  grind, — name  unknown  to  the  Usher,  but 
fact  provable,  at  least  indubitable.  Further,  it  seems,  the  National 
Cockade  has  been  trampled  on  ;  also  there  are  Black  Cockades, 
or  were.  All  which  things  will  not  an  august  National  Assembly, 
the  hope  of  France,  take  into  its  wise  immediate  consideration  ? 

And  Menadic  Hunger,  impressible,  crying  "  Black  Cockades," 
crying  "  Bread,  Bread,"  adds,  after  such  fashion  :  Will  it  not  ? — 
Yes,  Messieurs,  if  a  Deputation  to  his  Majesty,  for  the  '  Acceptance 
'  pure  and  simple,'  seemed  proper, — how  much  more  now,  for  ^  the 
*  afflicting  situation  of  Paris;'  for  the  calming  of  this  efferves- 
cence !  President  Mounier,  with  a  speedy  Deputation,  among 
whom  we  notice  the  respectable  figure  of  Doctor  Guillotin,  gets 
himself  forthwith  on  march.  Vice-President  shall  continue  the 
order  of  the  day  ;  Usher  Maillard  shall  stay  by  him  to  repress  the 
women.  It  is  four  o'clock,  of  the  miserablest  afternoon,  when 
Mounier  steps  out. 

O  experienced  Mounier,  what  an  afternoon  ;  the  last  of  thy 
political  existence  !  Better  had  it  been  to  '  fall  suddenly  unwell,' 
while  it  was  yet  time.  For,  behold,  the  Esplanade,  over  all  its 
spacious  expanse,  is  covered  with  groups  of  squalid  dripping 
Women  ;  of  lankhaired  male  Rascality,  armed  with  axes,  rusty 
pikes,  old  muskets,  ironshod  clubs  (batons  ferres,  which  end  in 
knives  or  sword-blades,  a  kind  of  extempore  billhook)  ; — looking 
nothing  but  hungry  revolt.  The  rain  pours  :  Gardes-du-Corps  go 
caracoling  through  the  groups  '  amid  hisses  ; '  irritating  and  agita- 
ting what  is  but  dispersed  here  to  reunite  there. 

Innumerable  squalid  women  beleaguer  the  President  and  Depu^ 
tation  ;  insist  on  going  with  him  :  has  not  his  Majesty  himself, 
looking  from  the  window,  sent  out  to  ask,  What  we  wanted.? 
*' Bread  and  speech  with  th^  King  {Dii  paz7t,  ct  parler  au  Roi)^ 
that  was  the  answer.  Twelve  women  are  clamorously  added  to 
the  Deputation  ;  and  march  with   it,  across  the   Esplanade ; 


bgrafJ.''''''^'''^'*  ^^'^^^^""g  Bodyguards,  and  the  pour. 

rr,!vin^f!?^"*  Mounier,  unexpectedly  augmented  by  Twelve  Women, 
copiously  escorted  by  Hunger  and  Rascality,  is  himself  mistaken 
for  a  group  :  himself  and  his  Women  are  dispersed  by  caracolers 
rally  again  with  d^culty,  among  the  mud.*  Finally  the  Grate« 
are  opened  :  the  Deputation  gets  access,  with  the  Twelve  Women 
It ;  of  which  latter.  Five  shall  even  see  the  face  of  his 


too  in 


tSrSurn  ^enadism,  m  the  best  spirits  it  can  expect 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AT  VERSAILLES. 

But  already  Pallas  Athene  (in  the  shape  of  Demoiselle  The^ 
roigne)  is  busy  with  Flandre  and  the  dismounted  Dragoons  She 
and  such  women  as  are  fittest,  go  through  the  ranks  ;  speak  with 
an  earnest  jocosity  ;  clasp  rough  troopers  to  their  patriot  bosom 
crush  down  spontoons  and  musketoons  with  soft  arms  •  can  a 
man,  that  were  worthy  of  the  name  of  man,  attack  famishing 
patriot  women  ?  ^ 

One  reads  that  Theroigne  had  bags  of  money,  which  she  disv 
tributed  over  Flandre  :— furnished  by  whom?  Alas,  with  money, 
bags  one  seldom  sits  on  insurrectionary  cannon.  Calumnious  RoyaK 
ism  !  Theroigne  had  only  the  limited  earnings  of  her  profession 
of  unfortunate-female  ;  money  she  had  not,  but  brown  locks,  the 
tigure  of  a  Heathen  Goddess,  and  an  eloquent  tongue  and  heart. 

Meanwhile,  Saint-Antoine,  in  groups  and  troops,  is  continually 
arriving;  wetted,  sulky;  with  pikes  and  impromptu  billhooks- 
driven  thus  far  by  popular  fixed-idea.  So  many  hirsute  fi^rures 
driven  hither,  in  that  manner  :  figures  that  have  come  to  do  they 
know  not  what ;  figures  that  have  come  to  see  it  done  '  Distin- 
guished among  all  figures,  who  is  this,  of  gaunt  stature,  with 
eaden  breastplate,  though  a  small  one  ;t  bushy  in  red  grizzled 
locks  ;  nay  with  long  tile-beard  ?  It  is  Jourdan,  unjust  dealer  in 
mules  ;  a  dealer  no  longer,  but  a  Painter's  Layfi^ure,  playino 
truant  this  day.  From  the  necessities  of  Art  comes^his  long  tile*^ 
beard  ;  whence  his  leaden  breastplate  (unless  indeed  he  were 
some  Hawker  licensed  by  leaden  badge)  may  have  couie  — will 
perhaps  remain  for  ever  a  Historical  Problem.  Another  Saul 
among  the  people  we  discern  :  '  J'erc  Adam,  Father  Adam'  as 
the  groups  name  him  ;  to  us  better  known  as  bull-voiced 
Marquis  Saint-Huriige  ;  hero  of  the  V^'/c? ;  a  man  that  has  had 

*  Mounier,  ExJ>as^  J usf //ica f // [cMcd  in  Deux  Amis,  iii.  185). 
.  +  See  Weber,  ii.  185-231. 


AT  VERSAILLES. 


191 


losses,  and  deserved  them.  The  tall  Marquis,  emitted  some  days 
ago  from  limbo,  looks  peripatetically  on  this  scene,  from  under 
his  umbrella,  not  without  interest.  All  which  persons  and  things, 
hurled  together  as  we  see  ;  Pallas  Athene,  busy  with  Flandre  ; 
patriotic  Versailles  National  Guards,  short  of  ammunition,  and 
deserted  by  d'Estaing  their  Colonel,  and  commanded  by  Lecointre 
their  Major  ;  then  caracoling  Bodyguards,  sour,  dispirited,  with 
their  buckskins  wet ;  and  finally  this  flowing  sea  of  indignant 
Squalor, — may  they  not  give  rise  to  occurrences  ? 

Behold,  however,  the  Twelve  She-deputies  return  from  the 
Chateau.  Without  President  Mounier,  indeed  ;  but  radiant  with 
joy,  shouting  '''Life  to  the  King  and  his  House  P  Apparently  the 
news  are  good,  Mesdames  ?  News  of  the  best  !  Five  of  us  wer^ 
admitted  to  the  internal  splendours,  to  the  Royal  Presence.  This 
slim  damsel,  '  Louison  Chabray,  worker  in  sculpture,  aged  only 

*  seventeen,'  as  being  of  the  best  looks  and  address,  her  we  ap- 
pointed speaker.  On  whom,  and  indeed  on  all  of  us,  his  Majesty 
looked  nothing  but  graciousness.  Nay,  when  Louison,  addressing 
him,  was  like  to  faint,  he  took  her  in  his  royal  arms ;  and  said 
gallantly,  "It  was  well  worth  while  {Elle  en  valut  Men  la  peine)  P 
Consider,  O  women,  what  a  King  1  His  words  were  of  comfort, 
and  that  only  :  there  shall  be  provision  sent  to  Paris,  if  provision 
is  in  the  world  ;  grains  shall  circulate  free  as  air  ;  millers  shall 
grind,  or  do  worse,  while  their  millstones  endure  ;  and  nothing 
be  left  wrong  which  a  Restorer  of  French  Liberty  can  right. 

Good  news  these ;  but,  to  wet  Menads,  all  too  incredible !  There 
seems  no  proof,  then  ?  Words  of  comfort  are  words  only  ;  which 
will  feed  nothing.  O  miserable  people,  betrayed  by  Aristocrats, 
who  corrupt  thy  very  messengers  !  In  his  royal  arms.  Made- 
moiselle Louisoa  ?  In.  his  arms  ?  Thou  shameless  minx,  worthy 
of  a  name — that  shall  be  nameless  1  Yes,  thy  skin  is  soft  :  ours 
is  rough  with  hardship  ;  and  well  wetted,  waiting  here  in  the  rain. 
No  children  hast  thou  hungry  at  home  ;  only  alabaster  dolls,  that 
weep  not !  The  traitress  1  To  the  Lanterne  ! — And  so  poor 
Louison  Chabray,  no  asseveration  or  shrieks  availing  her,  fair  slim 
damsel,  late  in  the  arms  of  Royalty,  has  a  garter  round  her  neck, 
and  furibund  Amazons  at  each  end  ;  is  about  to  perish  so, — when 
two  Bodyguards  gallop  up,  indignantly  dissipating  ;  and  rescue 
her.  The  miscredited  Twelve  hasten  back  to  the  Chateau,  for  an 
'  answer  in  writing.' 

Nay,  behold,  a  new  flight  of  Menads,  with  '  M.  Brunout  Bastille 

*  Volunteer,'  as  impressed-commandant,  at  the  head  of  it.  These 
also  will  advance  to  the  Grate  of  the  Grand  Court,  and  see  what 
is  toward.  Human  patience,  in  wet  buckskins,  has  its  limits. 
Bodyguard  Lieutenant,  M.  de  Savonnieres,  for  one  moment,  lets 
his  temper,  long  provoked,  long  pent,  give  way.  He  not  only  dis- 
sipates these  latter  Menads  ;  but  caracoles  and  cuts,  or  indig- 
nantly flourishes,  at  M.  Brunout,  the  impressed-commandant;  and, 
finding  great  relief  in  it,  even  chases  him  ;  Brunout  flying  nimbh^, 
though  in  a  pirouette  manner,  and  now  with  sword  also  drawn. 


192  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


At  which  sight  of  wrath  and  victory  two  other  Bodyguards  (for 
wrath  is  contagious,  and  to  pent  Bodyguards  is  so  solacing)  do 
likewise  give  way ;  give  chase,  with  brandished  sabre,  and  in  the 
air  make  horrid  circles.  So  that  poor  Brunout  has  nothing  for  it 
but  to  retreat  with  accelerated  nimbleness,  through  rank  after 
rank ;  Parthian-like,  fencing  as  he  flies  ;  above  all,  shouting 
lustily,  "  Oil  nous  laisse  assassmer,  They  are  getting'  us  assassi- 
nated V 

Shameful  !  Three  against  one  !  Growls  come  from  the  Le- 
cointrian  ranks;  bellowings, — lastly  shots.  Savonnieres'  arm  is 
raised  to  strike:  the  bullet  of  a  Lecointrian  musket  shatters  it; 
the  brandished  sabre  jingles  down  harmless.  Brunout  has  escaped, 
this  duel  well  ended :  but  the  wild  howl  of  war  is  everywhere 
beginning  to  pipe  ! 

The  Amazons  recoil;  Saint-Antoine  has  its  cannon  pointed 
ffuU  of  grapeshot)  ;  thrice  applies  the  lit  flambeau  ;  which  thrice 
refuses  to  catch, — the  touchholes  are  so  wetted  ;  and  voices  cry : 
Arrdtes,  zl  est  pas  temps  encore^  Stop,  it  is  not  yet  time!'^"* 
Messieurs  of  the  Garde-clu-Corps,  ye  had  orders  not  to  fire ; 
nevertheless  two  of  you  limp  dismounted,  and  one  war-horse  lies 
slain.  Were  it  not  well  to  draw  back  out  of  shot-range  ;  finally 
to  file  off, — into  the  interior  1  If  in  so  filing  off,  there  did  a  mus^ 
ketoon  or  two  discharge  itself,  at  these  armed  shopkeepers,  hoot- 
ing and  crowing,  could  man  wonder  t  Draggled  are  your  white 
cockades  of  an  enormous  size  ;  would  to  Heaven  they  were  got 
exchanged  for  tricolor  ones  !  Your  buckskins  are  wet,  your  hearts 
heavy.    Go,  and  return  not  ! 

The  Bodyguards  file  off,  as  v/e  hint;  giving  and  receiving  shots; 
drawing  no  life-blood ;  leaving  boundless  indignation.  Some 
three  times  in  the  thickening  dusk,  a  glimpse  of  them  is  seen,  at 
this  or  the  other  Portal  :  saluted  always  with  execrations,  with  the 
whew  of  lead.  Let  but  a  Bodyguard  shew  face,  he  is  hunted  by 
Rascality  ; — for  instance,  poor  '  M.  de  Moucheton  of  the  Scotch 
'  Company,'  owner  of  the  slain  war-horse  ;  and  has  to  be  smuggled 
off  by  Versailles  Captains.  Or  rusty  firelocks  belch  after  him, 
shiv^ering  asunder  his — hat.  In  the  end,  by  superior  Order,  the 
Bodyguards,  all  but  the  few  on  immediate  duty,  disappear  ;  or  as 
it  were  abscond;  and  march,  under  cloud  of  night,  to  Ram- 
bouillet.f 

We  remark  also  that  the  Versaillese  have  now  got  ammunition  : 
all  afternoon,  the  official  Person  could  find  none ;  till,  in  these  so 
critical  moments,  a  patriotic  Sublieutenant  set  a  pistol  to  his  ear, 
and  would  thank  him  to  find  some, — which  he  thereupon  succeeded 
in  doing.  Likewise  that  Fkmdre,  disonned  by  Pallas  Athene, 
says  openly,  it  will  not  fight  with  citizens ;  and  for  token  of  peace, 
has  exchanged  cartridges  with  the  VersaiUcse. 

Sansrulottism  is  now  among  mere  friends;  and  can  '  circulate 
*  freely  ; '  indignant  at  Bodyguards  ; — complaining  also  considerat  ely 
of  hunger. 

*  Deux  AmiSf  iii.  192-201.  f  WQhQX,  ubi  st(f>rdj. 


THE  EQUAL  DIET, 


CHAPTER  Vlir. 

THE  EQUAL  DIET. 

But  why  lingers  Mounier  ;  returns  not  with  his  Deputation? 
It  is  six,  it  is  seven  o'clock  ;  and  still  no  Mounier,  no  Acceptance 
pure  and  simple. 

And,  behold,  the  dripping  Menads,  not  now  in  deputation  but 
in  mass,  have  penetrated  into  the  Assembly  :  to  the  shamefullest 
interruption  of  public  speaking  and  order  of  the  day.  Neither 
Maillard  nor  Vice-President  can  restrain  them,  except  within 
wide  limits  ;  not  even,  except  for  minutes,  can  the  hon-voice  of 
Mirabeau,  though  they  applaud  it :  but  ever  and  anon  they  break 
in  upon  the  regeneration  of  France  with  cries  of :  "  Bread  ;  not 
so  much  discoursing  !  Du  pamy  pas  -tant  de  longs  discours 
— So  insensible  were  these  poor  creatures  to  bursts  of  Parhamen- 
tary  eloquence  ! 

One  learns  also  that  the  royal  Carnages  are  getting  yoked,  as 
ifforMetz.  Carriages,  royal  or  not,  have  verily  showed  them- 
selves at  the  back  Gates.  They  even  produced,  or  quoted,  a 
written  order  from  our  Versailles  Municipality,— which  is  a  Mon- 
archic not  a  Democratic  one.  However,  Versailles  Patroles 
drove  them  in  again  ;  as  the  vigilant  Lecointre  had  strictly  charged 
them  to  do. 

A  busy  man,  truly,  is  Major  Lecointre,  in  these  hours.  For 
Colonel  d'Estaing  loiters  invisible  in  the  (Eil-de-Roeuf ;  invisible, 
or  still  more  questionably  visible,  for  instants  :  then  also  a  toe 
loyal  Municipality  requires  supervision  :  no  order,  civil  or  militarv, 
taken  about  any  of  these  thousand  things  !  Lecointre  is  at  the 
Versailles  Townhall :  he  is  at  the  Grate  of  the  Grand  Court  ;  com- 
muning with  Swiss  and  Bodyguards.  He  is  in  the  ranks  o- 
Flandre  ;  he  is  here,  he  is  there  :  studious  to  prevent  bloodshed  ; 
to  prevent  the  Royal  Family  from  flying  to  Metz  ;  the  Menads 
from  plundering  Versailles. 

At  the  fall  of  night,  we  behold  him  advance  to  those  armed 
groups  of  Saint-Antoine,  hovering  all-too  grim  near  the  Salle  des 
Menus.  They  receive  him  in  a  half-circle  ;  twelve  speakers  behind 
cannons,  with  lighted  torches  in  hand,  the  cannon-mouths  towards 
Lecointre  :  a  picture  for  Salvator  !  He  asks,  in  temperate  but 
courageous  language  :  What  they,  by  this  their  journey  to  Ver- 
sailles, do  specially  want  ?  The  twelve  speakers  reply,  in  few  words 
inclusive  of  much  :  Bread,  and  the  end  of  these  brabbles,  Du 
pain,  et  la  fin  des  affairesT  When  the  affairs  will  end.  no  Major 
Lecointre,  nor  no  mortal,  can  say  ;  but  as  to  bread,  he  inquires, 
How  many  are  you  ?~ learns  that  they  are  six  hundred,  that  a  loai 
each  will  suffice  ;  and  rideii  off  to  the  Municipality  to  get  six  hup^ 
(ired  loaves. 


194 


THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN, 


Which  loaves,  however,  a  MunicipaHty  of  Monarchic  temper 
will  not  give.  It  will  give  two  tons  of  rice  rather,— could  you  but 
know  whether  it  should  be  boiled  or  raw.  Nay  when  this  too  is 
accepted,  the  Municipals  have  disappeared  ; — ducked  under,  as 
the  Six-and-Twenty  Long-gowned  of  Paris  did  ;  and,  leaving  not 
the  smallest  vestage  of  rice,  in  the  boiled  or  raw  state,  they  there 
vanish  from  History  ! 

Rice  comes  not  ;  one's  hope  of  food  is  baulked  ;  even  one's  hope 
of  vengeance  :  is  not  M.  de  Moucheton  of  the  Scotch  Company, 
as  we  said,  deceitfully  smuggled  off.?  Faihng  all  which,  behold 
only  M.  de  Moucheton's  slaui  warhorse,  lying  on  the  Esplanade 
there  !  Saint-Antoine,  baulked,  esurient,  pounces  on  the  slain 
warhorse  ;  flays  it ;  roasts  it,  with  such  fuel,  of  paling,  gates,  por- 
table timber  as  can  be  come  at,— not  without  shouting  :  and^  after 
the  manner  of  ancient  Greek  Heroes,  they  lifted  their  hands  to  the 
daintily  readied  repast;  such  as  it  might  be.'^  Other  Rascality 
prowls  discursive  ;  seeking  what  it  may  devour.  Flandre  will 
retire  to  its  barracks  ;  Lecointre  also  with  his  Versaillese,— all  but; 
the  vigilant  Patrols,  charged  to  be  doubly  vigilant. 

So  sink  the  shadows  of  Night,  blustering,  rainy  ;  and  all  pathiv 
grow  dark.  Strangest  Night  ever  seen  in  these  regions, — perhapij'. 
since  the  Bartholomew  Night,  when  Versailles,  as  Bassompiern** 
writes  of  it,  was  a  chetif  chdteaii.  O  for  the  Lyre  of  some  Orpheus, 
to  constrain,  with  touch  of  melodious  strings,  these  mad  masses  intii 
Order  !  For  here  all  seems  fallen  asunder,  in  wide-yawning  dislo» 
cation.  The  highest,  as  in  down-rushing  of  a  World,  is  come  in 
contact  with  the- lowest  :  the  Rascality  of  France  beleaguering  the 
Royalty  of  France;  '  ironshod  batons 'lifted  round  the  diadem, 
not  to  guard  it !  With  denunciations  of  bloodthirsty  Anti-national 
Bodyguards,  are  heard  dark  growlings  against  a  Queenly  Name. 

The  Court  sits  tremulous,  powerless  ;  varies  with  the  varying 
temper  of  the  Esplanade,  with  the  varying  colour  of  the  rumours 
from  Paris.  Thick-coming  rumours  ;  now  of  peace,  now  of  war. 
Necker  and  all  the  Ministers  consult  ;  with  a  blank  issue.  The 
Oul-de-Bceuf  is  one  tempest  of  whispers  : — We  will  fly  to  Metz  ; 
we  will  not  fly.  The  royal  Carriages  again  attempt  egress  ; — 
though  for  trial  merely  ;  they  are  again  driven  in  by  Lecointre's 
Patrols.  In  six  hours,  nothing  has  been  resolved  on  ;  not  even 
the  Acceptance  pure  and  simple. 

In  six  hours  .?  Alas,  he  who,  in  such  circumstances,  cannot  re- 
solve in  six  minutes,  may  give  up  the  enterprise  :  him  f^ate  has 
already  resolved  for.  And  Menadism,  meanwhile,  and  Sansculot- 
tism  takes  counsel  with  the  National  Assembly  ;  grows  more  and 
more  tumultuous  there.  Mounier  returns  not  ;  Authority  nowhenj 
shews  itself :  the  Authority  of  France  lies,  for  the  present,  with 
Lecointre  and  Usher  Maillard. — This  then  is  the  abomination  of 
desolation  ;  come  suddenly,  though  long  foreshadowed  as  inevit- 
able !  For,  to  the  blind,  all  things  are  sudden.  Misery  which, 
through  long  ages,  had  no  spokesman,  no  helper,  will  now  be  its 
*  Weber;  Ueux  Amis,  &c. 


THE  EQUAL  DIET. 


195 


own  helper  and  speak  for  itself.  The  dialect,  one  of  the  rudestj  is, 
what  it  could  be,  this.- 

At  eight  o'clock  there  returns  to  our  Assembly  not  the  Deputation  ; 
but  Doctor  Guillotin  announcing  that  it  will  return;  also  that  there 
is  hope  of  the  Acceptance  pure  and  simple.  He  himself  has 
brought  a  Koyal  Letter,  authorising  and  commanding  the  freest 
*  circulation  of  grains.'  Which  Royal  Letter  Menadism  with  its 
whole  heart  applauds.  Conformably  to  which  the  Assembly  forth- 
with passes  a  Decree ;  also  received  with  rapturous  Monadic 
plaudits  :— Only  could  not  an  august  Assembly  contrive  further  to 
"-fix  the  price  of  bread  at  eight  sous  the  half-quartern  ;  butchers'- 
nieat  at  six  sous  the  pound  ; "  which  seem  fair  rates  }  Such  motion 
do  '  a  multitude  of  men  and  women,'  irrepressible  by  Usher  Mail- 
lard,  now  make  ;  does  an  august  Assembly  hear  made.  Usher 
Maillard  himself  is  not  always  perfectly  measured  in  speech  ;  but 
if  rebuked,  he  can  justly  excuse  himself  by  the  pecuharity  of  the 
circumstances.* 

But  finally,  this  Decree  well  passed,  and  the  disorder,  continuing ; 
and  Members  melting  away,  and  no  President  Mounier  returning, 
—what  can  the  Vice-President  do  but  also  melt  away.?  The 
Assembly  melts,  under  such  pressure,  into  dehquium  ;  or,  as  it  is 
offieially  called,  adjourns.  Maillard  is  despatched  to  Paris,  with 
the  '  Decree  concerning  Grains '  in  his  pocket  ;  he  and  some 
women,  in  carriages  belonging  to  the  King.  Thitherward  slim 
Louison  Chabray  has  already  set  forth,  with  diat  'written  answer,' 
which  the  Twelve  She-deputies  returned  in  to  seek.  Slim  sylph, 
she  has  set  forth,  through  the  blacl:  muddy  country  :  she  has  much 
to  tell,  her  poor  nerves  so  flurried  ;  and  travels,  as  indeed  to-day 
on  this  road  all  persons  do,  with  extreme  slowness.  President 
MCunier  has  not  come,  nor  the  Acceptance  pure  and  simple  ;  though 
six  hours  with  their  events  have  come  ;  though  courier  on  courier 
reports  that  Lafayette  is  coming.  Coming,  with  war  or  with  peace.? 
It  is  time  that  the  Chateau  also  should  determine  on  one  thing  or 
;  another  ;  that  the  Chateau^lso  should  show  itself  ahve,  if  it  would 
continue  living  ! 

Victorious,  joyful  after  such  delay,  Mounier  does  arri\'e  at  last, 
^and  the  hard-earned  Acceptance  with  him  ;  which  now,  alas,  is  of 
.small  value.  Fancy  Mounier's  surprise  to  find  his  Senate,  whom 
;lie  hoped  to  charm  by  the  Acceptance  pure  and  smiple,— all  gone; 
and  in  its  stead  a  Senate  of  Menads  !  For  as  p:rasmus's  Ape 
mimicked,  say  with  wooden  splint,  Erasmus  shaving,  so  do  these 
A^mazons  hold,  in  mock  majesty,  some  confused  parody  of  National 
Assembly.  They  make  motions  ;  deliver  speeches  ;  pass  enact- 
raients;  productive  at  least  of  loud  laughter.  All  galleries  and 
Denchesare  filled  ;  a  strong  Dame  of  the  Market  is  in  Mounier's 
whair.  Not  without  difficulty,  Mounier,  by  aid  of  macers,  and  per- 
jmasive  speaking,  makes  his  way  to  the  Female-President  :  the 
ptrong  Dame  before  abdicating  signifies  that,  for  one  thing,  she 
Und  mdeed  her  whole  senate  male  and  female  (for  what  was  one 
*  Aioniteiir  {in  Hist.  Pari.  ii.  105). 


196  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN 


roasted  warhorse  among  so  many  ?)  are  suffering  very  considerably 
from  hunger. 

Experienced  Mounier,  in  these  circumstances,  takes  a  twofold 
resolution  :  To  reconvoke  his  Assembly  Members  by  sound  oi 
drum  ;  also  to  procure  a  supply  of  food.  Swift  messengers  fly,  to 
all  bakers,  cooks,  pastrycooks,  vintners,  restorers  ;  drums  beat, 
accompanied  with  shrill  vocal  proclamation,  through  all  streets. 
They  come  :  the  Assembly  Members  come  ;  what  is  still  better, 
the  provisions  come.  On  tray  and  barrow  come  these  latter ; 
loaves,  wine,  great  store  of  sausages.  The  nourishing  baskets  cir- 
culate harmoniously  along  the  benches ;  ;/(5>r,  according  to  the  Father 
of  Epics,  did  any  soul  lack  a  fair  share  of  victual  {dairos  ita-ris,  an 
equal  diet)  ;  highly  desirable,  at  the  moment.^ 

Gradually  some  hundred  or  so  of  Assembly  members  get  edged 
in,  Menadism  making  way  a  little,  round  Mounier's  Chair  ;  listen; 
to  the  Acceptance  pure  and  simple  ;  and  begin,  what  is  the  order 
of  the  night,  '  discussion  of  the  Penal  Code.^  All  benches  are 
crowded  ;  in  the  dusky  galleries,  duskier  with  unwashed  heads,  is 
a  strange  ^  coruscation,' — of  impromptu  billhooks.t  It  is  exactly 
five  months  this  day  since  these  same  galleries  were  filled  with 
high-plumed  jewelled  Beauty,  raining  bright  influences  :  and  now?. 
To  such  length  have  we  got  in  regenerating  France.  Methinks, 
the  travail-throes  are  of  the  sharpest  !  —  Menadism  will  not  be  r&«; 
strained  from  occasional  remarks  ;  asks,  "  What  is  use  of  the  Penal 
Code  ?  The  thing  we  want  is  Bread."  Mirabeau  turns  round  with; 
lion-voiced  rebuke  ;  Menadism  applauds  him  ;  but  recommences. 

Thus  they,  chewing  tough  sausages,  discussing  the  Penal  Code, 
make  night  hideous.  What  the  issue  will  be?  Lafayette  with  his 
thirty  thousand  must  arrive  first  :  him,  who  cannot  now  be  distant, 
all  men  expect,  as  the  messenger  of  Destiny. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

LAFAYETTE. 

Towards  midnight  lights  flare  on  the  hill ;  Lafayette's  lights ! 
The  roll  of  his  drums  comes  up  the  Avenue  de  Versailles.  With 
peace,  or  with  war  ?  Patience,  friends  !  With  neither.  Lafayette 
is  come,  but  not  yet  the  catastrophe. 

He  has  halted  and  harangued  so  often,  on  the  march  ;  spent 
nine  hours  on  four  leagues  of  road.  At  Montreuil,  close  on  Ver* 
sailles,  the  whole  Host  had  to  pause  ;  and,  with  uplifted  right 
hand,  in  the  murk  of  Night,  to  these  pouring  skies,  swear  solemnly 
to  respect  the  King's  Dwelling  ;  to  be  faithful  to  King  and  National 
*  Deux  Amis,  iii.  208. 

t  Courier  de  Provence  (Minibeau's  Ncwspiiper),  No.  50,  p.  19. 


LAFAYETTE. 


197 


Assembly.  Rage  is  driven  down  out  of  sight,  by  the  laggard 
march  ;  the  thirst  of  vengeance  slaked  in  weariness  and  soaking 
clothes.  Flandre  is  again  drawn  out  under  arms  :  but  Flandre, 
grown  so  patriotic,  now  needs  no  '  exterminating.'  The  wayworn 
Batallions  halt  in  the  Avenue  :  they  have,  for  the  present,  no  wish 
50  pressing  as  that  of  shelter  and  rest. 

Anxious  sits  President  Mounier  ;  anxious  the  Chateau.  There  is 
a  message  coming  from  the  Chateau,  that  M.  Mounier  would  please 
return  thither  with  a  fresh  Deputation,  swiftly  ;  and  so  at  least 
unite  our  two  anxieties.  Anxious  Mounier  does  of  himself  send^ 
meanwhile,  to  apprise  the  General  that  his  Majesty  has  been  so 
Gracious  as  to  grant  us  the  Acceptance  pure  and  simple.  The 
General,  with  a  small  advance  column,  makes  answer  in  passing ; 
speaks  vaguely  some  smooth  words  to  the  National  President, — 
glances,  only  with  the  eye,  at  that  so  mixtiform  National  Assembly; 
:hen  fares  forward  towards  the  Chateau.  There  are  with  him  two 
Paris  Municipals  ;  they  were  chosen  from  the  Three  Hundred  for 
;hat  errand.  He  gets  admittance  through  the  locked  and  pad- 
ocked  Grates,  through  sentries  and  ushers,  to  the  Royal  Halls. 

The  Court,  male  and  female,  crowds  on  his  passage,  to  read  their 
loom  on  his  face  ;  which  exhibits,  say  Historians,  a  mixture  *  of 
sorrow,  of  fervour  and  valour,'  singular  to  behold.*  The  King,  with 
Monsieur,  with  Ministers  and  Marshals,  is  waiting  to  receive  him  : 
tie  "  is  come,"  in  his  highflown  chivalrous  way,  "  to  offer  his  head 
br  the  safety  of  his  Majesty's."  The  t^o  Municipals  state  the  wish 
)f  Paris  :  four  things,  of  quite  pacific  tenor.  First,  that  the  honour 
)f  Guarding  his  sacred  person  be  conferred  on  patriot  National 
auards  ; — say,  the  Centre  Grenadiers,  who  as  Gardes  Frangaises 
vere  wont  to  have  thaf  privilege.  Second,  that  provisions  be  got, 
f  possible.  Third,  that  the  Prisons,  all  crowded  with  political 
iellnquents,  may  have  judges  sent  them.  Fourth,  that  it  would 
Please  his  Majesty  to  come  and  live  in  Paris.  To  all  which  four 
vishes,  except  the  fourth,  his  Majesty  answers  readily,  Yes  ;  or 
ndeed  may  almost  say  that  he  has  already  answered  it.  To  the 
ourth  he  can  answer  only.  Yes  or  No  ;  would  so  gladly  answer, 
«^es  and  No  ! — But,  in  any  case,  are  not  their  dispositions,  thank 
ieaven,  so  entirely  pacitic  ?  There  is  time  for  deliberation.  The 
)runt  of  the  danger  seems  past  ! 

Lafayette  and  d'Estaing  settle  the  watches ;  Centre  Grenadiers 
re  to  take  the  Guard- room  they  of  old  occupied  as  Gardes  Fran- 
aises  ; — for  indeed  the  Gardes  du  Corps,  its  late  ill-advised 
ccupants.  ^^re  ,^one  mostly  to  Rambouillet.  That  is  the  order  of 
his  nighc  ;  sufficient  for  the  night  is  the  evil  thereof.  Whereupon 
-afayette  and  the  two  Municipals,  with  highflown  chivalry,  take 
heir  leave. 

So  brief  has  the  interview  been,  Mounier  and  his  Deputation 
^ere  not  yet  got  up.  So  brief  and  satisfactory.  A  stone  is  rolled 
:om  every  liear^.  The  fair  Palace  Dames  ]3ublicly  declare  that 
|iis  Lafayette,  detestable  though  he  be,  is  their  saviour  for  once. 
Cven  the  ancient  vinaigrous  Tantcs  admit  it  ;  the  King's  Aunts, 

^  ^  fctnoirc  de  M,  le  Comte  de  Lally-Tollcndal  (Janvier  1790),  p.  161-165, 


198  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


ancient  Graille  and  Sisterhood,  known  to. us  of  old.  Queen  Marie- 
Antoinette  has  been  heard  often  say  the  Mke,  She  alone,  among  all 
women  and  all  men,  wore  a  face  of  courage,  of  lofty  calmness  and 
resolve,  this  day.  She  alone  saw  clearly  what  she  7neant  to  do  ; 
and  Theresa's  Daughter  do  what  she  means,  were  all  France 
threatening  her  :  abide  where  her  children  are,  where  her  hus- 
band is. 

Towards  three  in  the  morning  all  things  are  settled:  the  watches 
set,  the  Centre  Grenadiers  put  into  their  old  Guard-room,  and 
harangued  ;  the  Swiss,  and  few  remaining  Bodyguards  harangued. 
The  w^ayworn  Paris  Batallions,  consigned  to  '  the  hospitality  of 
*  Versailles,'  lie  dormant  in  spare-beds,  spare-barracks,  coffeehouses, 
empty  churches.  A  troop  of  them,  on  their  way  to  the  Church  of, 
Saint-Louis,  awoke  poor  Weber,  dreaming  troublous,  in  the  Rue 
Sartory.  Weber  has  had  his  waistcoat-pocket  full  of  balls  all  day; 
'two  hundred  balls,  and  two  pears  of  powder  ! '  For  waistcoats 
were  waistcoats  then,  and  had  flaps  down  to  mid-thigh.  So  many 
balls  he  has  had  all  day  ;  but  no  opportunity  of  using  them  :  he 
turns  over  now,  execrating  disloyal  bandits  ;  swears  a  prayer  or 
two,  and  straight  to  sleep  again. 

Finally,  the  National  Assembly  is  harangued  ;  which  thereupon,: 
on  motion  of  Mirabeau,  discontinues  the  Penal  Code,  and  dismisses, 
for  this  night.  Menadism,  Sansculottism  has  cowered  into  guard- 
houses* barracks  of  Flandre,  to  the  light  of  cheerful  fire  ;  failing! 
that,  to  churches,  office-houses,  sentry-boxes,  wheresoever  wretched- 
ness can  find  a  lair.  The  troublous  Day  has  brawled  itself  to  rest: 
no  lives  yet  lost  but  that  of  one  warhorse.  Insurrectionary  Chaos 
lies  slumbering  round  the  Palace,  like  Ocean  round  a  Diving-bell, 
— no  crevice  yet  disclosing  itself 

Deep  sleep  has  fallen  promiscuously  on  the  high  and  on  the  low; 
suspending  most  things,  even  wrath  and  famine.    Darkness  covers 
the  Earth.    But,  far  on  the  North-east,  Paris  flings  up  her  great 
yellow  gleam  ;  far  into  the  wet  black  Night.    For  all  is  illuminated 
there,  as  in  the  old  July  Nights  ;  the  streets  deserted,  for  alarm  of 
war  ;   the  Municipals  all  wakeful  ;   Patrols  hailing,  with  the 
hoarse  Who-goes.    There,  as  we  discover,  our  poor  slim  Louisa 
Chabray,  her  poor  nerves  all  fluttered,  is  arriving  about  this  v( 
hour.    There  Usher  Maillard  will  arrive,  about  an  hour  hem 
'  towards  four  in  the  morning.'    They  report,  successively,  to  a 
wakeful  H6tel-dc-Ville  what  comfort  they  can  report ;  which  again, 
with  early  dawn,  large  coriifortablc  Placards,  shall  impart  to  all 
men. 

Lafayette,  in  the  Hotel  de  Noaillcs,  not  far  from  the  Chateau, 
having  now  finished  haranguing,  sits  with  his  Officers  consultin" 
at  five  o'clock  the  unanimous  best  counsel  is,  that  a  man  so  to 
and  toiled  for  twenty-four  hours  and  more,  fling  liimself  on  a  bed, 
and  seek  some  rest. 

Thus,  then,  has  ended  the  First  Act  of  the  Insurrection  of 
Women.    How  it  will  turn  on  the  morrow.^    The  morrow,  as 


THE  GRAND  ENTRIES, 


199 


always,  is  with  the  Fates  !  But  his  Majesty,  one  may  hope,  will 
consent  to  come  honourably  to  Paris  ;  at  all  events,  he  can  visit 
Paris.  Anti-national  Bodyguards,  here  and  elsewhere,  must  take 
the  National  Oath  ;  make  reparation  to  the  Tricolor  ;  Flandre  will 
swear.  There  may  be  much  swearing  ;  much  public  speaking 
there  will  infallibly  be  :  and  so,  with  harangues  and  vows,  may  the 
flatter  in  some  handsome  way,  wind  itself  up. 

Or,  alas,  may  it  not  be  all  otherwise,  ////handsome  :  the  consent 
not  honourable,  but  extorted,  ignominious  ?  Boundless  Chaos  of 
Insurrection  presses  slumbering  round  the  Palace,  like  Ocean 
round  a  Diving-bell ;  and  may  penetrate  at  any  crevice.  Let  but 
that  accumulated  insurrectionary  mass  find  entrance  !  Like  the 
infinite  inburst  of  water  ;  or  say  rather,  of  inflammable,  self-ignit- 
ing fluid  ;  for  example,  ^  turpentine-and-phosphorus  oil,' — ^fluid 
known  to  Spinola  Santerre  1 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  GRAND  ENTRIES. 

The  dull  dawn  of  a  new  morning,  drizzly  and  chill,  had  but 
broken  over  Versailles,  when  it  pleased  Destiny  that  a  Bodyguard 
should  look  out  of  window,  on  the  right  wing  of  the  Chateau,  to 
see  what  prospect  there  was  in  Heaven  and  in  Earth.  Rascality 
male  and  femxale  is  prowling  in  view  of  him.  His  fasting  stomach 
is,  with  good  cause,  sour  ;  he  perhaps  cannot  forbear  a  passing 
malison  on  them  ;  least  of  all  can  he  forbear  answering  such. 

Ill  words  breed  worse  :  till  the  worst  word  came  ;  and  then  the 
ill  deed.  Did  the  maledicent  Bodyguard,  getting  (as  was  too 
inevitable)  better  malediction  than  he  gave,  load  his  musketoon, 
and  threaten  to  fire  ;  and  actually  fire?  Were  wise  who  wist  !  It 
stands  asserted  ;  to  us  not  credibly.  Be  this  as  it  may,  menaced 
Rascality,  in  whinnying  scorn,  is  shaking  at  all  Grates  :  the 
fastening  of  one  (some  write,  it  was  a  chain  merely)  gives  way  \ 
Rascality  is  in  the  Grand  Court,  whinnying  louder  still. 

The  maledicent  Bodyguard,  more  Bodyguards  than  he  do  now 
give  fire;  a  man's  arm  is  shattered.  Lecointre  will  depose"^' that 'the 
Sieur  Cardaine,  a  National  Guard  without  arms,  was  stabbed/  But 
see,  sure  enough,  poor  Jerome  THeritier,  an  unarmed  National  Guard 
he  too,  '  cabinet-maker,  a  saddler's  son,  of  Paris,'  with  the  down  of 
youthhood  still  on  his  chin, — he  reels  death-stricken  ;  rushes  to 
the  pavement,  scattering  it  with  his  blood  and  brains  ! — Allelew  \ 
Wilder  than  Irish  wakes,  rises  the  howl  :  of  pity;  of  infinite  re- 
venge. In  few  moments,  the  Grate  of  the  inner  and  inmost  Court, 
which  they  name  Court  of  Marble,  this  too  is  forced,  or  surprised, 

*  Deposition  de  Lecointre  (in  Hist.  Pari,  iii.  ni-115). 

H  Z 


200  THE  INSURRECTION  GF  WOMEN. 


and  burst  open  :  the  Court  of  Marble  too  is  overflowed  \  up  the 
Grand  Staircase,  up  all  stairs  and  entrances  rushes  the  living 
Deluge  !  Deshuttes  and  Varigny,  the  two  sentry  Bodyguards,  are 
trodden  down,  are  massacred  with  a  hundred  pikes.  Women 
snatch  their  cutlasses,  or  any  v/eapon,  and  storm-in  Menadic  :— - 
other  women  lift  the  corpse  of  shot  Jerome  ;  lay  ^it  down  on  the 
Marble  steps  ;  there  shall  the  livid  face  and  smashed  head,  dumb 
for  ever,  speak. 

Wo  now  to  all  Bodyguards,  mercy  is  none  for  them  !  Miomandre 
de  Sainte-Marie  pleads  v/ith  soft  words,  on  the  Grand  Staircase, 
'descending  four  steps  :  ' — to  the  roaring  tornado.  His  comrades 
snatch  him  up,  by  the  skirts  and  belts  ;  hterally,  from  the  jaws  of 
Destruction  ;  and  slam-to  their  Door.  This  also  will  stand  few 
instants  ;  the  panels  shivering  in,  like  potsherds.  Barricading 
serves  not  :  fly  fast,  ye  Bodyguards  ;  rabid  Insurrection,  like  the 
hellhound  Chase,  uproaring  at  your  heels  ! 

The  terrorstruck  Bodyguards  fly,  bolting  and  barricading  ;  it 
follows.  Whitherward?  Through  hall  on  hall  :  wo,  now  !  towards 
the  Queen's  Suite  of  Rooms,  in  the  furtherest  room  of  which  the 
Queen  is  now  asleep.  Five  sentinels  rush  through  that  long  Suite  ; 
they  are  in  the  Anteroom  knocking  loud  :  "  Save  the  Queen  ! " 
Trembling  women  fall  at  their  feet  with  tears  ;  are  answered  : 
"  Yes,  we  will  die  ;  save  ye  the  Queen  !  " 

Tremble  not,  women,  but  haste  :  for,  lo,  another  voice  shouts 
far  through  the  outermost  door,  ''  Save  the  Queen  ! "  and  the  door 
shut.  It  is  brave  Miomandre's  voice  that  shouts  this  second 
warning.  He  has  stormed  across  imminent  death  to  do  it  ;  fronts 
imminent  death,  having  done  it.  Brave  Tardivet  du  Repaire, 
bent  on  the  same  desperate  service,  was  borne  down  with  pikes  ; 
his  comrades  hardly  snatched  him  in  again  alive.  Miomandre 
and  Tardivet  :  let  the  names  of  these  two  Bodyguards,  as  the 
names  of  brave  men  should,  live  long. 

Trembling  Maids  of  Honour,  one  of  whom  from  afar  caught 
glimpse  of  Miomandre  as  well  as  heard  him,  hastily  wrap  the 
Queen  ;  not  in  robes  of  State.  She  flies  for  her  hfe,  across  the 
&il-de-Boeuf ;  against  the  main  door  of  which  too  Insurrection 
batters.  She  is  in  the  King's  Apartment,  in  the  King's  arms ; 
she  clasps  her  children  amid  a  faithful  few.  The  Imperial-hearted 
bursts  into  mother's  tears  :  "  O  my  friends,  save  me  and  my 
children,  O  mes  amis^  sauves  moi  et  mcs  cnfans  The  battering 
of  Insurrectionary  axes  clangs  audible  across  the  CEil-de-Boeuf. 
What  an  hour  ! 

Yes,  Friends :  a  hideous  fearful  nour  ;  shameful  alike  to 
Cjoverncd  and  Governor  ;  wherein  Governed  and  Governor 
ignominously  testify  th:it  their  relation  is  at  an  end.  Rage,whic' 
had  brewed  itself  in  twenty  thousand  hearts,  ff)r  the  last  four-and 
twenty  hours,  has  taken  fur.  :  Jep'ime's  brnined  corpse  lies  there  r 
live-coal.  It  is,  as  we  said,  the  infinite  Element  bursting  in  :  wil 
surging  through  all  corridors  and  conduits, 


THE  GRAND  ENTRIES. 


20i 


Meanwhile,  the  poor  Bodyguards  have  got  hunted  mostly  into 
the  CEil-de-Boeuf.  They  may  die  there,  at  the  King's  tlireshhold  ; 
they  can  do  httle  to  defend  it.  They  are  heaping  iaboccreis  (stools 
of  honour),  benches  and  all  moveables,  against  the  door  ;  at 
which  the  axe  of  Insurrection  thunders.— But  did  brave  Miomandre 
perish,  then,  at  the  Queen's  outer  door?  No,  he.  was  fractured, 
slashed,  lacerated,  left  for  dead  ;  he  has  nevertheless  crawled 
mtner  ;  and  shall  live,  honoured  of  loya!  J:* "ranee.  Remark  also^, 
in  flat  contradiction  to  much  which  has  been  said  and  sung,  that 
Insurrection  did  not  burst  that  door  he  had  defended  ;  but  hurried 
elsewhither,  seeking  new  bodyguards.^ 

Poor  Bodyguards,  with  their  Thyestes'  Opera-Repast  !  Well 
for  them,  that  Insurrection  has  only  pikes  and  axes  ;  no  right 
sieging  tools  !  It  shakes  and  thunders.  Must  they  all  perish 
miserably,  and  Royalty  with  them.^*  Deshuttes  and  Varigny, 
massacred  at  the  first  inbreak,  have  been  beheaded  in  the  Marble 
Court  :  a  sacrifice  to  Jerome's  manes :  Jourdan  with  the  tile-beard 
did  that  duty  wiUingly  ;  and  asked,  If  there  were  no  more  ? 
Another  captive  they  are  leading  round  the  corpse,  with  howl- 
chauntings  :  may  not  Jourdan  again  tuck  up  his  sleeves.? 

And  louder  and  louder  rages  Insurrection  within,  plundering  if 
it  cannot  kill  ;  louder  and  louder  it  thunders  at  the  CEil-de-Bceuf  : 
what  can  now  hinder  its  bursting  in  ?— On  a  sudden  it  ceases  ;  the 
battering  has  ceased  !  Wild  rushing  :  the  cries  grow  fainter? 
there  is  silence,  or  the  tramp  of  regular  steps  ;  then  a  friendly 
knocking:  "  We  are  the  Centre  Grenadiers, old  Gardes  Frangaises  : 
Open  to  us,  Messieurs  of  the  Garde-du- Corps  ;  we  have  not  for- 
gotten how  you  saved  us  at  Fontenoy  !  "f  The  door  is  opened;  enter 
Captain  Gondran  and  the  Centre  Grenadiers  :  there  are  military 
embracings  ;  there  is  sudden  deliverance  from  death  into  life. 

Strange  Sons  of  Adam  !  It  was  to  'exterminate  '  these  Gardes- 
du-Corps  that  the  Centre  Grenadiers  left  home  :  and  now  they 
have  rushed  to  save  them  from  extermination.  The  memory  of 
common  peril,  of  old  help,  melts  the  rough  heart  ;  bosom  is  clasoed 
to  bosom,  not  in  war.  The  King  shews  himself,  one  moment, 
through  the  door  of  his  Apartment,  with  :  "  Do  not  hurt  my 
Guards  !  "  Soyons  freres,  Let  us  be  brothers  ! "  cries  Captain 
Gondran  ;  and  again  dashes  off,  with  levelled  bayonets,  to  sweep 
the  Palace  clear. 

Now  too  Lafayette,  suddenly  roused,  not  from  sleep  (for  his  eyes 
had  not  yet  closed),  arrives  ;  with  passionate  popular  eloquence, 
with  prompt  military  word  of  command.  National  Guards,  sud- 
denly roused,  by  sound  of  trumpet  and  alarm-drum,  are  all 
arriving.  ^  The  death-melly  ceases  :  the  first  sky-lambent  blaze  of 
Insurrection  is  got  damped  down  ;  it  burns  now,  if  unextinguished, 
yetflameless,  as  charred  coals  do,  and  not  inextinguishable.  The 
King's  Apartments  are  safe.  Ministers,  Officials,"  and  even  some 
loyal  National  deputies  are  assembling  round  their  Majesties. 
The  consternation  will,  with  sobs  and  confusion,  settle  down 
gradually,  into  plan  and  counsel,  better  or  worse. 

*  Campan,  ii.  75-87.  *  Toulongeon,  i.  144. 

VOL.  I.  ^ 


202 


THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN. 


But  glance  now,  for  a  moment,  from  the  royal  windows  !  A 
roaring  sea  of  human  heads,  inundating  both  Courts  ;  billowing 
against  all  passages  :  Menadic  women  ;  infuriated  men,  mad 
with  revenge,  with  love  of  mischief,  love  of  plunder  !  Rascality 
has  slipped  its  muzzle  ;  and  now  bays,  three-throated,  like  the 
Dog  of  Erebus  Fourteen  Bodyguards  are  wounded  ;  two 
massacred,  and  as  we  saw,  beheaded;  Jourdan  asking,  "Was  it 
worth  while  to  come  so  far  for  two  ? "  Hapless  Deshuttes  aiM 
Varigny  !  Their  fate  surely  was  sad.  Whirled  down  so  stiddenly 
'to  the  abyss  ;  as  men  are,  suddenly,  by  the  wide  thunder  of  the 
Mountain  Avalanche,  awakened  not  by  them,  awakened  far  off  by 
others  !  When  the  Chateau  Clock  last  struck,  they  two  were 
pacing  languid,  with  poised  musketoon  ;  anxious  mainly  that  the 
next  hour  would  strike.  It  has  struck  ;  to  them  inaudible.  Theil 
trunks  lie  mangled  :  their  heads  parade,  '  on  pikes  twelve  feet 
*  long,'  through  the  streets  of  Versailles  ;  and  shall,  about  noon 
reach  the  Barriers  of  Paris,— a  too  ghastly  contradiction  to  the 
large  comfortable  Placards  that  have  been  posted  there  ! 

The  other  captive  Bodyguard  is  still  circling  the  corpse  of 
Jerome,  amid  Indian  war- whooping ;  bloody  Tilebeard,  with 
tucked  sleeves,  brandishing  his  bloody  axe  ;  when  Gondran  and 
the  Grenadiers  come  in  sight.  "  Comrades,  will  you  see  a  man 
massacred  in  cold  blood  Off,  butchers  ! answer  they  ;  and 

the  poor  Bodyguard  is  free.  Busy  runs  Gondran,  busy  run  Guards 
and  Captains  ;  scouring  all  corridors  ;  dispereing  Rascality  and 
Robbery  ;  sweeping  the  Palace  clear.  The  mangled  carnage  is 
removed  ;  Jerome's  body  to  the  Townhall,  for  inquest  :  the  fire  of 
Insurrection  gets  damped,  more  and  more,  into  measurable, 
manageable  heat. 

Transcendent  things  of  all  sorts,  as  in  the  general  outburst  of 
multitudinous  Passion,  are  huddled  together  ;  the  ludicrous,  nay 
the  ridiculous,  with  the  horrible.  Far  over  the  billowy  sea  of 
heads,  may  be  seen  Rascality,  caprioling  on  horses  from  the 
Royal  Stud.  The  Spoilers  these  ;  for  Patriotism  is  always 
infected  so,  with  a  proportion  of  mere  thieves  and  scoundrels. 
Gondran  snatched  their  prey  from  them  in  the  Chateau  ;  where- 
upon they  hurried  to  the  Stables,  and  took  horse  there.  13ut  the 
generous  Diomedes'  steeds,  according  to  Weber,  disdained  such 
scoundrel-burden  ;  and,  flinging  up  their  royal  heels,  did  soor. 
project  most  of  it,  in  parabolic  curves,  to  a  distance,  amid  peals  of 
laughter  :  and  were  caught.  Mounted  National  Guards  secured 
the  rottt. 

Now  too  is  witnessed  the  touching  last-flicker  of  Etiquette 
which  sinks  not  here,  in  the  Cimmerian  World-wreckage,  without 
a  sign  ;  as  the  house-cricket  might  still  chirp  in  the  pealing  of  ;i 
Trump  of  Doom.  "  Monsieur,"  said  some  Master  of  Ccremonie- 
(one  hopes  it  might  be  de  I^reze),  as  Lafayette,  in  these  fearful 
moments,  was  rushing-  towards  the  inner  Royal  Apartments. 
''  Monsieur,  Ic  Roi  %ums  accordc  les  o;randes  c?itrees.  Monsieur,  tht 
King  grants  you  the  (irand  Entries/'— not  finding  it  convenient  to 
refuse  tUcm  '  * 

*  'loulongcon,  i  App.  120, 


FROM  VERSAILLES, 


303 


CHAPTER  XI. 

FROM  VERSAILLES. 

1  ^^Y^VER,  the  Paris  National  Guard,  wholly  under  arms,  has 
Cleared  the  Palace,  and  even  occupies  the  nearer  external  spaces  ; 
extruding  miscellaneous  Patriotism,  for  most  part,  into  the  Grand 
Court,  or  even  into  the  Forecourt. 

The  Bodyguards,  you  can  observe,  have  now  of  a  verity, 

hoisted  the  National  Cockade  for  they  step  forward  to  the 
windows  or  balconies,  hat  aloft  in  hand,  on  each  hat  a  huge  tri- 
color  ;  and  flmg  over  their  bandoleers  in  sign  of  surrender  ;  and 
shout  Vive  la  Nation.  To  which  how  can  the  generous  heart 
respond  but  with,  Vive  le  Roi j  vivent  les  Gardes-du-Corps  ?  His 
Majesty  himself  has  appeared  with  Lafayette  on  the  balcony,  and 
again  appears  :  Vive  le  Roi  greets  him  from  all  throats  ;  but  also 
Pads'^'"^""^         throat  is  heard     Le  Roi  a  Paris/T}i^  King  to 

Her  Majesty  too,  on  demand,  shows  herself,  though  there  is 
pern  in  it  :  she  steps  out  on  the  balcony,  with  her  little  boy  and 
girl  -No  children,  Point  d'enfansj''  cry  the  voices.  She 
gently  pushes  back  her  children;  and  stands  alone,  her  hands 
serenely  crossed  on  her  breast :  "  should  I  die,"  she  had  said,  "  I 
will  do  It.  Such  serenity  of  heroism  has  its  effect.  Lafayette, 
with  ready  wit,  m  his  highflown  chivalrous  way,  takes  that  fair 
queenly  hand  ;  and  reverently  kneeling,  kisses  it  :  thereupon  the 
people  do  shout  Vive  la  Reine.  Nevertheless,  poor  Weber  ^saw' 
(or  even  thought  he  saw  ;  for  hardly  the  third  part  of  poor  Weber's 
experiences,  m  such  hysterical  days,  will  stand  scrutiny)  '  one  of 
these  brigands  level  his  musket  at  her  Majesty,'-with  or  without 
'down '  brigands  ^angrily  struck  it 

So  that  all,  and  the  Queen  herself,  nay  the  vei7  Captain  of  the 
Bodyguards,  have  grown  National!  The  very  Captain  of  the 
Bodyguards  steps  out  now  with  Lafayette.  On  the  hat  of  the 
repentant  man  is  an  enormous  tricolor  ;  large  as  a  soup-platter,  or 
n.;i.  '  ^'T^^^  ^^"^^^t  Forecourt.  He  takes  the  National 
™  To     fi.     u  elevating  his  hat  ;  at  which  sight  all  the 

f^^^  ^Z^^^^      their  bayonets,  with  shouts.    Sweet  is 

reconcilement  to  the  heart  of  man.  Lafayette  has  sworn  Flandre  ; 
he  swears  the  remaining  Bodyguards,  down  in  the  Marble  Court  ; 
the  people  clasp  them  in  their  arms:-0,  my  brothers,  why  would 
ll^tT  '^f^  ^^^^^^  there  is  joy  over  you,  as  over 

returning  prodigal  sons  !-The  poor  Bodyguards,  now  National 
^^.cTf^l''^'  ^""^^^^  exchange  arms;  there  shall  be 

TparT^  fraternity.    And  still  -  Vive  le  Roi j  "  and  also  "  Le  Rvi 

11  is  the  heart  s  wieh  of  all  mortals. 


204  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  WOMEN, 


Yes,  The  King  to  Paris :  what  else  ?  Ministers  may  consult^ 
and  National  Deputies  wag  their  heads  :  but  there  is  now  no  other 
possibiUty.  You  have  forced  him  to  go  wilHngly.  "  At  one  o'clock! " 
Lafayette  gives  audible  assurance  to  that  purpose  ;  and  universal 
Insurrection,  with  immeasurable  shout,  and  a  discharge  of  all  the 
firearms,  clear  and  rusty,  great  and  small,  that  it  has,  returns  him 
acceptance.  What  a  sound  ;  heard  for  leagues  :  a  doom  peal  !— 
That  sound  too  rolls  away  ;  into  the  Silence  of  Ages.  And  the 
Chateau  of  Versailles  stands  ever  since  vacant,  hushed  still ;  its 
spacious  Courts  grassgrown,  responsive  to  the  hoe  of  the  weeder. 
Times  and  generations  roll  on,  in  their  confused  Gulf-current ;  and 
buildings  hke  builders  have  their  destiny. 

Till  one  o'clock,  then,  there  will  be  three  parties,  National 
Assembly,  National  Rascality,  National  Royalty,  all  busy  enough. 
Rascality  rejoices  ;  women  trim  themselves  with  tricolor.  Nay^ 
motherly  Paris  has  sent  her  Avengers  sufficient  '  cartloads  of 
*  loaves  ; '  which  are  shouted  over,  which  are  gratefully  consumed. 
The  Avengers,  in  return,  are  searching  for  grain-stores  ;  loading 
them  in  fifty  waggons  ;  that  so  a  National  King,  probable  harbinger 
of  all  blessings,  may  be  the  evident  bringer  of  plenty,  for  one. 

And  thus  has  Sansculottism  made  prisoner  its  King  ;  revokinr^ 
his  parole.  The  Monarchy  has  fallen  ;  and  not  so  much  as 
honourably  :  no,  ignominiously  ;  with  struggle,  indeed,  oft  re- 
peated ;  but  then  with  unwise  struggle  ;  wasting  its  strength  in  fits 
and  paroxysms  ;  at  every  new  paroxysm,  foiled  more  pitifully  than 
before.  Thus  Broglie's  whiff  of  grapeshot,  which  might  have  been 
something,  has  dwindled  to  the  pot-valour  of  an  Opera  Repast, 
and  O  Richard,  O  inon  Roi.  Which  again  we  shall  see  dwindle  to 
a  Favras'  Conspiracy,  a  thing  to  be  settled  by  the  hanging  of  one 
Chevalier. 

Poor  Monarchy  !  But  what  save  foulest  defeat  can  await  that, 
man,  who  wills,  and  yet  wills  not  ?  Apparently  the  King  eithed 
has  a  right,  assertible' as  such  to  the  death,  before  God  and  man  J 
or  else  he  has  no  right.  Apparently,  the  one  or  the  other  ;  coultfl 
he  but  know  which  !  May  Heaven  pity  him  !  Were  Louis  wisd| 
he  would  this  day  abdicate.— Is  it  not  strange'  so  few  Kings 
abdicate  ;  and  none  yet  heard  of  has  been  known  to  commit 
suicide  }  Fritz  the  First,  of  Prussia,  alone  tried  it ;  and  they  cut 
ihe  rope. 

As  for  the  National  Assembly,  which  decrees  this  niorning  that 
it '  is  inseparable  from  his  Majesty,'  and  will  follow  him  lo  Paris, 
there  may  one  thing  be  noted  :  its  extreme  want  of  bodily  health. 
After  the  Fourteenth  of  July  there  was  a  certain  sickhness  observ- 
able among  honourable  Members;  so  many  demanding  passports, 
on  account  of  infirm  health.  But  now,  for  these  following  days, 
there  is  a  perfect  murrian  :  President  Mounier,  Lally  Tollendal 
C^^rmont  Tonncre.  and  all  Constitutional  Two-Chamber  RoyaUst 
ncL  hng  change  of  air  ;  as  most  No-Chamber  RoyaUsts  h 
formerly  done. 

For,  in  truth,  it  is  the  second  E7iiip'ation  this  that  has  no 


FROM  VERSAILLES. 


come  ;  most  extensive  among  Commons  Deputies,  Noblesse, 
Clergy  :  so  that  ^  to  Switzerland  alone  there  go  sixty  thousand.' 
They  will  return  in  the  day  of  accounts  !  Yes,  and  have  hot 
welcome. — But  Emigration  on  Emigration  is  the  peculiarity  of 
France.  One  Emigration  follows  another  ;  grounded  on  reason- 
able fear,  unreasonable  hope,  largely  also  on  childish  pet.  The 
highflyers  have  gone  first,  now  the  lower  flyers  ;  and  ever  the 
lower  will  go  down  to  the  crawlers.  Whereby,  however,  cannot 
our  National  Assembly  so  much  the  more  commodiously  make  the 
Constitution ;  your  Two-Chamber  Anglomaniacs  being  all  safe, 
distant  on  foreign  shores  ?  Abbe  Maury  is  seized,  and  sent  back 
again  :  he,  tough  as  tanned  leather,  with  eloquent  Captain  Cazales 
and  some  others,  will  stand  it  out  for  another  year. 

But  here,  meanwhile,  the  question  arises  :  Was  Philippe 
d'Orleans  seen,  this  day, '  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  in  grey  surtout ; ' 
waiting  under  the  wet  sere  fohage,  what  the  day  might  bring  forth  ? 
Alas,  yes,  the  Eidolon  of  him  was,— in  Weber's  and  other  such 
brains.  The  Chatelet  shall  make  large  inquisition  into  the  matter, 
examining  a  hundred  and  seventy  witnesses,  and  Deputy  Chabroud 
publish  his  Report ;  but  disclose  nothing  further.'^  What  then 
has  cr.  :sed  these  two  unparalleled  October  Days  ?  For  surely 
such  dramatic  exhibition  never  yet  enacted  itself  without 
Dramatist  and  Machinist.  Wooden  Punch  emerges  not,  with  his 
domestic  sorrows,  into  the  light  of  day,  unless  the  wire  be  pulled  t 
how  can  human  mobs  ?  Was  it  not  d'Orleans  then,  and  Laclos, 
Marquis  Sillery,  Mirabeau  and  the  sons  of  confusion,  hoping  to 
drive  the  King  to  Metz,  and  gather  the  spoil }  Nay  was  it  not, 
quite  contrariwise,  the  GEil-de-Boeuf,  Bodyguard  Colonel  de 
Guiche,  Minister  Saint-Priest  and  highflying  Loyalists  ;  hoping 
also  to  drive  him  to  Metz  ;  and  try  it  by  the  sword  of  civil  war  ? 
Good  Marquis  Toulongeon,  the  Historian  and  Deputy,  feels  con- 
strained to  admit  that  it  was  bothA 

Alas,  my  Friends,  credulous  incredulity  is  a  strange  matter. 
But  when  a  whole  Nation  is  smitten  with  Suspicion,  and  sees  a 
dramatic  miracle  in  the  very  operation  of  the  gastric  juices,  what 
help  is  there?  Such  Nation  is  already  a  mere  hypochondriac 
bundle  of  diseases  ;  as  good  as  changed  into  glass  ;  atrabiliar, 
decadent  ;  and  will  suffer  crises.  Is  not  Suspicion  itself  the  one 
thing  to  be  suspected,  as  Montaigne  feared  only  fear  ? 

^  Now,  hov/ever,  the  short  hour  has  struck.  His  Majesty  is  in 
his  carriage,  with  his  Queen,  sister  Elizabeth,  and  two  royal  chil- 
dren. Not  for  another  hour  can  the  infinite  Procession  get  mar- 
shalled, and  under  way.  The  weather  is  dim  drizzling  ;  the  mind 
confused  ;  the  noise  great. 

Processional  marches  not  a  few  our  world  has  seen  j  Roman 
triumphs  and  ovations,  Cabiric  cymbal-beatings,  Royal  progresses, 
Irish  funerals  :  but  this  of  the  French  Monarchy  marching  to  its 
bed  remained  to  be  seen.    Miles  long,  and  of  breadth  losing  itself 

*  Rapport  de  Chabroud  [MoniUur,  du  31  December,  1789). 
t  Toulongeon,  i.  i^'',':*. 


2g6       the  insurrection  of  women 


in  vagueness,  for  all  the  neighbouring  country  crowds  to  see. 
Slow  ;  stagnating  along,  like  shoreless  Lake,  yet  with  a  noise  like 
Niagara,  like  Babel  and  Bedlam.  A  splashing  and  a  tramping  ;  a 
hurrahing,  uproaring,  musket-volleying  ; — the  truest  segment  of 
Chaos  seen  in  these  latter  Ages  !  Till  slowly  it  disembogue  itself, 
in  the  thickening  dusk,  into  expectant  Paris,  through  a  double  row 
of  faces  all  the  way  from  Passy  to  the  H6tel-de-Ville._ 

Consider  this  :  Vanguard  of  National  troops  ;  with  trains  of 
artillery  ;  of  pikemen  and  pikewomen,  mounted  on  cannons,  on 
carts,  hackney-coaches,  or  on  foot  ;— tripudiating,  in  tricolor 
ribbons  from  head  to  heel  ;  loaves  stuck  on  the  pomts  of  bayonets, 
green  boughs  stuck  in  gun  barrels.^  Next,  as  main-march,  '  fifty 
'  cartloads  of  corn,'  which  have  been  lent,  for  peace,  from  the 
stores  of  Versailles.  Behind  which  follow  stragglers  of  the  Garde- 
du-Corps  ;  all  humiliated,  in  Grenadier  bonnets.  Close  on  these 
comes  the  Royal  Carriage  ;  come  Royal  Carriages  :  for  there  are 
an  Hundred  National  Deputies  toe,  among  whom  sits  Mirabeau,— 
his  remarks  not  given.  Then  findly,  pellmell,  as  rearguard, 
Flandre,  Swiss,  Hundred  Swiss,  othe-  Bodyguards,  Brigands, 
whosoever  cannot  get  before.  Between  and  among  all  which 
masses,  flows  without  limit  Saint- Antoine,  and  the  Menadic 
Cohort.  Menadic  especially  about  the  Royal  Carriage  ;  tripu- 
diating there,  covered  with  tricolor  :  singing  '  allusive  songs  ; ' 
pointing  with  one  hand  to  the  Royal  Carriage,  which  the  illusions 
hit,  and  pointing  to  the  Provisiori -wagons,  with  the  other  hand, 
and  these  words  :  '  Courage,  Friends  '  We  shall  not  want  bread 
now  ;  we  are  bringing  you  the  Baker,  the  Bakeress,  and  Baker's 
Boy  (le  Boulanger,  la  Boidan^er.\^  et  le  petit  Mitroit)P\ 

The  wet  day  draggles  the  tricolor,  but  the  joy  is  unextinguish- 
able.  Is  not  all  vvell  now  ?  "  Ah,  Mada^ne,  notre  bonne  Reme',' 
said  some  of  these  Strong-women  some  days  hence,  "Ah  Madame, 
our  good  Queen,  don't  be  a  traitor  any  more  {ne  sovez  plus  traitre\ 
and  we  will  all  love  von  !"  Poor  Weber  went  splashing  along, 
close  by  ti.^  Royal  carriage,  with  the  tear  in  his  eye  :  'their 

*  Majesties  did  me  the  honour,'  or  I  thought  they  did  it,  '  to  testify, 

*  ^om  time  to  time,  by  shrugging  of  the  shoulders,  by  looks  directed 
'  to  Heaven,  the  emotions  they  felt.'  Thus,  like  frail  cockle,  floats 
the  Royal  Life-boat,  helmless,  on  black  deluges  of  RascaUty. 

Mercier,  in  his  loose  way,  estimates  the  Procession  and  assis 
lants  at  two  hundred  thousand.  He  says  it  was  one  boundles 
inarticulate  \\7Cc\7i'—transce7ic/etit  Worid- Laughter  ;  comparabl 
to  the  Saturnalia  of  the  Ancients.  Wliy  not?  Here  too,  as  w 
said,  is  Human  Nature  once  more  Innnan  ;  shudder  at  it  whoso  i 
of  shuddering  humour  :  yet  behold  it  is  lunnan.  It  has  '  swallowe 
•all  formulas  ; '  it  tripudiates  even  so.  For  which  reason  they  tha 
collect  Vases  and  Antiques,  with  figures  of  Dancing  Bacchante 

*  in  wild  and  all  but  impossible  positioiis,'  may  look  with  SOJ 
kntere^i  on  it. 

•  Mercier,  Nouveau  Parh,  iii.  21. 

•t  Tonlongeon,  i.  134-161 ;  Deux  Amis  (iii.  c.  9) ;  &c.  05€V  - 


FROM  VERSA IZLES, 


20? 


Thus,  however,  has  the  slow-moving  Chaos  or  modern  Saturnalia 
of  the  Ancients,  reached  the  Barrier;  and  must  halt,  to  he. 
harangued  by  Mayor  Bailly.  Thereafter  it  has  to  lumber  along, 
between  the  double  row  of  faces,  in  the  transcendent  heaven- 
lashing  Haha ;  two  hours  longer,  towards  the  H6tel-de-Ville. 
Then  again  to  be  harangued  there,  by  several  persons  ;  by  Moreau 
de  Saint-Mery,  among  others  ;  Moreau  of  the  Three-thousand 
orders,  now  National  l3eputy  for  St.  Domingo.  To  all  which  poor 
Louis,  ^  who  seemed  to  *  experience  a  slight  emotion '  on  entering 
this  Townhall,  can  answer  only  that  he  "  comes  with  pleasure, 
with  confidence  among  his  people."  Mayor  Bailly,  in  reporting  it, 
forgets  '  confidence  ; '  and  the  poor  Queen  says  eagerly  :  "  Add, 
with  confidence.^'— "  Messieurs,"  rejoins  Mayor  Bailly,  "You  are 
happier  than  if  I  had  not  forgot." 

Finally,  the  King  is  shewn  on  an  upper  balcony,  by  torchlight, 
with  a  huge  tricolor  in  his  hat  :  '  and  all  the  '  people,'  says  Weber, 
*  grasped  one  another's  hands  ; — thinking  now  surely  the  New  Era 
'was  born.'  Hardly  till  eleven  at  night  can  Royalty  get  to  its  vacant, 
long-deserted  Palace  of  the  Tuileries  :  to  lodge  there,  somewhat 
in  strolling-player  fashion.  It  is  Tuesday,  the  sixth  of  October, 
1789. 

Poor  Louis  has  Two  other  Paris  Processions  to  make  :  one 
ludicrous-ignominious  like  this  ;  the  other  not  ludicrous  nor  igno« 
minious,  but  serious,  nay  sublime. 


END  OF  THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOT,  H. 


I. 
II. 

III. 

IV. 
V. 

VIII. 
IX. 
X, 
XL 
XII. 


SOOK  I. 
The  Feast  of  Pikes, 


In  the  Tuileries  . 
In  the  Salle  de  Manege 
The  Muster  .... 
Journalism  .... 

Clubbism  

Je  le  jure  .... 
Prodigies  ..... 
Solemn  Lkague  and  Covenant 

Symbolic  

Mankind  ,      .       .      .    .  . 
As  in  the  Age  of  Gold. 
Sound  and  Smoke  . 


III. 
IV. 
V, 
*^I 


BOOK  11. 
Nanci. 


I.  Bouille 


Arrears  and  Aristocrats 
Bouille  at  Metz  . 
Arrears  at  Nanci  . 
Inspector  Malseigne 
Bouille  at  Nanci  . 


BOOK  III. 
The  Tuileries. 


I.  Epimenides 

II.  The  Wakeful  . 

III.  Sword  in  Hand 

IV.  To  FLY  OR  NOr  TO  FLY 

V.  The  Day  of  Poniards 

VI.  Mirabeau  . 

VIL  Death  of  Mirabeau 


4 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  IV. 


Varennes. 

CHAP.  FACE 

I.  Easter  at  Saint-Cloud  •      •  io6 

1.  Easter  at  Paris  »      .      .  109 

Count  Fersen  .       .       .       .       .      «      *       ,  .111 

IV.  Attitude  •  .116 

V.  The  New  Berline  .  119 

VI.  Old-Dragoon  Drouet  •       .  122 

VII.  The  Night  of  Spurs   124 

VIII.  The  Return  ...  .  «  •  .  .  .  130 
IX.   Sharp  Shot  133 


BOOK  V. 
Parliament  First. 

I.  Grande  Acceptation  ,      .  137 

II.  The  Book  of  the  Law   142 

III.  Avignon   148 

IV.  No  Sugar  .    '   153 

V.  Kings  and  Emigrants    .......  156 

VI.  Brigands  and  J  ales   163 

VII.   CONSTI  1  UTION  will  NOT  MARCH   165 

VIII.  The  Jacobins   169 

IX.  Minister  Roland   171 

X.  Petion-National-Pique  <,  174 

XI.  The  Hereditary  Representaitve        ....  176 

XII.  Procession  of  the  Black  Breeches    ....  179 


BOOK  VI. 

The  Marseillese. 

I.  Executive  that  does  not  act     .      o      o      •      .  183 

II.  Let  us  march  ^      -  .188 

III.  Some  Consolation  to  Mankind   100 

IV.  Subterranean   19 

V.  At  Dinner   195 

VI.  The  Steeples  at  Midnight   19S 

VII.  The  Swiss   20. 

VIII.  Constitution  burst  in  Pieces     •      o      •      .      -  20S 


THE 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


Vol.  IL— The  Constitution. 


BOOK  FIRST. 
THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


CHAPTER  T. 

IN  THE  TUILERIES. 

The  victim  having  once  got  his  stroke-of-grace,  the  catastrophe 
can  be  considered  as  almost  come.  There  is  small  interest  now 
in  watching  his  long  low  moans  :  notabk,  only  are  his  sharper 
agonies,  what  convulsive  struggles  he  may  take  to  cast  the  torture 
off  from  him  ;  and  then  finally  the  last  departure  of  life  itself,  and 
how  he  lies  extinct  and  ended,  either  wrapt  hke  Csesar  in  decorous 
mantle-lolds,  or  unseemly  sunk  together,  like  one  that  had  not  the 
force  even  to  die. 

Was  French  Royalty,  when  wrenched  forth  from  its  tapestries 
m  that  fashion,  on  that  Sixth  of  October  1789,  such  a  victim? 
Universal  France,  and  Royal  Proclamation  to  all  the  Provinces, 
answers  anxiously,  No j  nevertheless  one  may  fear  the  worst. 
.Royalty  was  beforehand  so  decrepit,  moribund,  there  is  httle  life 
\\\  It  to  h€al  an  injury.  How  much  of  its  strength,  which  was  of 
the  imagination  merely,  has  fled  ;  Rascality  having  looked  plainly 
m  the  King's  face,  and  not  died  !  When  the  assembled  crows  can 
pluck  up  their  scarecrow,  and  say  to  it.  Here  shalt  thou  ^tand  and 
not  there  ;  and  can  treat  with  it,  and  make  it,  from  an  infinite, 
a  quite  finite  Constitutional  scarecrow,— what  is  to  be  looked  for  ? 
Not  in  the  finite  Constitutional  scarecrow,  but  in  what  still  un- 
measured, infinite-seeming  force  may  rallv  round  it,  is  there  thence- 
forth any  hope.  For  it  is  most  true  that  all  available  Authority 
IS  mystic  in  its  conditions,  and  comes  '  by  the  grace  of  God.' 


6 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


Cheerfuller  than  watching  the  death-struggles  of  TRoyalism  will 
it  be  to  watch  the  growth  and  garnbolhngs  of  Sansculottism  ;  for, 
in  human  things,  especially  in  human  society,  ail  death  is  but  a 
death-birth  :  thus  if  the  sceptre  is  departing  from  Louis,  it  is  only 
that,  in  other  forms,  other  sceptres,  were  it  even  pike-sceptres,  may 
bear  sway.  In  a  prurient  element,  rich  with  nutritive  influences, 
v/e  shall  find  that  Sansculottism  grows  lustily,  and  even  frisks  in 
not  ungraceful  sport  :  as  indeed  most  young  creatures  are  sport- 
ful ;  nay,  may  it  not  be  noted  further,  that  as  the  grown  cat,  and 
cat-species  generally,  is  the  cruellest  thing  known,  so  the  merriest 
is  precisely  the  kitten,  or  growing  cat  ? 

But  fancy  the  Royal  Family  risen  from  its  truckle-beds  on  the 
morrow  of  that  mad  day  :  fancy  the  Municipal  inquiry,  "  How 
would  your  Majesty  please  to  lodge  ?  " — and  then  that  the  King's 
rough  answer,  "  Each  may  lodge  as  he  can,  I  am  well  enough,"  is 
congeed  and  bowed  away,  in  expressive  grins,  by  the  Townhall 
Functionaries,  with  obsequious  upholsterers  at  their  back  ;  and 
how  the  Chateau  of  the  Tuileries  is  repainted,  regarnished  into  a 
golden  Royal  Residence  ;  and  Lafayette  with  his  blue  National 
Guards  lies  encompassing  it,  as  blue  Neptune  (in  the  language  of 
poets)  does  an  island,  wodlngly.  Thither  may  the  wrecks  of  reha- 
bilitated Loyalty  gather,  if  it  will  become  Constitutional  ;  for  Con- 
stitutionalism thinks  no  evil ;  Sansculottism  itself  rejoices  in  the 
King's  countenance.  The  rubbish  of  a  Menadic  Insurrection,  as 
in  this  ever-kindly  world  all  rubbish  can  and  must  be,  is  swept 
aside  ;  and  so  again,  on  clear  arena,  under  new  conditions,  with 
something  even  of  a  new  stateliness,  we  begin  a  new  course  of 
action. 

Arthur  Young  has  witnessed  the  strangest  scene  :  Majesty  walk- 
ing unattended  in  the  Tuileries  Gardens  ;  and  miscellaneous  tri- 
color crowds,  who  cheer  it,  and  reverently  make  way  for  it  :  the 
very  Queen  commands  at  lowest  respectful  silence,  regretful  avoid- 
ance."^ Simple  ducks,  in  those  royal  waters,  quackle  for  crumbs 
from  young  royal  fingers  :  the  little  Dauphin  has  a  little  railed 
garden,  where  he  is  seen  delving,  with  ruddy  cheeks  and  flaxen 
curled  hair  ;  also  a  little  hutch  to  put  his  tools  in,  and  screen  him- 
self against  showers.  What  peaceable  simplicity  !  Is  it  peace  of 
a  Father  restored  to  his  children  ?  Or  of  a  Taskmaster  who  has 
lost  his  whip  ?  Lafayette  and  the  Municipality  and  universal  Con- 
stitutionalism assert  the  former,  and  do  what  is  in  them  to  reahse 
it.  Such  Patriotism  as  snarls  dangerously,  and  shows  teeth,  Pat- 
rollotism  shall  suppress  ;  or  far  better.  Royalty  shall  soothe  down 
the  angry  hair  of  it,  by  gentle  pattings  ;  and,  most  effectual  of  all, 
by  fuller  diet.  Yes,  not  only  shall  Paris  be  fed,  but  the  King's 
hand  be  seen  in  that  work.  The  household  goods  of  the  Poor 
shall,  up  to  a  certain  amou«t,  by  royal  bounty,  be  disengaged 
from  pawn,  and  that  insatiable  Mont  de  Pictc  disgorge  :  rides  in 
the  city  with  their  vive-le-roi  need  not  fail ;  and  so  by  substance 


*  Arthur  Young's  Travels,  i.  264-380. 


IN  THE  TUILERIES. 


1 


and  show,  shall  Royalty,  if  man's  art  can  popularise  it,  be  popu- 
larised."^ 

Or,  alas,  is  it  neither  restored  Father  nor  diswhipped  Taskmaster 
that  walks  there  ;  but  an  anomalous  complex  of  both  these,  and  of 
innumerable  other  heterogeneities  ;  reducible  to  no  rubric,  if  not 
to  this  newly  devised  one  :  King  Louis  Restorer  of  French 
Liberty  ?  Man  indeed,  and  King  Louis  like  other  men,  lives  in 
this  world  to  mike  rule  out  of  the  ruleless  ;  by  his  living  energy, 
he  shall  force  the  absurd  itself  to  become  less  absurd.  But  then 
if  there  be  no  living 'energy  ;  living  passivity  only  ?  King  Serpent, 
hurled  into  his  unexpected  watery  dominion,  did  at  least  bite,  and 
assert  credibly  that  he  was  there  :  but  as  for  the  poor  King  Log, 
tumbled  hither  and  thither  as  thousandfold  chance  and  other  will 
than  his  might  direct,  how  happy  for  him  that  he  was  indeed 
wooden  ;  and,  doing  nothing,  could  also  see  and  suffer  nothing  ! 
It  is  a  distracted  business. 

For  his  French  Majesty,  meanwhile,  one  of  the  worst  things  is 
that  he  can  get  no  hunting.  Alas,  no  hunting  henceforth  ;  only  a 
fatal  being-hunted  !  Scarcely,  in  the  next  June  weeks,  shall  he 
taste  again  the  joys  of  the  game-destroyer  ;  in  next  June,  and 
never  more.  He  sends  for  his  smith-tools  ;  gives,  in  the  course 
of  the  day,  official  or  ceremonial  business  being  ended,  ^  a  few 
*  strokes  of  the  hie,  q2ielques  coups  de  li^ne.i  Innocent  brother 
mortal,  why  wert  thou  not  an  obscure  substantial  maker  of  locks  ; 
but  doomed  in  that  other  far-seen  craft,  to  be  a  maker  only  of 
world-follies,  unrealities  ;  things  self  destructive^  which  no  mortal 
hammering  could  rivet  into  coherence  ! 

Poor  Louis  is  not  without  insight,  nor  even  without  the  elements 
of  will  ;  some  sharpness  of  temper,  spurting  at  times  from  a 
stagnating  character.  If  harmless  inertness  could  save  him,  it 
were  well  ;  but  he  will  slumber  and  painfully  dream,  and  to  do 
aught  is  not  given  him.  Royahst  Antiquarians  still  shew  the 
rooms  where  Majesty  and  suite,  in  these  extraordinary  circum- 
stances, had  their  lodging.  Here  sat  the  Queen  ;  reading, — for 
she  had  tier  library  brought  hither,  though  the  King  refused  his  ; 
taking  vehement  counsel  of  the  vehement  uncounselled  ;  sorrow- 
ing over  altered  times  ;  yet  with  sure  hope  of  better  :  in  her 
young  rosy  Boy,  has  she  not  the  living  emblem  of  hope  !  It  is  a 
murky,  working  sky  ;  yet  with  golden  gleams — of  dawn,  or  of 
deeper  meteoric  night  ?  Here  again  this  chamber,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  main  entrance,  was  the  King's  :  here  his  Majesty  break- 
fasted, and  did  official  work  ;  here  daily  after  breakfast  he  re- 
ceived the  Queen  ;  sometimes  in  pathetic  friendliness  ;  sometimes 
in  human  sulkiness,  for  flesh  is  weak  ;  and,  when  questioned  about 
business  would  answer :  "  Madame,  your  business  is  with  the 
children."  Nay,  Sire,  were  it  not  better  you,  your  Majesty's 
self,  took  the  children  So  asks  impartial  History  ;  scornful  that 
the  thicker  vessel  was  not  also  the  stronger ;  pity-struck  for  the 

*  Deux  Amis,  iii.  c.  lo. 

+  Le  Chateau  des  TuilerieSf  ou  ricit,  &c.,  par  Roussel  (in  Hist.  Par/,  i?; 
195-219). 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


porcelain-clay  of  humanity  rather  than  for  the  tile-clay,— though 
indeed  doth  were  broken  !  ■ 

So,  however,  in  this  Medicean  Tuileries,  shall  the  French  King 
and  Queen  now  sit,  for  one-and-forty  months  ;  and  see  a  wildf 
fermenting  France  work  out  its  own  destiny,  and  theirs.  Months 
bleak,  ungenial,  of  rapid  vicissitude  ;  yet  with  a  mild  pale  splen- 
dour, here  and  there  :  as  of  an  April  that  were  leading  to  leafiest 
Summer  ;  as  of  an  October  that  led  only  to  ^everlasting  Frost. 
Medicean  Tuileries,  how  changed  since  it  was  a  peaceful  Tile  field  ! 
Or  is  the  ground  itself  fate-stricken,  accursed  :  an  Atreus'  Palace  ; 
for  that  Louvre  window  is  still  nigh,  out  of  which  a  Capet,  whipt 
of  the  Furies,  fired  his  signal  of  the  Saint  Bartholomew  !  Dark 
is  the  way  of  the  Eternal  as  mirrored  in  this  world  of  Time : 
God's  v/ay  is  in  the  sea,  and  His  path  in  the  great  deep. 


CHAPTER  II. 

IN  THE  SALLE  DE  MANEGE. 

To  believing  Patriots,  however,  it  is  now  clear,  that  the  Con- 
stitution will  march,  marcher, — had  it  once  legs  to  stand  on.  v 
Quick,  then,  ye  Patriots,  bestir  yourselves,  and  make  it ;  shape 
legs  for  it  !  In  the  Archeveche,  or  Archbishop's  Palace,  his  Grace 
himself  having  fled  ;  and  afterw^ards  in  the  Riding-hall,  named 
Manege,  close  on  the  Tuileries  :  there  does  a  National  Assembly 
appivltself  to  the  miraculous  w^ork.  Successfully,  had  there  been 
any  'heaven-scaling  Prometheus  among  them  ;  not  successfully 
since  there  was  none  !  There,  in  noisy  debate,  for  the  sessions 
are  occasionally  '  scandalous,'  and  as  many  as  three  speakers  have 
been  seen  in  the  Tribune  at  once,— let  us  continue  to  fancy  it 
wearing  the  slow  months. 

Tough,  dogmatic,  long  of  wind  is  Abbe  Maury  ;  Ciceronian 
pathetic  is  Caz;i]cs.  Keen-trenchant,  on  the  other  side,  glitters  a 
young  P;irn;u'c  ;  p.l^liorrent  of  sophistry  ;  sheering,  like  keen 
Damascus  sal)rc,  al!  sophistry  asunder, --reckless  what  else  he 
sheer  with  it.  Simple  sc(Miies1  thou,  O  solid  Dutch-built  Petion  ; 
if  solid,  surely  dull.  Nor  liic:gi\  ing  in  that  tone  of  thine,  liveher 
polemical  Rabaut.  With  inclfabie  serenity  sniffs  great  Sieyes, 
aloft,  alone  ;  his  Constitution  ye  may  babble  over,  ye  may  mar,, 
but  can  by  no  possibility  mend  :  is  not  Polity  a  science  he  has  ex- 
hausted .'^  Cool,  slow,  two  military  Lameths  arc  visible,  with  their 
quality  sneer,  or  demi-sncer  ;  they  shall  gallantly  refund  their 
Mother's  Pension,  when  the  Red  Book  is  produced  ;  gallantly  be 
wounded  in  duels.  A  Marquis  Toulongeon,  whose  Pen  we  yet 
thank,  sits  there  ;  in  stoical  meditative  Jiumour,  oftenest  silent, 
accepts  v/hat  destiny  will  send.  Thouret  and  Parlementary 
Duport  produce  mountains  of  Reformed  Law ;  liberal,  Anglo* 


IN  THE  SALLE  DE  MANEGE. 


9 


maniac  :  available  and  unavailable.  Mortals  rise  and  fall.  Shall 
goose  Gobel,  for  example, -  or  Gobel,  for  he  is  of  Strasburg  Ger- 
man breed,  be  a  Constitutional  Archljishop? 

Alone  of  all  men  there,  Mirabeau  may  begin  to  discern  clearly 
whither  all  this  is  tending.  Patriotism,  accordingly,  regrets  that 
his  zeal  seems  to  be  getting  cool.  In  that  famed  Pentecost-Night 
of  the  Fourth  of  August,  when  new  Faith  rose  suddenly  into 
miraculous  fire,  and  old  Feudality  was  burnt  up,  men  remarked 
that  r*lirabeau  took  no  hand  in  it  ;  that,  in  fact,  he  luckily  hap= 
pened  to  be  absent.  But  did  he  not  defend  the  Veto,  nay  Veto 
A.bsolu J  and  tell  vehement  Barnave  that  six  hundred  irespon- 
sible  senators  would  make  of  all  tyrannies  the  insupportablest  ? 
Again^  how  anxious  was  he  that  the  King's  Ministers  shoi.jd  have 
seat  and  voice  in  the  National  Assembly  ;— doubtless  with  an  eye 
to  being  Minister  himself  !  Whereupon  the  National  Assembly 
decides,  what  is  very  momentous,  that  no  Deputy  shall  be  Minis- 
ter ;  he,  in  his  haughty  stormful  manner,  advising  us  to  make  it, 
*no  Deputy  called  Mirabeau.'^  A  man  of  perhaps  inveterate 
Feudalisms  ;  of  stratagems  ;  too  often  visible  leanings  towards  the 
Royalist  side  :  a  man  suspect ;  whom  Patriotism  will  unmask  ! 
Thus,  in  these  June  days,  when  the  question  Who  shall  have  right 
to  declare  war  f  comes  on,  you  hear  hoarse  Hawkers  sound  dole- 
fully through  the  streets,  "  Grand  Treason  of  Count  Mirabeau, 
price  only  one  sou  ;  " — because  he  pleads  that  it  shall  be  not  the 
Assembly  but  the  King  !  Pleads  ;  nay  prevails  :  for  in  spite  of 
the  hoarse  Hawkers,  and  an  endless  Populace  raised  by  them  to 
the  pitch  even  of  ^  Lanterned  he  mounts  the  Tribune  next  day  ; 
grim-resolute  ;  murmuring  aside  to  his  friends  that  speak  of  dangcw  : 
"  I  know  it  :  I  must  come  hence  either  in  triumph,  or  else  torn  in 
fragments  ; "  and  it  was  in  triumph  that  he  came. 

A  man  stout  of  heart  ;  whose  popularity  is  not  of  the  populace, 
^  pas  popzilaciere /  whom  no  clamour  of  unwashed  mobs  without 
doors,  or  of  washed  mobs  within,  can  scare  from  his  way  !  Dumont 
remembers  hearing  him  deliver  a  Report  on  Marseilles  ;  '  every 
^  word  was  interrupted  on  the  part  of  the  Cote  Droit  by  abusive 
^  epithets  ;  calumniator,  liar,  assassin,  scoundrel  [scelerat)  :  Mira- 
*  beau  pauses  a  moment,  and,  in  a  honeyed  tone,  addressing  the 
^  most  furious,  says  :  "  1  wait.  Messieurs,  till  these  amenities  be 
'  exhausted."  '  f  A  man  enigmatic,  difficult  to  unmask  !  For  ex- 
ample, whence  comes  his  money  ?  Can  the  profit  of  a  Newspaper, 
sorely  eaten  into  by  Dame  Fe  Jay  ;  can  this,  and  the  eighteen 
francs  a-day  your  National  Deputy  has,  be  supposed  equal  to  this 
expenditure?  House  in  the  Chaussee  d'Antin  ;  Country-house  at 
Argenteuil ;  splendours,  sumptuosities,  orgies  ; — living  as  if  he  had 
a  mint !  All  saloons  barred  against  Adventurer  Mirabeau,  are 
flung  wide  open  to  King  Mirabeau,  the  cynosure  of  Europe,  whom 
female  France  flutters  to  behold,— though  the  Man  Mirabeau  is 
one  and  the  same.   As  for  money,  one  may  conjecture  that  Royal- 

*  Moniienr,  Nos.  65.  86  (29th  September,  7th  November,  1789. 
f  Dumont,  Sunvcmrs,  p.  278. 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


ism  furnishes  it ;  /hich  if  Royalism  do,  will  not  the  same  be  weL 
comPj  as  money  always  is  to  him  ? 

\  Sold/  whatever  Patriotism  thinks,  he  cannot  readily  be  :  the 
spirituc.  f^^e  wi  -^ch  Is  in  that  man  ;  which  shining  through  such 
corx..;sio  v.  is  nevertheless  Conviction,  rj- 1  makes  him  strong,  and 
with.:ut  ./aich  he  had  no  strength,— is  not  buyable  nor  saleable  : 
in  cuch  transference  of  barter,  it  would  vanish  and  not  be.  Per- 
ha  .;  s  V-.)a  .d  /md  not  '^oXd.^paye  pes  vendu  :  as  poor  Rivarol,  in  the 
unhappi£&?v  converse  way,  calls  himself '  sold  and  not  paid  ! '  A 
man  irCT:41iB^^.  comet-like,  in  splendour  and  nebulosity,  his  wild 
way Z!--mn  telescopic  Patriotism  may  long  watch,  but,  without 
higher  mathematics,  will  not  make  out.  A  questionable  most 
blanieable  man  ;  yet  to  us  the  far  notablest  of  all.  With  rich 
munificence,  as  we  often  say,  in  a  most  blinkard,  bespectacled, 
logic-chopping  generation,  Nature  has  gifted  this  man  with  an  eye. 
Wei  om_:  is  his  word,  cber:  where  he  speaks  and  works;  and 
growing  ever  welcomer  ;  ic  •  it  r.Ione  goes  to  the  heart  of  the  busi- 
ness :  logice  cobwebbery  shrinks  itself  together  ;  and  thou  seest  a 
t/tmg^  how  i:  s,  how  it  may  be  worked  with. 

Unhappily  our  National  Assembly  has  much  to  do :  a  France  to 
regencin^s  nd  France  is  short  of  so  many  requisites;  short  even 
of  cash!  '^hcse  same  Finances  give  trouble  enough;  no  chcking 
of  the  Deficit  ;  which  gapes  ever,  Gz're,  f^ive  I  To  appease  the 
Deficit  v.C;  venture  on  a  hazardous  step,  sale  of  the  Clergy's  Lands 
and  superfluous  iCdifices  ;  most  hazardous.  Nay,  given  the  sale, 
who  i3  to  buy  them,  ready-money  having  fled?  Wherefore,  on  the 
19th  day  of  December,  a  paper-money  of  '  Assignats^  of  Bonds 
secured,  or  assi^ned^  on  that  Clerico- National  Property,  and  un- 
questionable at  least  in  payment  of  that, — is  decreed  :  the  first  of 
a  long  series  of  like  financial  performances,  which  shall  astonish 
mankind.  So  that  now,  while  old  rags  last,  there  shall  be  no  lack 
of  circulating  medium  ;  whether  of  commodities  to  circulate  thereon 
is  another  question.  But,  after  all,  does  not  this  Assignat  business 
speak  volumes  for  modern  science  1  Bankruptcy,  we  may  say, 
was  come,  as  the  end  of  all  Delusions  needs  must  come  :  yet  how 
gently,  in  softening  diffusion,  in  mild  succession,  was  it  hereby 
made  to  fall  ; — like  no  all-destroying  avalanche  ;  like  gentle 
showers  of  a  powdery  impalpable  snow,  shower  after  shower,  till  all 
was  indeed  buried,  and  yet  little  was  destroyed  that  could  not  be 
replaced,  be  dispensed  with  !  To  such  length  has  modern  machi- 
nery reached.  Bankruptcy,  we  said,  was  great ;  but  indeed  Money 
itself  is  a  standing  miracle. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  a  matter  of  endless  difficulty,  that  of  the 
Clergy.  Clerical  property  may  be  made  the  Nation's^  and  the 
Clergy  hired  servants  of  the  State  ;  but  if  so,  is  it  not  an  altered 
Church  1  Adjustment  enough,  of  the  most  confused  sort,  has  be- 
come unavoidable.  Old  landmarks,  in  any  sense,  avail  not  in  a 
new  P>ance.  Nay  literally,  the  very  (Jround  is  new  divided ; 
your  old  party-coloured  Provinces  become  new  uniform  Depart- 
me7ils,  Eighty-three  in  number ; — whereby,  as  in  some  sudden 


IN  THE  SALLE  DE  MENEGE. 


II 


shifting  of  the  Earth's  axis,  no  mortal  knows  his  new  latitude  at 
once.  The  Twelve  old  Parlements  too,  what  is  to  be  done  with 
them  ?  The  old  Parlements  are  declared  to  be  all  '  in  permanent 
'  vacation,'--till  once  the  new  equal-justice,  of  DeiDartmental 
Courts,  National  Appeal-Court,  of  elective  Justices,  Justices  oi 
Peace,  and  other  Thouret-and-Duport  apparatus  be  got  ready. 
They  have  to  sit  there,  these  old  Parlements,  uneasily  waiting  ;  as 
it  were,  with  the  rope  round  their  neck  ;  crying  as  they  can.  Is 
there  none  to  deliverus?  But  happily  the  answer  being.  No7te, 
none,  they  are  a  manageable  class,  these  Parlements.  They  can 
be  bullied,  even  into  silence  ;  the  Paris  Parliament,  v/iser  than 
most,  has  never  whimpered.  They  will  and  must  sit  there  ;  in 
such  vacation  as  is  fit  ;  their  Chamber  of  Vacation  distributes  in 
the  interim  what  little  justice  is  going.  With  the  rope  round 
their  neck,  their  destiny  may  be  succinct  !  On  the  13th  of 
November  1790,  Mayor  Baiily  shall  walk  to  the  Palais  de  Justice, 
few  even  heeding  him  ;  and  with  municipal  seal-stamp  and  a  little 
hot  wax,  seal  up  the  Parlementary  Paper-rooms, — and  the  dread 
Pariement  of  Paris  pass  away,  into  Chaos,  gently  as  does  a 
Dream  !  So  shall  the  Parlements  perish,  succinctly  ;  and  innumer- 
able eyes  be  dry. 

Not  so  the  Clergy.  For  granting  even  that  Religion  were  dead  ; 
that  it  had  died,  half-centuries  ago,  with  unutterable  Dubois  ;  or 
emigrated  lately,  to  Alsace,  with  Necklace-Cardinal  Rohan  ;  or 
that  it  now  walked  as  goblin  revenajit  with  Bishop  Talleyrand 
of  Autun  ;  yet  does  not  the  Shadow  of  Religion,  the  Cant  of 
Religion,  still  linger  ?  The  Clergy  have  means  and  material  : 
means,  of  number,  organization,  social  weight  ;  a  material,  at 
lowest,  of  public  ignorance,  known  to  be  the  mother  of  devotion. 
Nay,  withal,  is  it  incredible  that  there  might,  in  simple  hearts, 
latent  here  and  there  like  gold-grains  in  the  mud-beach,  still  dwell 
some  real  Faith  in  God,  of  so  singular  and  tenacious  a  sort  that 
even  a  Maury  or  a  Talleyrand,  could  still  be  the  symbol  for  it  ?— 
Enough,  the  Clergy  has  strength,  the  Clergy  has  craft  and  indig- 
nation. It  is  a  most  fatal  business  this  of  the  Clergy.  A  welter- 
ing hydra-coil,  which  the  National  Assembly  has  stirred  up  about 
its  ears  ;  hissing,  stinging:  which  cannot  be  appeased,  alive; 
vyhich  cannot  iDe  trampled  dead  !  Fatal,  from  first  to  last  \ 
Scarcely  after  fifteen  months'  debating,  can  a  Civil  Constitution 
of  the  Clergy  be  so  much  as  got  to  paper  ;  and  then  for  getting  it 
into  reality  ^  Alas,  such  Civil  Constitution  is  but  an  agreement  to 
disagree.  It  divides  France  from  end  to  end,  with  a  new  split, 
infinitely  comphcating  all  the  other  splits  ;— Catholicism,  what  of 
it  diere  is  left,  with  the  Cant  of  Catholicism,  raging  on  the 
one  side,  and  sceptic  Heathenism  on  the  other  ;  both,  by  contra- 
diction, waxing  fanatic.  What  endless  jarring,  of  Refractory 
hated  Priests,  and  Constitutional  despised  ones  ;  of  tender  con- 
sciences, like  the  King's,  and  consciences  hot-seared,  like  cer- 
tain of  his  People's  :  the  whole  to  end  in  Feasts  of  Reason  and 
a  War  of  La  Vendee  !  So  deep-seated  is  Religion  in  the  heart 
of  man,  and  holds  of  all  infinite  paasions.    If  the  dead  echo 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


of  it  still  did  so  much,  what  could  not  the  living  voice  of  it  once 
do? 

Finance  and  Constitution,  Law  and  Gospel  :  this  surely  were  : 
work  enough  ;   yet  this  is  not  all.    In  fact,  the  Ministry,  and  ■ 
Necker  himself  whom  a  brass  inscription  'fastened  by  the  people  i 
'over  his  door-linter  testifies  to  be  the  '  Mmistre  adore^  are  ! 
dwindling  into  clearer  and  clearer  nullity.    Execution  or  legisla- 
tion, arrangement  or  detail,  from  their  nerveless  fingers  all  drops ; 
undone  ;  all  lights  at  last  on  the  toiled  shoulders  of  an  august 
Representative  Body.    Heavy-laden  National  Assembly  !    It  has' 
to  hear  of  innumerable  fresh  revolts.  Brigand  expeditions ;  of 
Chateaus  in  the  West,  especially  of  Charter-chests,  Chartiers^  set 
on  fire  ;  for  there  too  the  overloaded  Ass  frightfully  recalcitrates.  | 
Of  Cities  in  the  South  full  of  heats  and  jealousies  ;  which  will, 
end  in  crossed  sabres,  Marseilles  against  Toulon,  and  Carpentras 
beleagured  by  Avignon  ; — such  Royalist  collision  in  a  career  of 
Freedom  ;  nay  Patriot  collision,  which  a  mere  difiference  of  velo- 
city will  bring  about  !    Of  a  Jourdan  Coup-tete,  who  has  skulked 
thitherward,  from  the  claws  of  the  Chatelet ;  and  will  raise  whole 
scoundrel-regiments.  > 

Also  it  has  to  hear  of  Royalist  Camp  of  J  ales  :  Jales  mountain- i 
girdled  Plain,  amid  the  rocks  of  the  Cevennes  ;  whence  Royahsm,; 
as  is  feared  and  hoped,  may  dash  down  like  a  mountain  deluge,' 
and  submerge  France  !  A  singular  thing  this  camp  of  Jales  ;  i 
existing  mcstly  on  paper.  For  the  Soldiers  at  Jales,  being  pea- ; 
sants  or  National  Guards,  were  in  heart  sworn  Sansculottes  ;  and 
ail  that  the  Royalist  Captains  could  do  was,  with  false  words,  to 
keep  them,  or  rather  keep  the  report  of  them,  drawn  up  there, 
visible  to  all  imaginations,  for  a  terrc.-  and  a  sign, — if  peradven- 
ture  France  might  be  reconquered  by  theatrical  machinery,  by  the 
picture  of  a  Royalist  Army  done  to  the  life  I"^'  Not  till  the  third  sum- 
mer was  this  portent,  burning  out  by  fits  and  then  fading,  got  finally 
extinguished  ;  was  the  old  Castle  of  Jales,  no  Camp  being  visible 
to  the  bodily  eye,  got  blown  asunder  by  some  National  Guards. 

Also  it  has  to  hear  not  only  of  Brissot  and  his  Friends  of  the 
Blacks^  but  by  and  by  of  a  whole  St.  Domingo  blazing  skyward  ; 
blazing  in  hteral  fire,  and  in  far  worse  metaphorical  ;  beaconing 
the  nightly  main.  Also  of  the  shipping  interest,  and  the  landed- 
interest,  and  all  manner  of  interests,  reduced  to  distress.  Of  In- 
dustry every  where  manacled,  bewildered  ;  and  only  Rebellion 
thriving.  Of  sub-officers,  soldiers  and  sailors  in  mutiny  by  land 
and  water.  Of  soldiers,  at  Nanci,  as  we  shall  see,  needing  to  be 
cannonaded  by  a  brave  Bouilld.  Of  sailors,  nay  the  very  galley- 
slaves,  at  Brest,  needing  also  to  be  cannonaded  ;  but  with  no 
Bouille  to  do  it.  For  indeed,  to  say  it  in  a  word,  in  those  days 
there  was  no  Ki^ii!;  in  Israel,  and  every  man  did  that  which  was 
right  in  his  own  eyes.f 

*  Dam [) martin,  Ev&ncmcns,  i.  208. 

t  See  Deux  Amis,  iii.  c.  14;  iv.  c.  2,  3,  4,  7,  9,  14.  Expedition  de.s  Voloit' 
iaires  de  Brest  sur  lAxnnion ;  Les  Lyo7niais  Sauveurs  des  Dauphinois; 
Massacre  au  Mails ;  Troubles  du  Ma  rue  (I^amphlcts  and  Kxccrpts,  in  Hist* 
Part.  iii.  251  ;  iv.  162-168),  &c. 


IN  THE  SALLE  DE  MENEGE, 


13 


Such  things  has  an  august  National  Assembly  to  hear  of,  as  it 
goes  on  regenerating  France.  Sad  and  stern  :  but  what  remedy? 
Get  the  Constitution  ready  ;  and  all  men  will  swear  to  it  :  for  do 
not  *  Addresses  of  adhesion'  arrive  by  the  cartload?  In  this 
manner,  by  Heaven's  blessing,  and  a  Constitution  got  ready,  shall 
the  bottomless  fire-gulf  be  vaulted  in,  with  rag-paper  ;  and  Order 
will  wed  Freedom,  and  live  with  her  there,— till  it  grow  too  hot 
for  them.  O  Cote  Gauche,  worthy  are  ye,  as  the  adhesive  Ad- 
dresses generally  say,  to  '  fix  the  regards  of  the  Universe  ; '  the 
regards  of  this  one  poor  Planet,  at  lowest  ! — 

Nay,  it  must  be  owned,  the  Cote  Droit  makes  a  still  madder 
figure.  An  irrational  generation  ;  irrational,  imbecile,  and  with 
the  vehement  obstinacy  characteristic  of  that ;  a  generation  which 
will  not  learn.  Falhng*  Bastilles,  Insurrections  of  Women,  thou- 
sands of  smoking  Manorhouses,  a  country  bristling  with  no  crop 
but  that  of  Sansculottic  steel  :  these  were  tolerably  didactic 
lessons ;  but  them  they  have  not  taught.  There  are  still  men,  of 
whom  it  was  of  old  written,  Bray  them  in  a  mortar  !  Or,  in 
milder  language,  They  have  wedded  their  delusions  :  fire  nor  steel, 
nor  any  sharpness  of  Experience,  shall  sever  the  bond  ;  till  death 
do  us  part  !  Of  such  may  the  Heavens  have  mercy  ;  for  the 
Earth,  with  her  rigorous  Necessity,  will  have  none. 

Admit,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  most  natural.  Man  lives  by 
Hope  :  Pandora  when  her  box  of  gods'-gifts  flew  all  out,  and 
became  gods'-curses,  still  retained  Hope.  How  shall  an  irra- 
tional mortal,  when  his  high-place  is  never  so  evidently  pulled 
down,  and  he,  being  irrational,  is  left  resourceless, — part  with  the 
behef  that  it  will  be  rebuilt  ?  It  would  make  all  so  straight  again  ; 
it  seems  ,so  unspeakably  desirable  ;  so  reasonable, — would  you 
but  look  at  it  aright  !  For,  must  not  the  thing  which  was  continue 
to  be  ;  or  else  the  sohd  World  dissolve  ?  Yes,  persist,  O  infatuated 
Sansculottes  of  France  !  Revolt  against  constituted  Authorities  ; 
hunt  out  your  rightful  Seigneurs,  who  at  bottom  so  loved  you,  and 
readily  shed  their  blood  for  you, — in  country's  battles  as  at  Ross- 
bach  and  elsewhere  ;  and,  even  in  preserving  game,  were  preserv- 
ing you,  could  ye  but  have  understood  it  :  hunt  them  out,  as  if 
they  were  wild  wolves  ;  set  fire  to  their  Chateaus  and  Chartiers 
as  to  wc4f-dens  ;  and  what  then  ?  Why,  then  turn  every  man  his 
hand  against  his  fellow  !  In  confusion,  famine,  desolation,  regret 
the  days  that  are  gone  ;  rueful  recall  them,  recall  us  with  them. 
To  repentant  prayers  we  will  not  be  deaf. 

So,  with  dimmer  or  clearer  consciousness,  must  the  Right  Side 
reason  and  act.  An  inevitable  position  perhaps  ;  but  a  most  false 
one  for  them.  Evil,  be  thou  our  good  :  this  henceforth  must 
virtually  be  their  prayer.  The  fiercer  the  effervescence  grows,  the 
sooner  will  it  pass  ;  for  after  all  it  is  but  some  mad  effervescence  ; 
the  World  is  solid,  and  cannot  dissolve. 

For  the  rest,  if  they  have  any  positive  industry,  it  is  that  of 
plots,  and  backstairs  conclaves.  Plots  which  cannot  be  executed  ; 
which  are  mostly  theoretic  on  their  part ; — for  which  nevertheless 
this  and  the  other  practical  Sieur  Augeard,  Sieur  Maillebois,  Sieur 


14 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


Bonne  Savardin,  gets  into  trouble,  gets  imprisoned,  and  escapes  1 
with  difficulty.    Na5^  there  is  a  poor  practical  Chevalier  Favras  ] 
who,  not  without  some  passing  reflex  on  Monsieur  himself,  gets  \ 
hanged  for  them,  amid  loud  uproar  of  the  world.    Poor  Favras,  | 
he  keeps  dictating  his  last  will  at  the  '  H6tel-de-Ville,  through  the  i 
'  whole  remainder  of  the  day,'  a  weary  February  day  ;  offers  to  j 
reveal  secrets,  if  they  will  save  him  ;  handsomely  dechnes  since  ' 
they  will  not ;  then  dies,  in  the  flare  of  torchlight,  with  >politest 
composure  ;  remarking,  rather  than  exclaiming,  with  outspread  , 
hands  :  "  People,  I  die  innocent ;  pray  for  me.*'^    Poor.  Favras 
type  of  so  much  that  has  prowled  indefatigable  over  France,  in  ' 
days  now  ending  ;  and,  in  freer  field,  might  have  earned  instead  ' 
of  prowling,— to  thee  it  is  no  theory  !  , 
In  the  Senate-house  again,  the  attitude  of  the  Right  Side  is  that 
of  calm  unbehef.    Let  an  august  National  Assembly  make  a, 
Fourth-of- August  Abolition  of  Feudality ;   declare  the    ClSrgy  / 
State-servants  who  shall  have  wages  ;  vote  Suspensive  Vetos,  new  ^ 
Law-Courts  ;  vote  or  decree  what  contested  thing  it  will  ;  have  it 
responded  to  from  the  four  corners  of  France,  nay  get  King's  : 
Sanction,  and  what  other  Acceptance  were  conceivable,— the 
Right  Side,  as  we  find,  persists,  with  imperturbablest  tenacity,  in  ^ 
considering,  and  ever  and  anon  shews  that  it  still  considers,  all  ■ 
these  so-called  Decrees  as  mere  temporar^T whims,  which  indeed  f 
stand  on  paper,  but  in  practice  and  fact  are  not,  and  cannot  be.  \ 
Figure  the  brass  head  of  an  Abbe  Maury  flooding  forth  Jesuitic  | 
eloquence  in  this  strain  ;  dusky  d'Esprem^nil,  Barrel  Mirabeau  i 
(probably  in  liquor),  and  enough  of  others,  cheering  him  frorn  thC  ': 
Right ;  and,  for  example,  with  what  visage  a  seagreen  Robespierre? 
eyes  him  from  the  Left.    And  how  Sieyes  ineffably  sniffs  on  him, 
or  does  not  deign  to  sniff ;  and  how  the  Galleries  groan  in  spirit, 
or  bark  rabid  on  him  :  so  that  to  escape  the  Lanterne,  on  stepping 
forth,  he  needs  presence  of  mind,  and  a  pair  of  pistols  in  his  girdle  ! 
For  he  is  one  of  the  toughest  of  men. 

Here  indeed  becomes  notable  one  great  difference  between  our 
two  kinds  of  civil  war  ;  between  the  modern  lingual  or  Parlia- 
mentary-logical kind,  and  the  ancient,  or  rnamml  kind,  in  the  steel 
battle-field  ;— much  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  former.  In  the 
manual  kind,  where  you  front  your  foe  with  drawn  weapon,  one 
right  stroke  is  final  ;  lor,  physically  speaking,  when  the  brains  are 
out  the  man  does  honestly  die,  and  trouble  you  no  more.  But 
how  diff"erent  when  it  is  with  arguments  you  fight!  Here  no  vic- 
tory yet  definable  can  be  considered  as  final.  Beat  him  down, 
with  Parliamentary  invective,  till  sense  be  fled  ;  cut  him  in  two, 
hanging  one  half  in  this  dilemma-horn,  the  other  on  that  ;  blow 
the  brains  or  thinking-faculty  quite  out  of  him  for  the  time  :  it 
skills  not  ;  he  rallies  ^and  revives  on  the  morrow;  to-morrow  he 
repairs  his  golden  fires  !  The  thing  that  will  logically  extinguish  i 
him  is  pcrluips  still  a  desideratum  in  Constitutional  civilisation,  j 
For  how,  till  a  man  know,  in  some  measure,  at  what  point  he  be- 


*  See  Deux  Amis,  iv.  c.  14,  7  ;  Hist,  PafL  vi.  384* 


IN  THE  SALLE  DE  MANEGE. 


eomes  logically  defunct,  can  Parliamentary  Business  be  carried  on, 
and  Talk  ceaso  or  slaL:  ? 

Doubtless  it  was  some  feeling  of  this  difficulty  ;  and  the  clear 
insight  how  little  such  knowledge  yet  existed  in  the  French  Nation, 
new  ia  the  Constitutional  career,  and  how  defunct  Aristocrats 
would  continue  to  walk  for  unlimited  periods,  as  Partridge  the 
Almanack-maker  did, — that  had  sunk  into  the  deep  mind  of  Peo- 
ple's-friend  Marat,  an  eminently  practical  mind  ;  and  had  grown 
there,  in  that  richest  putrescent  soil,  into  the  most  original  plan  cf 
action  ever  submitted  to  a  People.  Not  yet  has  it  grown ;  but  it 
has  germinated,  it  is  growing  ;  rooting  itself  into  Tartarus,  branch- 
ing towards  Heaven  :  the  second  season  hence,  we  shall  see  it 
risen  out  of  the  bottomless  IDarkness,  full-grown,,  into  disastrous 
Twilight, — a  Hemlock-trefc,  great  as  the  world;  on  or  under  whose 
boughs  all  the  People's-friends  of  the  world  may  lodge.  ^  Two 
'  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  Aristocrat  heads  : '  that  is  the  pre- 
cisest  calculation,  though  one  would  not  stand  on  a  few  hundreds  ; 
yet  we  never  rise  as  high  as  the  round  three  hundred  thou- 
sand. Shudder  at  it,  O  People  ;  but  it  is  as  true  as  that  ye  your- 
selves, and  your  People's-friend,  are  alive.  These  prating  Sen- 
ators of  yours  hover  ineffectual  on  the  barren  letter,  and  will 
never  save  the  Revolution.  A  Cassandra- Marat  cannot  do  it, 
with  his  single  shrunk  arm  ;  but  with  a  few  determined  men  it 
were  possible.  "  Give  me,"  said  the  People's-friend,  in  his  cold 
way,  when  young  Barbaroux,  once  his  pupil  in  a  course  of  what 
was  called  Optics,  went  to  see  him,  Give  me  two  hundred  Naples 
Bravoes,  armed  each  with  a  good  dirk,  and  a  muff  on  his  left  arm 
by  way  of  shield  :  with  them  I  will  traverse  France,  and  accom- 
plish the  Revolution."^  Nay,  be  grave,  young  Barbaroux ;  for 
thou  seest,  there  is  no  jesting  in  those  rheumy  eyes  ;  in  that  soot- 
bleared  figure,  most  earnest  of  created  things  ;  neither  indeed  is 
there  madness,  of  the  strait-waistcoat  sort. 

Such  produce  shall  the  Time  ripen  in  cavernous  Marat,  the  man 
Torbid  ;  living  in  Paris  cellars,  lone  as  fanatic  Anchorite  in  his 
tThebaid  ;  say,  as  far-seen  Simon  on  his  Pillar,— taking  peculiar 
i  views  therefrom.  Patriots  may  smile  ;  and,  using  him  as  bandog 
now  to  be  muzzled,  now  to  be  let  bark,  name  him,  as  Desmoulins 
does,  'Maximum  of  Patriotism '  and  'Cassandra-Marat:'  but 
;  were  it  not  singular  if  this  dirk-and-muff  plan  of  his  (with  super- 
I  ficial  modifications)  proved  to  be  precisely  the  plan  adopted  1 
I  After  this  manner,  in  these  circumstances,  do  august  Senators 
l.regenerate  France.  Nay,  they  are,  in  very  deed,  believed  to  be  re- 
I  generating  it  ;  on  account  of  which  great  fact,  main  fact  of  their 
'  history,  the  wearied  eye  can  never  be  permitted  wholly  to  ignore 
;  them. 

[  But  looking  away  now^  from  these  precincts  of  the  Tuileries, 
[  where  Constitutional  Royalty,  let  Lafayette  water  it  as  he  will,  lan- 
I  guishes  too  like  a  cut  branch  ;  and  august  Senators  are  perhaps  at 
i  bottom  only  perfecting  their  '  theory  of  defective  verbs,' — how  does 
the  young  Reality,  young  Sansculottism  thrive  The  attentive  ob- 
*  Mdmoires  de  Barbaroux  (Paris,  1822),  p.  57. 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


server  can  answer:  It  thrives  bravely;  putting  forth  new  buds; 
expanding  the  old  buds  into  leaves,  into  boughs.  Is  not  French 
Existence,  as  before,  most  prurient,  dM  loosened,  most  nutrient  for 
it?  Sansculottism  has  the  property  of  growing  by  what  other- 
things  die  of :  by  agitation,  contention,  disarrangement ;  nay,  in  a 
word,  by  what  is  the  symbol  and  fruit  of  all  these :  Hunger. 

In  such  a  France  as  this,  Hunger,  as  we  have  remarked,  can 
hardly  fail.    The  Provinces,  the  Southern  Cities  feel  it  in  their 
turn  ;  and  what  it  brings:  Exasperation,  preternatural  Suspicion* 
In  Paris  some  halcyon  days  of  abundance  followed  the  Menadic  , 
Insurrection,  with  its  Versailles  grain-carts,  and  recovered  Re- 
storer of  Liberty  ;  but  they  could  not  continue.    The  month  is  ^ 
still  October  when  famishing  Saint- Antoine,  in  a  moment  of  ; 
passion,  seizes  a  poor  Baker,  innocent  *  Francois  the  Baker  ;'*  and  J 
hangs  him,  in  Constantinople  wise  ;  -  but  even  this,  singular  as  it  ' 
may  seem,  does  not  cheapen  bread !    Too  clear  it  is,  no  Royal 
bounty,  no  Municipal  dexterity  can  adequately  feed  a  Bastile- 
destroying  Paris.    Wherefore,  on  view  of  the  hanged  Baker,  Con-  , 
stitutionalism  in  sorrow  and  anger  dem.ands  *  Loi  Martiale'  a  • 
kind  of  Riot  Act ;    and  indeed  gets  it,  most  readily,  almost  be-  : 
fore  the  sun  goes  down. 

This  is  that  famed  Martial  Law,  with  its  Red  Flag,  its  '  Dra-  ] 
' peau  Rouge'!  in  virtue  of  which  Mayor  Bailly, or  any  Mayor,  has  ■ 
but  henceforth  to  hang  out  that  new  Oriflainme  of  his  ;  then  to 
read  or  mumble  something  about  the  King's  peace ;  and,  after  cer-  | 
tain  pauses,  serve  any  undispersing  Assemblage  with  musket-shot,  { 
or  whatever  shot  will  disperse  it.    A  decisive  Law  ;  and  most  just  \ 
on  one  proviso:  that  all  Patrollotism  be  of  God,  and  all  mob- '| 
assembhng  be  of  the  Devil ;    otherwise  not  so  just.  Mayor  Bailly  I 
be  unwilling  to  use  it !    Hang  not  out  that  new  Oriflamme,y?^2:w 
not  oigold  but  of  the  want  of  gold  !    The  thrice-blessed  Revolu- 
tion is  do7te,  thou  thinkest  }    If  so  it  will  be  well  with  thee. 

But  now  let  no  mortal  say  henceforth  that  an  august  National  ; 
Assembly  wants  riot :  all  it  ever  wanted  was  riot  enough  to  bal- 
ance Court-plotting  ;  all  it  now  wants,  of  Heaven  or  of  Earth,  is 
to  get  its  theory  of  defective  verbs  nerfectcd. 


CHAPTER  in. 

THE  MUSTER. 

With  Famine  and  a  Const-itutional  theory  of  defective  verb: . 
going  on,  all  other  excitement. is  conceivable.  A  universal  shak  - 
ing and  sifting  of  French  Existence  this  is:  in  the  course  ol 
which,  for  one  thing,  what  a  multitude  of  low-lying  figures  an 
sifted  to  the  top,  and  set  busily  to  work  there! 

*2ist  October,  1789  {Mojtiteur,  No.  76X 


THE  MUSTER. 


17 


Dogleech  Marat,  now  far-seen  as  Simon  Stylites,  we  already 
know  ;  him  and  others,  raised  aioft.  The  mere  sample,  these,  of 
what  is  coming,  of  what  continues  coming,  upwards  from  the 
realm  of  Night !— Chaumette,  by  and  by  Anaxagoras  Chaumette, 
one  already  descries:  mellifluous  in  street- gi  oups ;  not  now  a 
sea-boy  on  the  high  and  giddy  mast :  a  mellifluous  tribune  of  the 
common  people,  w4th  long  curling  locks,  on  bourne-^x.o]x^  of  the 
thoroughfares;  able  sub-editor  too;  who  shall  rise— to  the  very 
gallows.  Clerk  Tallien,  he  also  is  become  sub-editor ;  shall 
becom.e  able  editor ;  and  more.  Bibliopolic  Momoro,  Typogra- 
phic Pruhomme  see  new  trades  opening.  Collot  d'Herbois,  tearing 
a  passion  to  rags,  pauses  on  the  Thespian  boards  ;  listens,  with 
that  black  bushy  head,  to  the  sound  of  the  world's  drama  :  shall 
the  Mimetic  become  Real }  Did  ye  hiss  him,  O  men  of  Lyons  }  * 
Better  had  ye  clapped  ! 

Happy  now,  indeed,  for  all  manner  of  ■mi77ietic,  half-original 
men !  Tumid  blustering,  with  more  or  less  of  sincerity,  which 
need  not  be  entirely  sincere,  yet  the  sincerer  the  better,  is  like  to 
go  far.  Shall  we  say,  the  Revolution-element  works  itself  rarer 
and  rarer ;  so  that  only  lighter  and  lighter  bodies  will  float  in  it ; 
till  at  last  the  mere  blown-bladder  is  your  only  swimmer.^ 
Limitation  of  mind,  then  vehemence,  promptitude,  audacity,  shall 
all  be  available ;  to  which  add  only  these  two  :  cunning  and  good 
lungs.  Good  fortune  must  be  presupposed.  Accordingly,  of  all 
classes  the  rising  one,  we  observe,  is  now  the  Attorney  class  • 
witness  Bazires,  Carriers,  Fouquier-Tinvilles,  Bazoche-Captain 
Bourdons :  more  than  enough.  Such  figures  shall  Night,  from 
her  wonder-bearmg  bosom,  emit ;  swarm  after  swarm.  Of  another 
deeper  and  deepest  swarm,  not  yet  dawned  on  the  astonished 
eye;  of  pilfering  Candle-snuffers.  Thief-valets,  disfrocked  Ca- 
puchins, and  so  many  Hebcrts,  Henriots,  Ronsins,  Rossicrnols 
let  us,  as  long  as  possible,  forbear  speaking. 

Thus  over  France,  all  stirs  that  has  what  the  Physiologists  call 
irritabzhty  m  it  :  how  much  more  all  wherein  irritability  has 
perfected  Itself  into  vitality  ;  into  actual  vision,  and  force  that  can 
will!  All  stirs;  and  if  not  in  Paris,  flocks  thither.  Great  and 
'greater  waxes  President  Danton  in  his  Cordeliers  Section  •  his 
rhetorical  tropes  are  all  '  gigantic energy  flashes  from  black 
brows,  menaces  in  his  athletic  figure;  rolls  in  the  sound  of  his 
v-oice  '  reverberating  from  the  domes ;'  this  man  also,  like 
Aiirabeau,  has  a  natural  eye,  and  begins  to  see  whither  Constitu- 
aonahsm  is  tending,  though  with  a  wish  in  it  different  from 
iMirabeau  s. 

Remark,  on  the  other  hand,  how  General  Dumouriez  has  quit- 
-ed  Normandy  and  the  Cherbourg  Breakwater,  to  come— whither 
A  C  may  guess.    It  is  his  second  or  even  third  trial  at  Paris,  since 
'IS  New  Era  began;  but  now  it  is  in  right  earnest,  for  he  has 
ted  all  else.    W iry,  elastic  unwearied  man  ;  whose  life  was  but 
ittle  and  a  march  !    No,  not  a  creature  of  Choiseul  s  ;  "  the 
^Buzot,  Mcmoires  (Paris,  1S23),  p.  90. 


i8 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


creature  of  God  and  of  my  sword,"— he  fiercely  answered  in  old 
days.    Overf ailing-  Corsican  batteries,  in  the  deadly  fire-hail; 
wriggling  invincible  from  under  his  horse,  at  Closterkamp  of  the 
Netherlands,  though   tethered  with  crushed   stirrup-iron  and 
*  nineteen  wounds    tough,  minatory,  standing  at  bay,  as  forlorn 
hope,  on  the  skirts  of  Poland;  intriguing,  battling  in  cabinet  and 
field  ;  roaming  far  out,  obscure,  as  King's  spial,  or  sitting  sealed 
up,  enchanted  in  Bastille ;  fencing,  pamphleteering,  scheming 
and  struggling  from  the  very  birth  of  him,* — the  man  has  come 
thus  far.  How  repressed,  how  irrepressible  !  Like  some  incarnate 
spirit  in  prison,  which  indeed  he  was  ;  hewing  on  granite  walls  for 
deliverance  ;  striking  fire  flashes  from  them.    And  now  has  the 
general  earthquake  rent  his  cavern  too  }    Twenty  years  younger, 
what  might  he  not  have  done  !    But  his  hair  has  a  shade  of  gray ;  \ 
his  way  of  thought  is  all  hxed,  military.    He  can  grow  no  further,  - 
and  the  new  v;orld  is  in  such  growth.    We  will  name  him,  on  the  ' 
whole,  one  of  Heaven's  Swiss ;  without  faith  ;  wanting  above  all  _ 
things  work,  v/ork  on  any  side.  Work  also  is  appointed  him  ;  and-! 
he  will  do  it.  - 
Not  from  over  France  only  are  the  unrestful  flocking  towards  ; 
Paris  ;  but  from  all  sides  of  Europe.     Where  the  carcase  is,  ^ 
thither  will  the  eagles  gather.     Think  how  many  a  Spanish  " 
Guzman,  Martinico   Fournier  named   '  Fournier /Vi/;//^';"/6*<^/;^,' ^ 
Engineer  Miranda  from  the  very  Andes,  were  flocking  or  had  ' 
flocked  !    Walloon  Pereyra  might  boast  of  the  strangest  parent- 
age :  him,  they  say,  Prince  Kaunitz  the  Diplomatist  heedlessly 
dropped;'    like  ostrich-egg,  to    be  hatched  of   Chance— into 
an  Q%'ix\Qh.-eater  I    Jewish   or  German  Froys  do  business  in 
the  great  Cesspool  of  Agio;  which  Cesspool  this  AssignaU 
fiat    has    quickened,    into  a    Mother   of  dead  dogs.  Swiss 
Claviere  could  found  no  Socinian  Genevese  Colony  in  Ireland;- 
but  he  paused,  years  ago,  prophetic  before  the  Minister's  Hotel  at 
Paris ;  and  said,  it  was  borne  on  his  mind  that  he  one  day  was  to 
be  Minister,  and  laughed.f    Swiss  Pachc,  on  the  other  hand,  sits 
sleekheaded,  frugal ;  the  wonder  of  his  own  alle}/-,  and  even  of« 
neighboring  ones  for  humility  of  mind,  and  a  thought  deeper 
than  most  men's  :  sit  there,  Tartuffe,  till  w^anted !    Ye  Italian 
Dufournys,  Flemish  Prolys,  flit  hither  all  ye  bipeds  of  prey! 
Come  whosesoever  head  is  hot ;  thou  of  mind  ungaverned,  be  it 
chaos  as  of  undevelopment  or  chaos  as  of  ruin  ;  the  man  who 
cannot  get  known,  the  man  who  is  too  well  known ;  if  thou  have 
any  vendible  faculty,  nay  if  thou  have  but  edacity  and  loquacity, 
come  !    They  come  ;  with  hot  unutterabilities  in  their  heart ;  as 
Pilgrims  towards  a  miraculous  shrine.    Nay  how  many  come  as 
vacant  Strollers,  aimless,  of  whom  Europe  is  full  merely  towards 
something!    For  benighted  fowls,  when  you  beat  their  bushes, 
rush  towards  any  lijrht.    Thus  Frederick  Baron  Trenck  too  is 
here ;  mazed,  purblind,  from  the  ceils  of  Magdeburg ;  Minotauric 

'  *  Dumouriez,  Memo'res,  \,  28,  &c. 
\  Dumont,  Souvenirs  srtr  Miyabeaii,  p.  399. 


THE  MUSTER.  19 


cells,  and  his  Ariadne  lost  !  Singular  to  say,  Trenck,  in  these 
years,  sells  wme  ;  not  indeed  in  bottle,  but  in  wood. 

Nor  is  our  England  without  her  missionaries.    She  has  her  live- 
saving  Needham;  to  whom  was  solemnly  presented  a  *  civic 
'  sword,'— long  since  rusted  into  nothingness.    Her  Paine  •  rebel- 
lious Staymaker;  unkempt;  who  feels  that  he,  a  single  Needle- 
man,  did  by  his  '  Conifnon  Sejtse'  Pamphlet,  free  America  -—that 
he  can  and  will  free  all  this  World ;  perhaps  even  the '  other. 
Price- Stanhope  Constitutional  Association  sends  over  to  congratu- 
late ;*  welcomed  by  National  Assembly,  though  they  are  but  a 
London  Club  ;  whom  Burke  and  Toryism  eye  askance. 
On  thee  too,  for  country's  sake,  O  Chevalier  John  Paul  be  a 
,  word  spent,  or  misspent  !    In  faded  naval  uniform,  Paul  Vones 
I  lingers  visible  here ;  like  a  wine-skin  from  which  the  wine  is  all 
:  drawn.    Like  the  ghost  of  himself  !    Low  is  his  once  loud  bruit  • 
;  scarcely  audible,  save,  with  extreme  tedium,  in  ministerial  ante- 
\  chambers  ;  m  this  or  the  other  charitable  dining-room,  mindful  of 
the  past.    What  changes;  culminatings  and  declinings  '  Not 
I  now,  poor  Paul,  thou  lookest  wistful  over  the  Solway  brine  by  the 
i  foot  of  native  Criftel,  into  blue  mountainous  Cumberland,  iAto  blue 
(  Inhnitude ;  environed  with  thrift,  with  humble  friendhness  •  thv- 
.  self,  young  fool,  longing  to  be  aloft  from  it,  or  even  to  be  away 
irom  It.    \  es,  beyond  that  sapphire  Promontory,  which  men  name 
St.  Bees,  which  is  not  sapphire  either,  but  dull  sandstone,  when 
one  gets  close  to  it,  there  is  a  world.    Which  world  thou  too  shalt 
taste  of !— From  yonder  White  Haven  rise  his  smoke-clouds  • 
ominous  though  metfectual.    Proud  Forth  quakes  at  his  bellying 
sails  ;  had  not  the  wind  suddenly  shifted.    Flamborough  reapers 
i  homegomg,  pause  on  the  hill-side  :  for  what  sulphur-cloud  is  that 
that  defaces  the  sleek  sea  ;  sulphur-cloud  spitting  streaks  of  fire  ^ 
A  sea  cockfight  it  is,  and  of  the  hottest ;  where  British  Serai^is 
and  1^  rench-American  Bon  Ho7nme  Richard  do  lash  and  throttle 
,each  other,  m  then*  fashion;  and  lo  the  desperate  valour  has 
•suffocated  the  deliberate,  and  Paul  Jones  too  is  of  the  Kino-s  of 
the  Sea  !  ^ 
^The  Euxine,  the  Meotian  waters  felt  thee  next,  and  long-skirted 
;  -urks,  0  Paul;  and  thy  fiery  soul  has  wasted  itself  in  thousand 
iContradictions  ;— to  no  purpose.    For,  in  far  lands,  with  scarlet 
|Nassau-Sregens,  with  sinful  Imperial  Catherines,  is  not  the  heart- 
jbroken,  even  as  at  home  with  the  mean      Poor  Paul !  huncrer  and 
dispiritment  track  thy  sinking  footsteps  :  once  or  at  mos^  twice 
in  this  Revolution-tumult  the  figure  of  thee  emerges  ;  mute,  ghost- 
:  Ike,  as    with  stars  dim-twinklmg  through/    And  then,  when  the 
•  light  IS  gone  quite  out,  a  National  Legislature  grants  '  ceremonial 
tuneral !     As  good  had  been  the  natural  Presbyterian  Kirk-bell 
and  SIX  feet  of  Scottish  earth,  among  the  dust  of  thy  loved  ones' 
\--^uch  world  lay  beyond  the  Promontory  of  St.  Bees.    Such  is 
|tne  lite  of  sinful  mankind  here  below. 

t  Moriitatr,  lo  Novembre,  7  Decembre,  1789. 


§6 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


But  of  all  strangers,  far  the  notablest  for  us  is  Baron  Jean 
Baptiste  de  Clootz; — or,  dropping  baptisms  and  feudalisms,  World- 
Citizen  Anacharsis  Clootz,  from  Cleves,    Him  mark,  judicious 
Reader.    Thou  hast  known  his  Uncle,  sharp-sighted  thorough-  i 
going  Cornelius  de  Pauw,  who  mercilessly  cuts  down  cherished  | 
illusions  ;  and  of  the  finest  antique  Spartans,  will  make  mere  | 
modern  cutthroat  Mainots.^    The  like  stuff  is  in  Anacharsis  :  hot  I 
metal ;  full  of  scoriae,  which  should  and  could  have  been  smelted  | 
out,  but  which  will  not.    He  has  wandered  over  this  terraqueous  t 
Planet ;  seeking,  one  may  say,  the  Paradise  we  lost  long  ago.  i 
He  has  seen  English  Burke  ;  has  been  seen  of  the  Portugal  In-  \ 
c^uisition  ;  has  roamed,  and  fought,  and  written  ;  is  writing,  among  i 
other  things,  ^  Evidences  of  the  Jkfa/wmelan  Religion.'    But  now,  ?i 
like  his  Scythian  adoptive  godfather,  he  finds  himself  in  the  Paris  i 
Athens  ;  surely,  at  last,  the  haven  of  his  soul.    A  dashing  man,  f 
beloved  at  Patriotic  dinner-tables  ;  with  gaiety,  nay  with  humour ;  i 
headlong,  trenchant,  of  free  purse  ;  in  suitable  costume  ;  though  i 
what  mortal  ever  more  despised  costumes?    Under  all  costumes  ^ 
Anacharsis  seeks  the  man  ;  not  Stylites  Marat  will  more  "freely 
trample  costumes,  if  they  hold  no  man.    This  is  the  faith  of  Ana-  j 
charsis  :  That  there  is  a  Paradise  discoverable  ;  that  all  costumes  :t 
ought  to  hold  men.    O  Anacharsis,  it  is  a  headlong,  swift-going  i 
faith.    Mounted  thereon,  meseems,  thou  art  bound  hastily  for  the 
City  of  Nowhere  J  and  wilt  arrive  /    At  best,  we  may  say,  arrive  > 
in  good  riding  attitude  j  which  indeed  is  something. 

So  many  new  persons,  and  new  things  have  come  to  occupy 
this  Prance.  Her  old  Speech  and  Thought,  and  Activity  which 
springs  from  those,  are  all  changing  ;  fermenting  towards  unknowri 
issues.  To  the  dullest  peasant,  as  he  sits  sluggish,  overtoiled,  b' 
his  evening  hearth,  one  idea  has  come  :  that  of  Chateaus  burnt 
of  Chateaus  combustible.  How  altered  all  Coffeehouses,  in  Pre 
vince  or  Capital !  The  Autre  de  Procope  has  now  other  questions 
than  the  Three  Stagyrite  Unities  to  settle  ;  not  theatre-controver- 
sies, but  a  world-controversy  :  there,  in  the  ancient  pigtail  mode- 
or  with  modern  Brutus'  heads,  do  well-frizzed  logicians  hold  hub- 
bub, and  Chaos  umpire  sits.  The  ever-enduring  Melody  of  Paris 
Saloons  has  got  a  new  ground-tone  :  ever-enduring ;  which  has 
been  heard,  and  by  the  listening  Heaven  too,  since  Julian  the 
Apostate's  time  and  earlier  ;  mad  now  as  formerly. 

Ex-Censor  Suard,  i5';r-Censor,  for  we  have  freedom  of  the  Press; 
he  may  be  seen  there  ;  impartial,  even  neutral.  Tyrant  Grimm 
rolls  large  eyes,  over  a  questionable  coming  Time.  Atheist 
Naigeon,  beloved  disciple  of  Diderot,  crows,  in  his  small  difficult 
way,  heralding  glad  davvn.f  But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  many 
Morellcts,  Marmontels,  who  had  sat  all  their  life  hatching  Philo- 
sophe  eggs,  cackle  now,  in  a  state  bordering  on  distraction,  at  the 

*  De  Pauw,  RtU  hcrcfies  sur  les  Grecs,  &c.  _  J 

f  Nciigeon  :  Addrc^sc  d  I'  Asscmbliic  Nationate  (Faxis,  ijgo)  sur  la  liberty  dci 
opinions. 


JOURNALISM. 


21 


brood  they  have  brought  out !  *  It  was  so  delightful  to  have  one's 
Philosophe  Theorem  demonstrated,  crowned  in  the  saloons  :  and 
now  an  infatUcited  people  will  not  continue  speculative,  but  have 
Practice  ? 

There  also  observe  Preceptress  Genlis,  or  Sillery,  or  Sillery- 
Genlis, — for  our  husband  is  both  Count  and  Marquis,  and  we  have 
more  than  one  title.  Pretentious,  frothy  ;  a  puritan  yet  creedless  ; 
darkening  counsel  by  words  without  wisdom  !  For,  it  is  in  that 
thin  element  of  the  Sentimentalist  and  Distinguished- Female  that 
Sillery- Genlis  works  ;  she  would  gladly  be  sincere,  yet  can  grov/ 
no  sincerer  than  sincere-cant  :  sincere-cant  of  many  forms,  ending 
in  the  devotional  form.  For  the  present,  on  a  neck  still  of  mode- 
rate whiteness,  slie  wears  as  jewel  a  miniature  Bastille,  cut  on 
mere  sandstone,  but  then  actual  Bastille  sandstone.  M.  le  Mar- 
quis is  one  of  d^Orleans's  errandmen  ;  in  National  Assembly,  and 
elsewhere.  Madame,  for  her  part,  trains  up  a  youthful  d' Orleans 
generation  in  what  superfinest  morality  one  can  ;  gives  meanwhile 
rather  enigmatic  account  of  fair  Mademoiselle  Pamela,  the  Daugh- 
ter whom  she  has  adopted.  Thus  she,  in  Palais  Royal  saloon 
whither,  we  remark,  d'Orleans  himself,  spite  of  Lafayette,  has  re- 
turned from  that  English  '  mission '  of  his  :  surely  no  pleasant 
mission  :  for  the  Enghsh  would  not  speak  to  him  ;  and  Saint 
Hannah  More  of  England,  so  unlike  Saint  Sillery-Genhs  of  France, 
saw  him  shunned,  in  Vauxhall  Gardens,  like  one  pest-struck,t  and 
ills  red-blue  impassive  visage  waxing  hardly  a  shade  bluer. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JOURNALISM. 

As  for  Constitutionahsm,  with  its  National  Guards,  it  is  doing 
'Vhat  it  can  ;  and  has  enough  to  do  :  it  must,  as  ever,  with  one 
land  wave  persuasively,  repressing  Patriotism  ;  and  keep  the 
)ther  clenched  to  menace  Royahst  plotters.  A  most  delicate  task  ; 
equiring  tact. 

Thus,  if  People's-friend  Marat  has  to-day  his  writ  of  'prise  de 
corps,  or  seizure  of  body,'  served  on  him,  and  dives  out  of  sight, 
o-morrow  he  is  left  at  large  ;  or  is  even  encouraged,  as  a  sort  of 
jandog  whose  baying  may  be  useful.    President  Danton,  in  open 

■  ;iall,with  reverberating  voice,  declares  that,  in  a  case  like  Marat's, 

■i  'force  may  be  resisted  by  force."  Whereupon  the  Chatelet  serves 
Danton  also  with  a  writ  ;— which  however,  as  the  whole  Cordeliers 

,  District  responds  to  it,  what  Constable  will  be  prompt  to  execute? 

ji  Twice  more,  on  new  occasions,  does  the  Chatelet  launch  its  writ ; 

i*  See  Marmontel,  Mhnoires,  passim ;  Morellet,  Mdmoires,  Sec. 
+  Hannah  More's  Li/e  and  Correspo?ide7ice,  ii.  c.  5. 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES.^ 


and  twice  ^  ■  n  :  the  body  of  Danton  cannot  be  seued  b  ( 

Chatelet!  b    .    -  -     ^i,  ^>hould  he  even  fly  for  a  season,  shall  behold 
the  Chatelet  .tseii  tiung  into  limbo. 

Municipality  and  Brissot,  meanwhile,  are  far  on  with  tae.r 
Mu^icS  Constitution.  The  Sixty  Dhtricts  shall  become  Forty- 
Xa^iLtiom  ;  much  shall  be  adjusted,  and  Paris  have  its  Con-  ; 

ftu  ion     A  Constitution  wholly  Elective  ;  as  indeed  all  French  \ 
Government  shall  and  must  be.    And  yet,  one  fatal  element  ha 
been  roduced  :  that  of  citoyen  act,/.    No  man  who  does  not  pay 
he"«^r'  d^anrent,  or  yearly  ta^  equal  to  three  days'  labour,  shall 
be  other  than  a  passive  citizen  :  not  the  slightest  vote  for  h.mj 
were  he  J}/;'^,  all  the  year  round,  with  sledge  hammer,  with  forest- 
eveUin-  axe  f '  Unheard  of  !  cry  Patriot  journals.    \es  truly,  my 
PatiS°Fr1ends,  if  Liberty,  the  passion  and  prayer  of  all  mens 
Lu     means  Liberty  to  send  your  fifty-thousandth  part  of  a  new 
'ron'ue-fencer  into  National  Debating-club,  then  be  the  gods  wit- 
nessfve  are  hardly  entreated.    Oh,  if  in  National  (f^^ 
Africans  name  it  ,  such  blessedness  is  venly  fat  tyrant 

would  deny  it  to  Son  of  Adam  !  Nay,  might  there  not  be  a 
Female  Parlir.ment  too,  with  'screams  from  the  Opposition 
'benches  '  and  '  the  honourable  Member  borne  out  in  hysterics  r! 

a  Chi  dren's  Parliament  would  1  gladly  consent  ;  or  even  lower 
i  ve  wished  it.    Beloved  Brothers  !    L.b"ty,  one  migln  ^^^^^^ 
•ictuallv  as  the  ancient  wise  men  said,  of  Heaven.    On  this  Lanh 
where  thinks  the  enlightened  public,  did  a  brave  little  Dame  de  ; 
sSl  (no  Necker's  Daughter,  but  a  far  shrewder  than  she)  find 
tt'neSest  approach  to  Libert'y  ?    A^'er  mature  computati^^^^^^^^^^ 
as  Uilworth's,  her  answer  is  In  the  Bastille*      Of  Heaven 
-nc-vprr^anv  askinf'-.    Wo  that  they  should  tor  that  is  tn^ 

;ery  mi^e^y  !'  ^'  Of  Heaven  "  means  much  ;  share  in  the  National 
Pilaver  it  may,  or  may  as  probably  wt-^  mean, 
"^tne  SanscuVottic  bo^h  that  cannot  fail  to  flo-^^  -  J«t™ 
Thp  voire  of  the  People  bcms;  the  voice  oi  God,  shall  not  suca 
dMneToice  make  itself  heard?    To  the  ends  of  France  ;  and  in 
;  many  dXts  as  when  the  first  great  Babel  w^s  to  be  built ! 
Some  loud  as  the  lion  ;  some  sniall  as  the  ^"ck.ng  fo^ 
himself  has  his  instructive  Journal  or  Journals,  with  *-  eneya 
h  dmen  working  in  them  ;  and  withal  has  quarrels  enough  with 
Daine  le  Jay,  his  Female  Bookseller,  so  ultra-comphant  other- 

''''''Kin'^s-mend  Royou  still  prints  himself.    Barr^re  sheds  tears  of 

ampHght^  isstlls'  the^  useful  Monitenr,  f-Xf^l"  slfe  in  S 
diurnat:  with  facts  and  few  commentaries  ;  official,  sate  in  iiw, 
*  f-«!c  OcStriiil  :  AUmolres  (I'uris,  1S21).  i.  169-280. 
S  e  Uuiiioiit  :  Suuvsnirs,  6. 


JOl/RXAL/SAf.  23 


n.iddle  Its  able  Editors  sunk  long  since,  recoverably  or  irre- 
coverably, in  deep  darkness.  Acid  Loustalot,  with  his  '  vigour,' as 
of  young  sloes,  shall  never  ripen,  but  die  untimely :  his  Prudhorame, 
however,  will  not  let  that  Revolutions  de  Paris  die ;  but  edit  it 
himself,  with  much  else,— dull-blustering  Printer  though  he  be. 

Of  Cassandra-Marat  we  have  spoken  often  ;  yet  the  most  sur- 
prismg  truth  remains  to  be  spoken  :  that  he  actually  does  not  w;jnt 
sense ;  but,  with  croaking  gelid  throat,  croaks  out  masses  of  the 
truth,  on  several  things.  Nay  sometimes,  one  might  almost  fancv 
he  had  a  perception  of  humour,  and  were  laughing  a  little,  far 
down  m  his  inner  man.  Camille  is  wittier  than  ever,  and  more 
outspoken,  cynical ;  yet  sunny  as  ever.  A  '  light  melodious  crea- 
ture; *  born,'  as  he  shall  yet  say  with  bitter  tears,  '  to  write  verses;' 
light  Apollo,  so  clear,  soft-lucent,  in  this  war  of  the  Titans, 
wherein  he  shall  not  conquer  ! 

Folded  and  hawked  Newspapers  exist  in  all  countries  ;  but,  in 
such  a  Journalistic  element  as  this  of  France,  other  and  stranger 
sorts  are  to  be  anticipated.  What  says  the  English  reader  to  a 
Journal- Afiiche,  Placard  journal;  legible  to  him  that  has  no  half- 
penny; in  bright  prism.atic  colours,  calling  the  eye  from  afar  } 
Such,  m  the  coming  months,  as  Patriot  Associatiens,  public  and 
private,  advance,  and  can  subscribe  funds,  shall  plenteously  hano- 
themselves  out:  leaves,  limed  leaves,  to  catch  what  they  can'^T 
The  very  Government  shall  have  its  Pasted  Journal;  Louvet,  busy 
yet  with  a  new  '  charming  romance,'  shall  write  Sejilinelles  and 
post  tnem  with  effect ;  nay  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  in  his  extremitv 
shall  stiil  more  cunningly  try  it.*  Great  is  Journalism..  Is  not 
every  Aoie  Editor  a  Ruier  of  the  World,  being  a  persuader  of  it  • 
though  self-elected,  yet  sanctioned,  by  the  sale  of  his  Numbers  ^ 
Whorn  indeed  the  world  has  the  readiest  method  of  deposing, 
should  need  be  :  that  of  merely  d.o\Xi<g  nothing  to  him  ;  which  ends 
in  starvation ! 

Nor  esteem  it  small  what  those  Bill-stickers  had  to  do  in  Paris  • 
above  Three  Score  of  them  :  all  with  their  crosspoles,  haversacks 
pastepots  ;  nay  with  leaden  badges,  for  the  Municipality  licenses 
them.  A  Sacred  College,  properly  of  World-rulers'  Heralds 
though  not  respected  as  such,  in  an  Era  stili  incipient  and  raw 
1  hey  made  the  walls  of  Paris  didactic,  suasive,  with  an  ever  fresh 
Periodical  Literature,  wherein  he  that  ran  might  read  :  Placard  i 
Journals,  Placard  Lampoons,  Municipal  Ordinances,  Royal  Pro-  I 
clamations;  the  whole  other  or  vulgar  Placard-department  super- 
added,—or  omitted  from  contempt !  What  unutterable  things  the 
stone-walls  spoke,  during  these  five  years!  But  it  is  all  |one  ; 
1 0-day  swallowing  Yesterday,  and  then  being  in  its  turn  swallowed 
ot  To-morrow,  even  as  Speech  ever  is.  Nay  what  O  thou 
immortal  Man  of  Letters,  is  Writing  itself  But  Speech  conserved 
tor  a  time  }  The  Placard  Journal  conserved  it  for  one  dav;  some 
«ooRs  conserve  it  for  the  matter  of  ten  years  ;  nay  some  for  three 
aiousand  ;  but  what  then  }  Wliy,  then,  the  years  being  all  run,  it 
*See  Bertrand-Moleville  :  Mcmoircs,  ii.  too,  &c. 


24  THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES.   

also  dies,  and  the  world  is  rid  of  it.  Oh,  were  there  not  a  spirit  in 
the  word  of  man,  as  in  man  himself,  that  survived  the  audible 
bodied  word,  and  tended  either  Godward,  or  else  Devilward  for 
evermore,  why  should  he  trouble  himself  much  with  the  truth  of 
it  or  the  falsehood  of  it,  except  for  commercial  purposes?  His 
immortahty  indeed,  and  whether  it  shall  last  half  a  lifetime,  or  a 
lifetime  and  half ;  is  not  that  a  very  considerable  thing  ?  As 
mortality  was  to  the  runaway,  whom  Great  Fritz  bullied  back  mto 
the  battle  with  a:  R—,  wollt  zhr  ewzg- /eden.Vnphntablt  OK- 
scouring  of  Scoundrels,  would  ye  live  for  ever  !  " 

This  is  the  Communication  of  Thought :  how  happy  when  there 
is  any  Thought  to  communicate!  Neither  let  the  simpler  old 
methods  be  neglected,  in  their  sphere.  The  Palais-Royal  Tent,  a 
tyrannous  Patrollotism  has  removed ;  but  can  it  remove  the  lungs 
of  man  >  Anaxagoras  Chaumette  we  saw  mounted  on  bourne- 
stones  while  Tallien  worked  sedentary  at  the  subeditorial  desk. 
In  any  corner  of  the  civilized  world,  a  tub  can  be  inverted,  and  an 
articulate-speaking  biped  mount  thereon.  Nay,  with  contrivance, 
a  portable  trestle,  or  folding  stool  can  be  procured,  for  love  or 
money;  this  the  peripatetic  Orator  can  take  m  his  hand,  and, 
driven  out  here,  set  it  up  again  there  ;  saying  mildly,  with  a  Sage 
Bias,  Omnia  mea  mecu77t  porto. 

Such  is  Tournahsm,  hawked,  pasted,  spoken.  How  changed 
since  One  old  Metra  walked  this  same  Tuileries  Garden,  m  gilt 
cocked  hat,  with  Journal  at  his  nose,  or  held  loose-folded  behind 
his  back  ;  and  was  a  notability  of  Paris, '  Metra  the  Newsman  ;  * 
and  Louis  himself  was  wont  to  say  :  Qu'en  dU  Melra?  the 
first  Venetian  News-sheet  was  sold  for  ^gazsa,  or  farthing,  and 
named  Gazette  !   We  live  in  a  fertile  w^orld. 


'  CHAPTER  V. 

CLUBBISM. 

WHERE  the  heart  is  full,  it  seeks,  for  a  thousand  reasons  in  a 
thousand  ways,  to  impart  itself.  How  sweet,  indispensable,  in 
such  cases,  is  fellowship;  soul  mystically  strengthenmg  soul 
The  meditative  Germans,  some  think,  have  been  of  opmion  that 
Enthusiasm  in  the  general  means  simply  excessive  Congregating 
1-Schwarmerey  or  Swarming,  At  any  rate,  do  we  not  see  glim- 
mering half-red  embers,   if  laid  together,  get  into  the  brightest 

^  such^^^^  France,  gregarious  Reunions  will  needs  multiply,  in- 
tensify French  Life  will  step  out  of  doors,  and,  from  domestic, 
become  a  public  Ch.h  Life  Old  Clnlxs,  ^hich  already  g^^^^^^^^^ 
natcd,  grovv  and  ilourish  ;  new  .every  where  bud  forth,  It  is  the 
*  Dulaure,  Histoire  de  Paris,  viii.  483  *,  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris,  &c, 


CLUB  B  ISM. 


25 


sure  sympton  of  Social  Unrest  :  in  such  way,  most  infallibly  of 
all,  does  Social  Unrest  exhibit  itself ;  find  solacement,  and  also 
nutriment.  In  every  French  head  there  hangs  now,  whether  for 
terror  or  for  hope,  some  prophetic  picture  of  a  New  France  : 
prophecy  which  brings,  nay  which  almost  is,  its  own  fulfilment  ; 
and  in  all  ways,  consciously  and  unconsciously,  works  towards 
that. 

Observe,  moreover,  how  the  Aggregative  Principle,  let  it  be  but 
deep  enough,  goes  on  aggregating,  and  this  even  in  a  geometrical 
progression  :  how  when  the  w^hole  world,  in  such  a  plastic  time,  is 
forming  itself  into  Clubs,  some  One  Club,  the  strongest  or  luckiest, 
shall,  by  friendly  attracting,  by  victorious  compelling,  grow  ever 
stronger,  till  it  become  immeasurably  strong  ;  and  all  the  others, 
with  their  strength,  be  either  lovingly  absorbed  into  it,  or  hostilely 
abolished  by  it  !  This  if  the  Club-spirit  is  universal  ;  if  the  time 
is  plastic.  Plastic  enough  is  the  time,  universal  the  Club-spirit  : 
such  an  all-absorbing,  paramount  One  Club  cannot  be  wanting. 

What  a  progress,  since  the  first  salient-point  of  the  Breton 
Committee  I  It  worked  long  it  secret,  not  languidly  ;  it  has  come 
with  the  National  Assembly  to  Paris  ;  calls  itself  Club  ;  calls 
itself  in  imitation,  as  is  thought,  of  those  generous  Price- Stanhope 
English,  French  Revolution  Club  j  but  soon,  with  more  originality, 
Club  of  Frie7tds  of  the  Constitution.  Moreover  it  has  leased  for 
itself,  at  a  fair  rent,  the  Hall  of  the  Jacobin's  Convent,  one  of  our 
*  superfluous  edifices  '  and  does  therefrom  now,  in  these  spring 
months,  begin  shining  out  on  an  admiring  Paris.  And  so,  by 
degrees,  under  the  shorter  popular  title  of  facobins'  Club,  it  shall 
become  *  emorable  to  all  times  and  lands.  Glance  into  the 
interior  :  strongly  yet  modestly  benched  and  seated  ;  as  many  as 
Thirteen  Hundred  chosen  Patriots  ;  Assembly  Memibers  not  a 
few.  Barnave,  the  two  Lameths  are  seen  there ;  occasionally 
Mirabeau,  perpetually  Robespierre  ;  also  the  ferret-visage  of 
Fouquier-Tinville  with  other  attorneys  ;  Anacharsis  of  Prussian 
Scythia,  and  miscellaneous  Patriots^ — though  all  is  yet  in  the  most 
:  perfectly  clean-washed  --tate  ;  decent,  nay  dignified.  President  on 
I  platform,  President's  bell  are^  not  wanting ;  oratorical  Tribune 
I  high-raised  ;  nor  strangers'  galleries,  wherein  also  sit  women. 
Has  any  French  Antiquarian  Society  preserved  that  written  Lease 
of  the  Jacobins  Convent  Hall  ?  Or  was  it,  unluckier  even  than 
Magna  Charta,  dipt  by  sacrilegious  Tailors  ?  Universal  History 
is  not  indifferent  to  it. 

These  Friends  of  the  Constitution  have  met  mainly,  as  their 
name  may  foreshadow,  to  look  after  Elections  when  an  Election 
comes,  and  procure  fit  men  ;  but  likewise  to  consult  generally  that 
the  Commonweal  take  no  damage  ;  one  as  yet  sees  not  how.  For 
indeed  let  two  or  three  gather  together  any  where,  if  it  be  not  in 
Church,  where  all  are  bound  to  the  passive  state  ;  no  mortal  can 
say  accurately,  themselves  as  little  as  .any,  for  what  they  are 
gathered.  How  often  has  the  broached  barrel  proved  not  to  be 
lOr  joy  and  heart  effusion,  but  for  duel  and  head-breakage  ;  and 


26 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


the  promised  feast  become  a  Feast  of  the  Lapithae  !  This  Jacobins 
Club,  which  at  first  shone  resplendent,  and  was  thought  to  be  a 
new  celestial  Sun  for  enlightening  the  Nations,  had,  as  things  all 
have,  to  work  through  its  appointed  phases  :  it  burned  unfortu- 
nately more  and  more  lurid,  more  sulphurous,  distracted  ; — and 
swam  at  last,  through  the  astonished  Heaven,  like  a  Tartarean 
Portent,  and  lurid-burning  Prison  of  Spirits  in  Pain. 

Its  style  of  eloquence  ?  Rejoice,  Reader,  that  thou  knowest  it 
not,  that  thou  canst  never  perfectly  know.  The  Jacobins  pub- 
lished a  Journal  of  Debates,  where  they  that  have  the  heart  may 
examine  :  impassioned,  dull-droning  Patriotic-eloquence  ;  implac- 
able, unfertile — save  for  Destruction,  which  was  indeed  its  work  : 
most  Avearisome,  though  most  deadly.  Be  thankful  that  Oblivion 
covers  so  much  ;  that  all  carrion  is  by  and  by  buried  in  the  green 
Earth's  bosom,  and  even  makes  her  grow  the  greener.  The 
Jacobins  are  buried  ;  but  their  work  is  not ;  it  continues  '  making 
'the  tour  of  the  world,' as  it  can.  It  might  be  seen  lately,  for 
instance,  with  bared  bosom  and  death-defiant  eye,  as  far  on  as 
Greek  Missolonghi  ;  and,  strange  enough,  old  slumbering  Hellas 
was  resuscitated,  into  so77i7ia7nbulism  which  will  become  clear 
wakefulness,  by  a  voice  from  the  Rue  St.  Honore  !  All  dies,  as 
we  often  say  ;  except  the  spirit  of  man,  of  what  man  does.  Thus 
has  not  the  very  House  of  the  Jacobins  vanished  ;  scarcely  linger- 
ing in  a  few  old  men's  memories  ?  The  St.  Honor^  Market  has 
brushed  it  away,  and  now  where  dull- droning  eloquence,  like  a 
Trump  of  Doom,  once  shook  the  world,  there  is  pacific  chaffering 
for  poultry  and  greens.  The  sacred  National  Assembly  Hall  itself 
has  becorne  common  ground  ;  President's  platform  permeable  to 
wain  and  dustcart ;  for  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  runs  there.  Verily,  at 
Cockcrow  (of  this  Cock  or  the  other),  all  Apparitions  do  melt  and 
dissolve  in  space. 

The  Paris  became  *the  Mother- Society,  Societe-Mere ;^ 

and  had  as  many  as  '  three  hundred  '  shrill-tongued  daughters  in 
*  direct  correspondence'  with  her.  Of  indirectly  corresponding, 
what  we  may  call  grand-daughters  and  minute  progeny,  she 
counted  'forty-four  thousand  !  '—But  for  the  present  we  note  only 
two  things  :  the  first  of  them  a  mere  anecdote.  One  night,  a 
couple  of  brother  Jacobins  are  doorkeepers  ;  for  the  members  take 
this  post  of  duty  and  honour  in  rotation,  and  admit  none  that 
have  not  tickets  :  one  doorkeeper  was  the  worthy  ieur  Lais,  a 
patriotic  Opera-singer,  stricken  in  years,  whose  windpipe  is  long 
since  closed  without  result  ;  the  other,  young,  and  named  Louis 
Philippe,  d'Orleans's  firstborn,  has  in  this  latter  time,  after  un- 
heard-of destinies,  become  Citizen-King,  and  struggles  to  rule  for 
a  season.    All-flesh  is  grass  ;  higher  reedgrass  or  creeping  herb. 

The  scconJ  thing  we  li  ive  to  note  is  historical  :  that  the 
Mother-Society,  even  ii.  litis  i^s  (-nhli^ent  period,  cannot  content 
all  Patriots.  Alread)  !(.  must  throw  olT,  so  to  speak,  two  dis- 
satisfied swarms  ;  a  swarm  to  the  right,  a  swarm  to  the  left.  One 
party,  which  thinks  the  Jacobins  Jvikcwarm,  constitutes  itself  into 
Club  of  the  Cordeliers  J     hotter  Club:  it  is  Danton's  element; 


JE  LE  JURE. 


27 


with  whom  goes  Desmoiilins.  The  other  party,  aoaiu,  which 
thinks  the  Jacobins  scalding-hot,  tiies  off  to  the  right,  and  l:)ecomes 
'  Ckib  of  1789,  Friends  of  the  Monarchic  Constitution.'  They  are 
afterwards  named  '  Feuillans  Club '  their  place  of  meeting  being 
the  Feuillans  Convent.  Lafayette  is,  or  becomes, their  chief-man; 
supported  by  the  respectable  Patriot  everywhere,  by  the  mass  of 
Property  and  Intelligence,— with  the  most  flourishing  prospects. 
They,  in  these  June  days  of  1790,  do,  in  the  Palais  Royal,  dine 
solemnly  with  open  vvindov/s  ;  to  the  cheers  of  the  people  ;  with 
toasts,  with  inspiriting  songs,— with  one  song  at  least,  among  the 
feeblest  ever  sung.*  They  shall,  in  due  time  be  hooted  forth,  over 
the  borders,  into  Cimmerian  Night. 

Another  expressly  Monarchic  or  Royalist  Club,  '  Chib  des 
Monarcliiens^  though  a  Club  of  ample  funds,  and  all  sitting  in 
damask  sofas,  cannot  realise  the  smallest  momentary  cheer  ; 
realises  only  scoffs  and  groans  till,  ere  long,  certain  Patriots  in 
disorderly  sufficient  number,  proceea  thither,  for  a  night  or  for 
nights,  and  groan  it  out  of  pain.  Vivacious  a] one  shall  the 
Mother-Society  and  her  family  be.  The  very  Cordeliers  may,  as 
it  were,  return  into  her  bosom,  which  will  have  grovrn  warm 
enough. 

Fatal-looking  !  Are  not  such  Societies  an  incipient  New  Order 
of  Society  itself?  The  Aggregative  Principle  anew  at  work  in  a 
Society  grown  obsolete,  cracked  asunder,  dissolving  into  rubbish 
and  primary  atoms  ? 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JE  LE  JURE. 

With  these  signs  of  the  times,  is  it  not  surprising  that  the 
dominant  feeling  all  over  France  was  still  continually  Hope  ?  O 
blessed  Hope,  sole  boon  of  man ;  whereby,  on  his  strait  prison 
walls,  are  painted  beautiful  fr.r-stretching  landscapes  ;  and  into  the 
night  of  very  Death  is  shed  holiest  dawn  !  Thou  art  to  ail  an  inde- 
feasible possession  in  this  God's-world  :  to  the  wise  a  sacred 
Constantine's-banner,  written  on  the  eternal  skies  ;  under  which 
they  shall  conquer,  for  the  battle  itself  is  victory  :  to  the  foolish 
some  secular  7nirai^e,  or  shadow  of  still  waters,  painted  on  the 
parched  Earth  ;  whereby  at  least  their  dusty  pilgrimage,  if  devious, 
becomes  cheerfuller,  becomes  possible. 

In  the  death-tumults  of  a  sinking  Society,  French  Hope  sees 
only  the  birth-struggles  of  a  new  unspeakably  better  Society  ;  and 
sings,  with  full  assurance  of  faith,  her  brisk  Melody,  which  some 
inspired  fiddler  has  in  these  very  days  composed  for  her, — tb^ 


*  Hist.  Pari.  vi.  334. 


?8 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


world-famous  ca-tra.  Yes  ;  'that  will  go  and  then  there  will 
comc'-l  All  men  hope  :  even  Marat  hopes— that  Patriotism  will 
take  muff  and  dirk.  King  Louis  is  not  without  hope  :  in  the 
chapter  of  chances ;  in  a  flight  to  some  Bouille  ;  in  getting  popu- 
larized at  Paris.  But  what  a  hoping  People  he  had,  judge  by  the 
fact,  and  series  of  facts,  now  to  be  noted. 

Poor  Louis,  meaning  the  best,  with  little  insight  and  even  less 
determination  of  his  own,  has  to  follow,  in  that  dim  wayfaring  of 
his,  such  signal  as  may  be  given  him  ;  by  backstairs  Royahsm,  by 
official  or  backstairs  Constitutionahsm,  whichever  for  the  month 
may  have  convinced  the  royal  mind.  If  flight  to  Bouille,  and 
(horrible  to  think !)  a  drawi7tgoi  the  civil  sword  do  hang  as  theory, 
portentous  in  the  background,  much  nearer  is  this  fact  of  these 
Twelve  Hundred  Kings,  who  sit  in  the  Salle  de  Manege.  Kings 
uncontrollable  by  him,  not  yet  irreverent  to  him.  Could  kind 
management  of  these  but  prosper,  how  much  better  were  it  than 
armed  Emigrants,  Turin-intrigues,  and  the  help  of  Austria  !  Nay, 
are  the  two  hopes  inconsistent  ?  Rides  in  the  suburbs,  we  have 
found,  cost  little  ;  yet  they  always  brought  vivats.''  Still  cheaper 
is  a  soft  word  ;  such  as  has  many  times  turned  away  wrath.  In 
these  rapid  days,  while  France  is  all  getting  divided  into  Depart- 
ments, Clergy  about  to  be  remodelled.  Popular  Societies  rising, 
and  Feudalism  and  so  much  else  is  ready  to  be  hurled  into  the 
melting-pot,— might  one  not  try  } 

On  the  4th  of  February,  accordingly,  M.  le  President  reads  to 
his  National  Assembly  a  short  autograph,  announcing  that  his 
Majesty  will  step  over,  quite  in  an  unceremonious  way,  probably 
about  noon.  Think,  therefore,  Messieurs,  what  it  may  mean  ; 
especially,  how  ye  will  get  the  Hall  decorated  a  httle.  Ihe 
Secretaries'  Bureau  can  be  shifted  down  from  the  platform  ;  on  the 
•President's  chair  be  slipped  this  cover  of  velvet,  '  of  a  violet  colour 
'  sprigged  with  gold  fleur-de-lys  ;  '—for  indeed  M.  le  President  has 
had  previous  notice  underhand,  and  taken  counsel  with  Doctor 
Guillotin.  Then  some  fraction  of  '  velvet  carpet,'  of  like  texture 
and  colour,  cannot  that  be  spread  in  front  of  the  chair,  where  the 
Secretaries  usually  sit?  So  has  judicious  Guillotin  advised  :  and 
the  effect  is  found  satisfactory.  Moreover,  as  it  is  probable  that 
his  Majesty,  in  spite  of  the  fleur-de-lys-velvet,  wfll  stand  and  not 
sit  at  all,  the  President  himself,  in  the  interim,  presides  standing. 
And  so,  while  some  honourable  Member  is  discussing,  say,  the 
division  of  a  Department,  Ushers  announce  :  "  His  Majesty  ! 
In  person,  with  small  suite,  enter  Majesty  :  the  honourable  Mem- 
ber stops  short  ;  the  Assembly  starts  to  its  feet ;  the  Twelve 
Hundred  Kings  '  almost  all,'  and  the  (;alleries  no  less,  do  welcome 
the  Restorer  of  French  Liberty  with  loyal  shouts.  His  Majesty's 
Speech,  in  diluted  conventional  phraseology,  expresses  this 
mainly  :  That  he,  most  of  all  Frenchmen,  rejoices  to  see  France 
getting  regenerated  ;  is  sure,  at  the  same  time,  that  they  will  deal 
gently  with  her  in  the  process,  and  not  regenerate  her  roughly- 


.S(^c  Berlrand-Moleville,  i.  241,  &C. 


JE  LE  JURE, 


Such  was  his  Majesty's  Speech  :  the  feat  he  performed  was  coming 
to  speak  it,  and  going  back  again. 

Surely,  except  to  a  very  hoping  People,  there  was  not  much  here 
to  build  upon.  Yet  what  did  they  not  build  !  The  fact  that  the 
King  has  spoken,  that  he  has  voluntarily  come  to  speak,  how 
inexpressibly  encouraging  !  Did  not  the  glance  of  his  royal 
countenance,  like  concentrated  sunbeams,  kindle  all  hearts  in  an 
august  Assembly  ;  nay  thereby  in  an  inflammable  enthusiastic 
France  ?  To  move  '  Deputation  of  thanks '  can  be  the  happy  lot 
of  but  one  man  ;  to  go  in  such  Deputation  the  lot  of  not  many. 
The  Deputed  have  gone,  and  returned  with  what  highest-flown 
compliment  they  could ;  whom  also  the  Queen  met,  Dauphin  in 
hand.  And  still  do  not  our  hearts  burn  with  insatiable  gratitude  ; 
and  to  one  other  man  a  still  higher  blessedness  suggests  itself:  To 
move  that  we  all  renew  the  National  Oath. 

Happiest  honourable  Member,  with  his  word  so  in  season  as 
word  seldom  was  ;  magic  Fugleman  of  a  whole  National  Assembly, 
which  sat  there  bursting  to  do  somewhat ;  Fugleman  of  a  whole 
onlooking  France  !  The  President  swears  ;  declares  that  every 
one  shall  swear,  in  distinct  je  le  jure.  Nay  the  very  Gallery  sends 
him  down  a  written  slip  signed,  with  their  Oath  on  it  ;  and  as  the 
Assembly  now  casts  an  eye  that,  way,  the  Gallery  all  stands  up 
and  swears  again.  And  then  out  of  doors,  consider  at  the  Hotel- 
de-Ville  how  Bailly,  the  great  Tennis-Court  swearer,  again  swears, 
towards  nightful,  with  all  the  Municipals,  and  Heads  of  Districts 
assembled  there.     And  '  M.  Danton  suggests  that  the  public 

*  would  like  to  partake  : '  whereupon  Bailly,  with  escort  of  Twelve, 
steps  forth  to  the  great  outer  staircase  ;  sways  the  ebullient 
multitude  with  stretched  hand  :  takes  their  oath,  with  a  thunder 
of  '  rolling  drums,'  with  shouts  that  rend  the  welkin.  And  on 
all  streets  the  glad  people,  with  moisture  and  fire  in  their  eyes, 

*  spontaneously  formed  groups,  and  swore  one  another,'"^ — and  the 
whole  City  was  illuminated.  "This  was  the  Fourth  of  February 
1790  :  a  day  to  be  marked  white  in  Constitutional  annals. 

Nor  is  the  illumination  for  a  night  only,  but  partially  or  totally 
it  lasts  a  series  of  nights.  For  each  District,  the  Electors  of  each 
District,  will  swear  specially  ;  and  always  as  the  District  swears  ; 
it  illuminates  itself  Behold  them.  District  after  District,  in  some 
open  square,  where  the  Non-Electing  People  can  all  see  and  join  : 
with  their  uplifted  right  hands,  and  je  le  ju^^e :  with  rolling  drums, 
with  embracings,  and  that  infinite  hurrah  of  the  enfranchised,— 
which  any  tyrant  that  there  may  be  can  consider  !  Faithful  to 
the  King,  to  the  Law,  to  the  Constitution  which  the  National 
Assembly  shall  make. 

Fancy,  for  example,  the  Professors  of  Universities  parading  the 
streets  with  their  young  France,  and  swearing,  in  an  enthusiastic 
manner,  not  without  tumult.  By  a  larger  exercise  of  fancy, 
expand  duly  this  little  word  :  The  like  was  repeated  in  every  Town 
and  District  of  France  !  Nay  one  Patriot  Mother,  in  Lagnon  of 
Brittany,  asscmljles  her  ten  children  ;  and,  with  her  own  aged 
*  Newspapers  (in  Hist.  Pari.  iv.  445). 


30 


THE  FEASr  OF  PIKES. 


hand,  swears  them  all  herself,  the  highsouled  venerable  womaa 
Of  all  which.,  moreover,  a  National  Asseu^bly  must  be  eloquently 
apprised.  Such  three  weeks  of  swearing  !  Saw  the  sun  ever 
such  a  swearing  people  ?  Have  they  been  bit  by  a  swearmg 
tarantula?  No  :  but  they  are  men  and  Frenchmen;  they  have 
Hope  ;  and,  singular  to  say,  they  have  Faith,  were  it  only  m  the 
Gospel  according  to  Jean  Jacques.  O  my  Brothers  !  would  to 
Heaven  it  were  even  as  ye  think  and  have  sworn  !  But  there  are 
Lovers'  Oaths,  which,  had  they  been  true  as  love  itself,  cannot  be 
kept ;  not  to  speak  of  Dicers'  Oaths,  also  a  known  sort. 


CHAPTER  VII.- 

PRODIGIES. 

To  such  length  had  the  Contrat  Social  brought  it,  in  beheving 
hearts.    Man,  as  is  well  said,  lives  by  faith  ;  each  generation  has " 
its  own  faith,  more  or  less  ;  and  laughs  at  the  faith  of  its  prede- ; 
cessor,-~most  unwisely.    Grant  indeed  that  this  faith  in  the  Social' 
Contract  belongs  to  the  stranger  sorts  ;  that  an  unborn  generation : 
may  very  wisely,  if  not  laugh,  yet  stare  at  it,  and  piously  consider.  \ 
For,  alas,  what  is  Contrat  ?    If  all  men  were  such  that  a  mere 
spoken  or  sworn  Contract  v/ould  bind  them,  all  men  were  then 
true  men,  and  Government  a  superfluity.    Not  what  thou  and  I 
have  promised  to  each  other,  but  what  the  balance  of  our  forces 
can  make  us  perform  to  each  other  :  that,  in  so  sinful  a  world  as 
ours,  is  the  thing  to  be  counted  on.    But  above  all,  a  People  and 
a  Sovereign  promising  to  one  another;  as  if  a  whole  People, 
changing  from  generation  to  generation,  nay  from  hour  to  hour, 
could  ever  by  any  method  be  made  to  speak  or  promise  ;  and  to 
speak  mere  solecisms  :  "  We,  be  the  Heavens  witness,  which 
Heavens   however   do  no   miracles  now  ;   we,  ever-changing 
Millions,  will  allow  thee,  changeful  Unit,  to  force  us  or  govern 
us  !  "    The  world  has  perhaps  seen  few  faiths  comparable  to  that. 

So  nevertheless  had  the  world  then  construed  the  matter.  Had 
they  not^o  construed  it,  how  different  had  their  hopes  been,  their 
attempts,  their  results  !  But  so  and  not  otherwise  did  the  Upper 
Powers  will  it  to  be.  Freedom  by  Social  Contract :  such  was  verily 
the  Gospel  of  that  Era.  And  all  men  had  believed  in  it,  as  in  a 
Heaven's  Glad-tidings  men  should  ;  and  with  overflowing  heart 
and  uphfted  voice  clave  to  it,  and  stood  fronting  Time  and  Eternity 
on  it.  Nay  smile  not  ;  or  only  with  a  smile  sadder  than  tears  ! 
This  too  was  a  better  faith  than  the  one  it  had  replaced  :  than 
faith  merely  in  the  Everlasting  Nothing  and  man's  Digestive 
Power ;  lower  than  which  no  faith  can  go. 

Not  that  such  universally  prevalent,  universally  jurant,  feehng  of 


PRODIGIES, 


31 


Hope,  could  be  a  unanimous  one.  Far  from  that  !  The  time  was 
ominous  :  social  dissolution  near  and  certain  ;  social  renovation 
still  a  problem,  difficult  and  distant  even  though  sure.  But  if 
ominous  to  some  clearest  onlooker,  whose  faith  stood  not  vjith  one 
side  or  with  the  other,  nor  in  the  ever- vexed  jarring  of  Greek  with 
Greek  at  all, — how  unspeakably  ominous  to  dim  RoyaHst  partici- 
pators ;  for  v/hom  Royalism  was  Mankind's  palladium  ;  for  whom, 
whh  the  abolition  of  Most-Christian  Kingship  and  Most-Talleyrand 
Bishopship,  all  loyal  obedience,  all  religious  faith  was  to  expire, 
and  final  Night  envelope  the  Destinies  of  Man  !  On  serious 
hearts,  of  that  persuasion,  the  matter  sinks  down  deep  ;  prompting, 
as  we  have  scon,  to  backstairs  Plots,  to  Emigration  wilh  pledge  of 
war,  to  Monarchic  Clubs  ;  nay  to  still  madder  things. 

The  Spirit  of  Prophecy,  for  instance,  had  been  considered 
extinct  for  some  centuries  :  nevertheless  these  last-times,  as 
indeed  is  the  tendency  of  last-times,  do  revive  it ;  that  so,  of  French 
mad  things,  we  might  have  sample  also  of  the  maddest.  In  remote 
rural  districts,  whither  Philosophism  has  not  yet  radiated,  where  a 
heterodox  Constitution  of  the  Clergy  is  bringing  strife  round  the 
altar  itself,  and  the  very  Church-bells  are  getting  melted  into 
small  mxoney-coin,  it  appears  probable  that  the  End  of  the  World 
cannot  be  far  off.  Deep-musing  atribaliar  old  men,  especially  old 
women,  hint  in  an  obscure  way  that  they  know  what  they  know. 
The  Holy  Virgin,  silent  so  long,  has  not  gone  dumb  and  truly 
now,  if  ever  more  in  this  world,  were  the  time  for  her  to  speak: 
One  Prophetess,  though  careless  Historians  have  omitted  her 
name,  condition,  and  whereabout,  becomes  audible  to  the  general 
ear  ;  credible  to  not  a  few  :  credible  to  Friar  Gerle,  poor  Patriot 
Chartreux,  in  the  National  .Assembly  itself !  She,  in  Pythoness' 
recitative,  with  wildstaring  eye,  sings  that  there  shall  be  a  Sign  ; 
that  the  heavenly  Sun  himself  will  hang  out  a  Sign,  or  Mock-Sun, 
—which,  many  say,  shall  be  stamped  with  the  Head  of  hanged 
Favras.  List,  Dom  Gerle,  with  that  poor  addled  poll  of  thine  ; 
list,  O  list ;— and  hear  nothing.* 

Notable  however  was  that  'magnetic  vellum,  veliji  viao-jictujac- 
of  the  Sieurs  d'Hozicr  and  Petit-Jean,  Parlementeers  of  Rouen. 
Sweet  young  d'Hozier,  '  bred  in  the  faith  of  his  Missal,  and  of 
'parchment  genealogies,'  and  of  parchment  generally:  adusi, 
melancholic,  middle-aged  Petit-Jean  :  why  came  these  two  to  Saint^ 
Cloud,  where  his  Majesty  was  hunting,  on  the  festival  of  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul  ;  and  waited  there,  in  antechambers,  a  wonder  to 
whispering  Swiss,  the  livelong  day  ;  and  even  waited  without  the 
Grates,  when  turned  out ;  and  had  dismissed  their  valets  to  Paris, 
as  with  purpose  of  endless  waiting  t  Thcv  have  a  niao;netic  vellum, 
these  two  ;  whereon  the  Virgin,  wonderfulfv  cloihingherself  in  Mes- 
merean  Caghostric  Occult-Philosopb  n  1 1  -  1  .ired  them  to  jot  down 
instructions  and  predictions  for  a  \  '  -icd  Kino-.  To  whom 

by  Higher  Order,  they  will  thi.  .ciu  it;  ^md  save  thJ 

Monarchy  and  World.    Unaccountable  pair  of  visual-objects  !  \'e 
Should  be  men,  and  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  ;  but  your  magnetic 
*  Deux  Amis,  v.  c.  7, 


32 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


vellum  forbids  us  so  to  interpret.  Say,  are  ye  aught  ?  Thus  ask 
the  Guardhouse  Captains,  the  Mayor  of  St.  Cloud  ;  nay,  at  great 
length,  thds  asks  the  Committee  of  Researches,  and  not  the 
Municipal, -but  the  National  Assembly  one.  No  distinct  answer, 
for  weeks.  At  last  it  becomes  plain  that  the  right  ansvver  is  -nega- 
tive.  Go,  ye  Chimeras,  with  your  magnetic  vellum  ;  sweet  young 
Chimera,  adust  middle-aged  one  !  The  Prison-doors  are  opeOo 
Hardly  again  shall  ye  preside  the  Rouen  Chamber  of  Accounts ; 
but  vanish  obscurely  into  Limbo.* 


CHAPTER  VHI. 

SOLEMN  LEAGUE  AND  COVENANT. 

Such  dim  masses,  and  specks  of  even  deepest  black,  work  in 
that  white-hot  glow  of  the  French  mind,  now  wholly  in  fusion,  and 
co7t{\\^\oxi.    Old  women  here  swearing  their  ten  children  on  the 
new  Evangel  of  Jean  Jacques  ;  old  women  there  looking  up  for  . 
Favras'  Heads  in  the  celestial  Luminary  :  these  are  preternatural, 
signs,  prefiguring  somewhat.  '  "  ■ 

In  fact,  to  the  Patriot  children  of  Hope  themselves,  it  is  un-  i 
'deniable  that  difficulties  exist  :  emigrating  Seigneurs  ;  Parlements ; 
in  sneaking  but  most  malicious  mutiny  (though  the  rope  is  round  ' 
their  neck)  ;  above  all,  the  most  decided  '  deficiency  of  grains.' ' 
Sorrowful  :  but,  to  a  Nation  that  hopes,  not  irremediable.    To  a 
Nation  which  is  in  fusion  and  ardent  communion  of  thought ; 
which,  for  example,  on  signal  of  one  Fugleman,  will  lift  its  right 
hand  hke  a  drilled  regiment,  and  swear  and  illuminate,  till  every 
village  from  Ardennes  to  the  Pyrenees  has  rolled  its  village-drum, 
and  sent  up  its  little  oath,  and  glimmer  of  tallow-illumination  some 
fathoms  into  the  reign  of  Night  ! 

If  grains  are  defective,  the  fault  is  not  of  Nature  or  National 
Assembly,  but  of  Art  and  Antinational  Intriguers.  Such  malign 
individuals,  of  the  scoundrel  species,  have  power  to  vex  us,  while 
the  Constitution  is  a-making.  Endure  it,  ye  heroic  Patriots  :  nay 
rather,  why  not  cure  it  1  Grains  do  grow,  they  lie  extant  there  in 
sheaf  or  sack ;  only  that  regraters  and  Royalist  plotters,  to  pro- 
voke the  people  into  illegality,  obstruct  the  transport  of  grains. 
Quick,  ye  or;:^;mise(l  Patriot  Authorities,  armed  National  Guards, 
meet  togetlicr  :  unite  your  goodwill  ;  in  union,  is  tenfold  strength  :' 
let  the  f:()n  cent  red  flash  of  your  Patriotism  strike  stealthy  Scoun- 
drelism  Ijlind,  paralytic,  as  with  a  coup  de  soleil. 

Under  which  hat  or  nightcap  of  the  Twenty- five  millions,  this 
pregnant  Idea  first  rose,  for  in  some  one  head  it  did  rise,  no  man 
can  now  say.  A  most  small  idea,  near  at  hand  for  the  whole  world: 
but  a  living  one,  lit  ;  and  which  waxed,  whether  into  greatness  or 


*  Sec  Deux  Amis,  v,  199. 


SOLEMN  LEAGUE  AND  COVENANT. 


not,  into  immeasurable  size.  When  a  Nation  is  in  this  state  that 
the  Fugleman  can  operate  on  it,  what  will  the  word  in  season,  the 
act  m  season,  not  do  !  It  will  grow  verily,  like  the  Boy's  Bean  in 
the  Fairy-Tale,  heaven-high,  with  habitations  and  adventures 
on  It,  in  one  night.  It  is  nevertheless  unfortunately  still  a 
Bean  (for  your  long-lived  Oak  grows  not  so)  ;  and,  the  next 
night,  it  may  lie  felled,  horizontal,  trodden  into  common  mud.— 
But  remark,  at  least,  how  natural  to  any  agitated  Nation,  which 
has  Faith,  this  business  of  Covenanting  is.  The  Scotch,  believing 
in  a  righteous  Heaven  above  them,  and  also  in  a  Gospel,  far  other 
than  the  Jean-Jacques  one,  swore,  in  their  extreme  need,  a  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,— as  Brothers  on  the  forlorn-hope,  and  im- 
minence of  batde,  who  em.brace  looking  Godward  ;  and  got  the 
whole  Isle  to  swear  it ;  and  even,  in  their  tough  Old- Saxon 
Hebrew-Presbyterian  way,  to  keep  it  more  or  less  ;— for  the  thing, 
as  such  thmgs  are,  was  heard  in  Heaven,  and  partially  ratified 
there  ;  neither  :  :  it  yet  dead,  if  thou  wilt  look,  nor  like  to  die.  The 
French  too,  with  their  Gallic-Ethnic  excitabihty  and  effervescence, 
have,  as  we  have  seen,  real  Faith,  of  a  sort ;  they  are  hard  bestead, 
though  in  the  middle  of  Hope  :  a  National  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  there  may  be  in  France  too  ;  under  how  different  con- 
ditions ;  with  hov/  different  developement  and  issue  ! 

Note,  accordingly,  the  small  commencement  ;  first  spark  of  a 
mighty  firework  :  for  if  the  particular  hat  cannot  be  fixed  upon,  the 
particular  District  can.  On  the  29th  day  of  last  November,  were 
National  Guards  by  the  thousand  seen  filing,  from  far  and' near, 
With  military  music,  with  Municipal  officers  m  tricolor  sashes,  to- 
wards and  along  the  Rhone-stream,  to  the  Httle  town  of  Etoile. 
There  with  ceremonial  evolution  and  manoeuvre,  with  farfaronad- 
mg,  musketry-salvoes,  and  what  else  the  Patriot  genius  could 
devise,  they  made  oath  and  obtestation  to  stand  faithfully  by  one 
another,  under  Law  and  King  ;  in  particular,  to  have  all  manner 
of  grains,  while  grains  there  were,  freely  circulated,  in  spite  both 
of  robber  and  regrater.  This  was  the  meeting  of  Etoile,  in  the 
mild  end  of  November  1789. 

„    But  now,  if  a  mere  empty  Review,  followed  by  Review-dinner, 
iball,  and  such  gesticulation  and  flirtaUon  as  there  maybe,  interests 
jthe  happy  County-town,  and  makes  it  the  envy  of  surrounding 
Lounty-towns,  how  much  m.ore  might  this  !    In  a  fortnight,  larg-er 
Montelimart,  half  ashamed  of  itself,  will  do  as^  good,  and  bett^er. 
On  the  Plain  of  MontJiimart,  or  what  is  equally  sonorous,  'under 
I '  tne  Walls  of  MontelimaiV  the  thirteenth  of  December  sees  new 
leathering  and  obtestation  ;  six  thousand  strong  ;  and  now  indeed, 
with  these  three  remarkable  improvements,  as  unanimously  re- 
solved on  there.    First  that  the  men  of  Montelimart  do  federate 
with  the  already  federated  men  of  Etoile.    Second,  that,  implyinp- 
Clot  expressing  the  circulation  of  grain,  they  '  swear  in  the  face  of 

•  (^od  and  their  Country '  with  much  more  emphasis  and  compre- 
aensiveness,  '  to  obey  all  decrees  of  the  National  Assembly,  and 

•  see  them  obeyed,  till  death,  jusqu'd  la  mort:    Third,  and  most 

VOL.  lU  C 


34  THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 

important,  that  official  record  of  all  this  be  solemnly  delivered  in 
to  ?he  National  Assembly,  to  M.  de  Lafayette,  and  to  the  Ives  ore 
'  of  French  Liberty  ; '  who  shall  all  take  what  comfort  frotn  it 
they  can.    Thus  does  larger  Montelimart  vindicate  its  Patriot  im- 
portance, and  maintain  its  rank  in  the  mumcipal  scale.- 

And  so,  with  the  New-year,  the  signal  is  hoisted  ;  for  is  not  «. 
National  Assembly,  and  solemn  deliverance  there   at  lowest  a 
National  Telegraph  ?    Not  only  gram  shall  circulate,      le  here 
is  grain,  on  highways  or  tlie  Rhone-waters,  over  all  tiuit  oouth- 
Easternregion,-where  also  if  Monsiegneur  d'Arto.s  saw  good  to 
break  hi  from  Turin,  hot  welcome  might  wait  hun;  but  wliatsoever 
Province  of  France  is  straitened  for  gram  or  vexed  with  a  muti- 
nous  Parlement,  unconstitutional  plotters,  Monarchic  Clubs  or  any 
other  Patriot  ailment,-can  go  and  do  likewise,  or  even  do  be^tej 
And  now  especially,  when  the  February  swearing  has  set  them  all 
Sfg  t    From  Brituny  to  Burgundy,  on  most  Plams  of  P  rance, 
undl;  most  City-walls,  it  is  a  blaring  of  trumpets,  waving  o{ 
banners  a  constitutional  manoeuvring  :  under  thevernal  sk.es 
whUe  Nature  too  is  putting  forth  her  green  Hopes,  under  bright  _ 
Tunrhine  defaced  by  the  storrnful  East;  like  Patriotism  victon-- ; 
ous  though  with  difficulty,  over  Aristocracy  and  defect  of  grain!  , 
ThVe  march  and  constitutionally  wheel,  to  the  f«-^r«-mg  n  ooa  ' 
of  fife  and  drum,  under  their  tricolor  Municipals,  our  clear- ; 
geamini  Pha'Ces  ;  or  halt,_with  uplifted       t-h-J  -d 
lerv-salvoes  that  imitate  Jove's  thunder;  and  all  the  Country, 
and  r^etaphorically  all  'the  Universe,'  is  looking  on.  Wholly, 
fn  thdr  b?st  appa'rel,  brave  men,  and  beautifully  dizened  women 
most  of  whom  have  lovers  there ;  swearing,  by  the  eternal 
Heavens  and  this  green-growing  all-nutritive  Earth,  that  Prance 

Sweetest  days,  when  (astonishing  to  say)  mortals  have  actually 
met  together  in  communion  and  fellowship  ;  and  man  were  it  only 
S^ce  through  long  despicable  centuries,  is  ior  moments  yenly  the 
Ser  of  man  !-And^hen  the  Deputations  to  the  NaUon^al  A^^^^^ 
semblv  with  highflown  descriptive  harangue;  to  1^^- i;^*^/^^^^^ 
and  the  Restofer  ;  very  frequently  moreoveyo  the  Mo^^^^^^^^ 
Pntriotism  sitting  on  her  stout  benches  m  that  Hal  ot  the  jaco- 
Lnsf  The  genfral  ear  is  filled  with  Federation.  New  names  o 
Patriots  emerge,  which  shall  one  day  become  famihai  .  Boyer- 
FonfrMe  eToquent  denunciator  of  a  rebellious  Bourdeaux  Par  e- 
S    Max  ?sm"rd  eloquent  reporter  of  the  Federation  of  Draguig- 

brethren  mention  a  Fraternity  of  «//true  ^^enc^-^^  j/.  ^^^^ 
Ipncrth  of  invokiniT 'perdition  and  death' on  any  renegaae  .  more- 


*  Hist.  ParL  vii.  4. 


SOLEMN  LEAGUE  AND  COVENANT.  35 


not  one  Federation,  and  universal  Oath  of  Brotherhood,  once  for 
ail  A  most  pertinent  suggestion  ;  dating  from  the  end  of 
March.  Which  pertinent  suggestion  the  whole  Patriot  world  can- 
not but  catch,  and  reverberate  and  agitate  till  it  h^zom^  loud : 
-—which,  in  that  case,  the  Townhall  Municipals  had  better  take 
up,  and  meditate. 

Some  universal  Federation  seems  inevitable  :  the  Where  is 
given  ;  clearly  Paris  :  only  the  Wlien,  the  How  ?  These  also  pro- 
ductive Time  will  give  ;  is  already  giving.  For  always  as  the 
Federative  work  goes  on,  it  perfects  itself,  and  Patriot  genius  adds 
contribution  after  contribution.  1  hus,  at  Lyons,  in  the  end  of  the 
May  month,  we  behold  as  many  as  fifty,  or  some  say  sixty  thou- 
sand, met  to  federate  ;  and  a  multitude  looking  on,  which  it  would 
be  difficult  to  number.  From  dawm  to  dusk  !  For  our  Lyons 
Guardsipen  took  rank,  at  five  in  the  bright  dewy  morning  ;  came 
pouring  in,  bright-gleaming,  to  the  Ouai  de  Rhone,  to  march 
thence  to  the  Federation-field  ;  amid  wavings  of  hats  and  lady- 
handkerchiefs  ;  glad  shoutings  of  some  two  hundred  thousand 
Patriot  voices  and  hearts  ;  the  beautiful  and  brave  !  Among  whom, 
courting  no  notice,  and  yet  the  notablest  of  all,  what  queenUke 
Figure  is  this  ;  with  her  escort  of  house-friends  and  Champagneux 
the  Patriot  Editor  ;  come  abroad  with  the  earliest  ?  Radiant  with 
enthusiasm  are  those  dark  eyes,  is  that  strong  Minerva-face,  look- 
ing dignity  and  earnest  joy  ;  joyfullest  she  where  all  are  joyful.  It 
is  Roland  de  la  Piatriere's  Wife  !  f  Strict  elderly  Roland,  King's 
Inspector  of  Manufactures  here  ;  and  now  likewise,  by  popular 
choice,  the  strictest  of  our  new  Lyons  Municipals  :  a  man  who  has 
gained  much,  if  worth  and  faculty  be  gain  ;  but,  above  all  things, 
has  gained  to  wife  Phlipon  the  Paris  Engraver's  daughter.  Reader, 
mark  that  queenhke  burgher-woman  :  beautiful,  Amazonian-grace- 
ful to  the  eye  ;  more  so  to  the  mind.  Unconscious  of  her  worth 
(as  all  worth  is),  of  her  greatness,  of  her  crystal  clearness; 
genuine,  the  creature  of  Sincerity  and  Nature,  in  an  age  of  Arti- 
ficiality, Pollution  and  Cant  ;  there,  in  her  still  completeness,  in 
her  still  invincibility,  she,  if  thou  knew  it,  is  the  noblest  of  all  living 
Frenchwomen,— and  will  be  seen,  one  day.  O  blessed  rather 
while  ///^seen,  even  of  herself!  For  the  present  she  gazes,  nothing 
doubting,  into  this  grand  theatricality  ;  and  thinks  her  young 
dreams  are  to  be  fulfilled. 

From  dawn  to  dusk,  as  we  said,  it  lasts  :  and  truly  a  sight  like 
few.    Flourishes  of  drums  and  trumpets  are  something  :  but  think 
of  an  '  artificial  Rock  fifty  feet  high,'  all  cut  into  crag-steps,  not 
without  the  simihtude  of  '  shrubs  ! '    The  interior  canity,  for  in 
sooth  it  is  made  of  deal,-^stands  solemn,  a  '  Temple  of  Concord  : 
on  the  outer  summit  rises  '  a  Statue  of  Liberty,'  colossal,  seen  for 
!  miles,  with  her  Pike  and  Phrygian  Cap,  and  civic  column  ;  at  her 
;  feet  a  Country's  Altar,  '  Autel  dc  la  Patrie  .-'—on  all  which  neither 
'  deal-timber  nor  lath  and  plaster,  with  paint  of  various  colours, 
'     e  been  spared.    But  fancy  then  the  banners  all  placed  on  the 
*  Reports,  &c.  (in  Hist.  Pari.  ix.  122-147), 

t  Madame  Roland,  Mdmoircs,  i.  {Discours  Prcliiyiinairc,  p.  23). 

.C  3 


36 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


steps  of  the  Rock;  high-mass  chaunted  ;  and  the  civic  oath  of 
fi^-ty  thousand  :  with  what  volcanic  outburst  of  sound  from  iron 
and  other  throats,  enough  to  frighten  back  the  very  Soane  and 
Rhone  ;  and  how  the  brightest  fireworks,  and  balls,  and  even 
repasts  closed  in  that  night  of  the  gods  !  ^  And  so  the  Lyons 
•:Federa^^on  vanishes  too,  swallowed  of  darkness ;- and  yet  not 
wholly  for  our  brave  fair  Roland  was  there  ;  also  she,  though  m 
the  deepest  privacy,  writes  her  Narrative  of  it  m  Champagneux  s 
Courier  de  Lyons;  a  piece  which  '  circulates  to  the  extent  of  six^y 
thousand  ; '  which  one  would  like  now  to  read. 

But  on  the  whole,  Paris,  we  may  see,  will  have  httle  to  devise ; 
will  onlv  have  to  borrow  and  apply.  And  then  as  to  the  day,  what 
day  of  all  the  calendar  is  fit,  if  the  Bastille  Anniversary  be  not? 
The  particular  spot  too,  it  is  easy  to  see,  must  be  the  Champ-de- 
Mars  ;  where  many  a  Julian  the  Apostate  has  been  lifted  on 
bucklers,  to  France's  or  the  world's  sovereignty  ;  and  irgn  Franks, 
loud-clanging,  have  responded  to  the  voice  of  a  Charlemagne  ;  and 
from  of  old  mere  sublimities  have  been  familiar. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SYMBOLIC. 

How  natural,  in  all  decisive  circumstances,  is  Symbolic  Repre- 
sentation to  all  kinds  of  men  !  Nay,  what  is  man's  whole  terrestrial 
Life  but  a  Symbolic  Representation,  and  making  visible,  of  the 
Celestial  invisible  Force  that  is  in  him  ?  By  act  and  world  he 
strives  to  do  it  ;  with  sincerity,  if  possible ;  failing  that,  with 
theatricality,  which  latter  also  may  have  its  meaning.  An  Almack's 
Masquerade  is  not  nothing  ;  in  more  genial  ages,  your  Christmas 
Guisings,  Feasts  of  the  Ass,  Abbots  of  Unreason,  were  a  consider- 
able something  :  sincere  sport  they  were  ;  as  Almacks  may  still  be 
sincere  wish  for  sport.  But  what,  on  the  other  hand,  must  not 
sincere  earnest  have  been  :  say,  a  Hebrew  Feast  of  Tabernacles 
have  been  !  A  whole  Nation  gathered,  in  the  name  of  the 
Highest,  under  the  eye  of  the  Highest;  imagination  herself  flag- 
^ing  under  the  reality  ;  and  all  noblest  Ceremony  as  yet  not  grown 
ceremonial,  but  solemn,  significant  to  the  outmost  fringe  !  Neithci", 
in  modern  private  life,  are  theatrical  scenes,  of  tearful  women 
wetting  whoie  ells  of  cambric  in  concert,  of  impassioned  bush)'- 
whiskcred  youth  threatening  suicide,  and  such  like,  to  be  so 
entirely  detested  :  drop  thou  a  tear  over  them  thyself  rather. 

At  any  rate,  one  can  remark  that  no  Nation  will  throw-by  its 
work,  and  deliberately  go  out  to  make  a  scene,  without  meaning 
soiixething  thereby.    For  indeed  no  scenic  individual,  with  knavish 


*  Pari.  xli.  274. 


MANKIND. 


37 


hvDocritical  views,  will  take  the  trouble  to  soUloqmse  a  scene  : 
Kow  consider,  is  not  a  scenic  Nation  placed  prec.sely  m  hat 
predicament  of  soliloquising  ;  for  its  own  behoof  alone  ;  to  solace 
Fts  own  sensibilities,  maudhn  or  other  ?-Yet  in  this  respect,  of 
readiness  for  scenes,  the  difference  of  Nations,  as  of  men,  is  very 
ffreat  If  our  Saxon- Puritanic  friends,  for  example,  swore  and 
figned  their  National  Covenant,  without  discharge  of  gunpowder 
or  the  beating  of  any  drum,  in  a  dingy  Covenant-Close  of  the 
Edinburgh  High-street,  in  a  mean  room,  where  men  now  drink 
mean  liquor,  it  was  consistent  with  their  ways  so  to  swear  it  Our 
Gallic-Encyclopedic  friends,  again,  must  have  a  Champ-de-Mar., 
seen  of  all  the  world,  or  universe  ;  and  such  a  Scenic  Exhibition, 
to  which  the  Cohseum  Amphitheatre  was  but  a  stroller  s  barn  as 
this  old  Globe  of  ours  had  never  or  hardly  ever  beheld.  Which 
method  also  we  reckon  natural,  then  and  there.  Nor  perhaps 
was  the  respective  keeping  of  these  two  Oaths  far  out  of  due  pro- 
portion to  such  respective  display  in  taking  them  :  inverse  pro- 
portion, namely.  For  the  theatricahty  of  a  People  goes  m  a 
compound-ratio  :  ratio  indeed  of  their  trustfulness,  sociability, 
fervency  ;  but  then  also  of  their  excitability,  of  their  porosity,  not 
"continent;  or  say,  of  their  explosiveness,  hot-flashing,  but  which 

*^°How  true  also,  once  more,  is  it  that  no  man  or  Nation  of  men, 
conscious  doing  a  great  thing,  was  ever,  m  that  thing,  doing 
other  than  a  smtu  one  !  O  Champ-de-Mars  Federation,  with 
three  hundred  drummers,  twelve  hundred  wind-musicians,  ana 
artillery  planted  on  height'after  height  to  boom  the  tidings  of  it 
aU  ovTr  France,  in  flw  minutes !  Could  no  Atheist-Naigeon 
contrive  to  discern,  eighteen  centuries  off,  those  Thirteen  most 
poor  mean-dressed  men,  at  frugal  Supper,  m  a  mean  Jewish 
dwelling,  with  no  symbol  but  hearts  god-initiated  into  the  Divme 
'  depth  of  Sorrow,'  and  2iDo  this  in  remembrance  of  me  ;—an(i  so 
cease  that  small  difficult  crowing  of  his,  if  he  were  not  doomed  to 
it? 


CHAPTER  X. 

MANKIND. 


Pardonable  are  human  theatricalities ;  nay  perha.ps  touching, 
like  the  passionate  utterance  of  a  tongue  which  with  ?inc«tty 
stammers  ;  of  a  head  which  with  insincerity  ^^f.'^^^^'T^^y'"^  gone 
distracted.  Yet,  in  comparison  with  unpremeditated  outbursts  oi 
Nature,  such  as  an  Insurrection  of  Women,  how  foisonless,  un- 
edifying,  undelightful  ;  like  small  ale  palled,  ^i^e  an  efrervescence 
that  has  effervesced  !  Such  scenes,  coming  of  forethought  we^ 
they  world-great,  and  never  so  cunningly  devised,  are  at  boitoir 


38 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


mainly  pasteboard  and  paint.  But  the  others  are  original, 
etnitted  from  the  great  everliving  heart  of  Nature  herself :  what 
figure  they  will  assume  is  unspeakably  significant.  To  us,  there- 
fore, let  the  French  National  Solemn  League,  and  Federation,  be 
the  highest  recorded  triumph  of  the  Thespian  Art  ;  triumphant 
surely,  since  the  whole  Pit,  which  was  of  Twenty-five  Millions,  not 
only  claps  hands,  but  does  itself  spring  on  the  boards  and  passion  - 
ately set  to  playing  there.  And  being  such,  be  it  treated  as  such  : 
with  sincere  cursory  admiration  ;  with  wonder  from  afar.  A 
whole  Nation  gone  mumming  deserves  so  much  ;  but  deserves  not. 
that  loving  minuteness  a  Menadic  Insurrection  did.  Much  more 
let  prior,  and  as  it  were,  rehearsal  scenes  of  Federation  come  and 
go,  henceforward,  as  they  list  ;  and,  on  Plains  and  under  City- 
v/alls,  innumerable  regimental  bands  blare  off  into  the  Inane, 
without  note  from  us. 

One  scene,  however,  the  hastiest  reader  will  momentarily  pause 
on  :  that  of  Anacharsis  Clootz  and  the  Collective  sinful  Posterity 
of  Adam. — For  a  Patriot  Municipality  has  now%  on  the  4th  of  June, 
got  its  plan  concocted,  and  got  it  sanctioned  by  National  Assembly  ; 
a  Patriot  King  assenting  ;  to  whom,  were  he  even  free  to  dissent, 
Federative  harangues,  overflowing  with  loyalty,  have  doubdess  a 
transient  sweetness.  There  shalt  come  Deputed  National  Guards, 
so  many  in  the  hundred,  from  each  of  the  Eighty-three  Depart- 
ments of  France.  Likewise  from  all  Naval  and  Military  King's 
Forces,  shall  Deputed  quotas  come  ;  such  Federation  of  National 
with  Royal  Soldier  has,  taking  place  spontaneously,  been  already 
seen  and  sanctioned.  For  the;  rest,  it  is  hoped,  as  many  as  forty 
thousand  may  arrive  :  expenses  to  be  borne  by  the  Deputing 
District  ;  of  all  which  let  District  and  Department  take  thought, 
and  elect  fit  men, — whom  the  Paris  brethren  will  fly  to  meet  and 
welcome. 

Now,  therefore,  judge  if  our  Patriot  Artists^are  busy;  taking 
deep  counsel  how  to  make  the  Scene  worthy  of  a  look  from  the 
Universe  !  As  many  as  fifteen  thousand  mxn,  spade-men,  barrow- 
men,  stone-builders,  rammers,  with  their  engineers,  are  at  work  on 
the  Champ-de-Mars ;  hollowing  it  out  into  a  natural  Amphi- 
theatre, fit  for  such  solemnity.  For  one  may  hope  it  will  be 
annual  and  perennial  ;  a  '  P^east  of  Pikes,  Fc>te  des  Pignes'' 
notablest  among  the  high-tides  of  the  year  :  in  any  case  ought 
not  a  Scenic  Vree  Nation  to  have  some  permanent  National 
Amphitheatre.^  The  Champ-de-Mars  is  getting  hollowed  out; 
and  the  daily  talk  and  the  nightly  dream  in  most  Parisian 
heads  is  of  Federation,  and  that  only.  Federate  Deputies  arc 
already  under  way.  National  Assembly,  what  with  its  natural 
work,  what  with  hearing  and  answering  harangues  of  P^ederates, 
of  this  Federation,  will  have  enough  to  do  !  Harangue  of 
'American  Connnittce,'  among  whom  is  that  faint  ligure  of 
Paul  Jones  'as  with  the  stars  dim-twinkling  through  it, —come 
to  congratulate  us  on  the  prospect  of  such  auspicious  day. 
Harangue  of  Hastille  Conouf^ro-s.  rome  to  *  renoimce'  any  special 
vccompensc,  "jriniity;- since  the 


MANKIND.  39 

Centre  Grenadiers  rather  grumble.  Harangue  of  '  Tennis-Court 
^  Club;  who  enter  with  far-gleaming  Brass-plate,  aloft  on  a  pole, 
and  the  Tennis-Court  Oath  engraved  thereon  ;  which  far  gleammg 
Brass-plate  they  purpose  to  affix  solemnly  in^  the  Versailles  original 
locality  on  the  20th  of  this  month,  which  is  the  anniversary,  as  a 
deathless  memorial,  for  some  years  :  they  will  then  dme,  as  they 
come  back,  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  cannot,  however,  do  it 
without  aporising  the  world.  To  such  things  does  the  august 
National  Assembly  ever  and  anon  cheerfully  listen,  suspending  Us 
regenerative  labours  ;  and  with  some  touch  of  impromptu  elo- 
quence, make  friendly  reply  ;— as  indeed  the  wont  has  long  been  ; 
for  it  is  a  gesticulating,  sympathetic  People,  and  has  a  heart,  and 
wears  it  on  its  sleeve.  .       r  a      u  v 

In  which  circumstances,  it  occurred  to  the  mmd  of  Anacharsis 
Clootz  that  while  so  much  was  embodying  itself  mto  Club  or 
Committee,  and  perorating  applauded,  there  yet  remained  a 
greater  and  greatest ;  of  which,  if //also  took  body  and  perorated, 
what  might  not  the  effect  be:  Humankind  namely,  le  Genre 
Humain  itself!  In  v/hat  rapt  creative  moment  the  Thought  rose 
in  Anacharsis^s  soul;  all  his  throes,  while  he  went  about  giving 
shape  and  birth  to  it  ;  how  he  was  sneered  at  by  cold  worldlings  ; 
but  did  sneer  again,  being  a  man  of  polished  sarcasm ;  and 
moved  to  and  fro  persuasive  in  coffeehouse  and  soiree,  and  dived 
down  assiduous-obscure  in  the  great  deep  of  Pans  making  his 
Thought  a  Fact  :  of  all  this  the  spiritual  biographies  of  that 
period  say  nothing.  Enough  that  on  the  19th  evening  of  June 
1790,  the  Sun's  slant  rays  lighted  a  spectacle  such  as  our  foolish 
litde  Planet  has  not  often  had  to  show  :  Anacharsis  Clootz  enter- 
ing the  august  Salle  de  Manege,  with  the  Human  Species  at  his 
heels.  Swedes,  Spaniards,  Polacks  ;  Turks,  Chaldeans,  Greeks, 
dwellers  in  Mesopotamia  :  behold  them  all  ;  they  have  come  to 
claim  place  in  the  grand  Federation,  having  an  undoubted  interest 

^^^^'Our  ambassador  titles,"  said  the  fervid  Clootz,  are  ^^i^ot  writ- 
ten on  parchment,  but  on  the  living  hearts  of  all  men.  1  hese 
whiskered  Polacks,  long-flowing  turbaned  Ishmaelites,  astrological 
Chaldeans,  who  stand  so  mute  here,  let  them  plead  with  you, 
august  Senators,  more  eloquently  than  eloquence  could,  il^^y 
are  the  mute  representatives  of  their  tongue-tied,  befettered,  heavy- 
laden  Nations ;  whofromout  of  that  dark  bewilderment  gaze  wistful, 
amazed,  with  half-incredulous  hope,  towards  you,  and  this  your 
bright  light  of  a  French  Federation  :  bright  particular  day-star, 
the  herald  of  universal  day.  We  claim  to  stand  there,  as  mute 
monuments,  pathetically  adumbrative  of  much.— From  bench  and 
gallery  comes  '  repeated  applause  for  what  august  Senator  but 
is  flattered  even  by  the  very  shadow  of  Human  Species  depending 
on  him  ?  From  President  Sieyes,  who  presides  this  remarkable 
fortnight,  in  spite  of  his  small  voice,  there  comes  eloquent  thougti 
shrill  reply.  Anacharsis  and  the  '  Foreigners  Committee  shall 
have  place  at  the  F  ederation  ;  on  condition  of  tellmg  their  re- 
See  Deux  Amis,  v.  122  ;  HisL  ParL  &c. 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


spective  Peoples  what  they  see  there.  In  the  mean  time,  we 
invite  them  to  the  '  honours  of  the  sitting,  honneur  de  la  seance^ 
A  long-flowing  Turk,  for  rejoinder,  bows  with  Eastern  solemnity, 
and  utters  articulate  sounds  :  but  owing  to  his  imperfect  knowledge 
of  the  French  dialect,*  his  words  are  like  spilt  water  ;  the  thought 
he  had  in  him  remains  conjectui:al  to  this  day. 

Anacharsis  and  Mankind  accept  the  honours  of  the  sitting ; 
and  have  forthwith,  as  the  old  Newspapers  still  testify,  the  satis- 
faction to  see  several  things.  First  and  chief,  on  the  motion  of 
Lameth,  Lafayette,  Saint-Fargeau  and  other  Patriot  Nobles,  let 
the  others  repugn  as  they  will  :  all  Titles  of  Nobility,  from  Duke 
to  Esquire,  or  lower,  are  henceforth  abolished.  Then,  in  like 
manner.  Livery  Servants,  or  rather  the  Livery  of  Servants. 
Neither,  for  the  future,  shall  any  man  or  woman,  self-styled  noble, 
be  *  incensed, —foohshly  fumigated  with  incense,  in  Church  ;  as 
the  wont  has  been.  In  a  word.  Feudalism  being  dead  these  ten 
months,  why  should  her  empty  trappings  and  scutcheons  survive  ? 
The  very  Coats-of-arms  will  require  to  be  obliterated  ; — and  yet 
Cassandra  Marat  on  this  and  the  other  coach-panel  notices 
that  they  'are  but  painted-over,'  and  threaten  to  peer  through 
again. 

So  that  henceforth  de  Lafayette  is  but  the  Sieur  Motier,  and 
Saint-Fargeau  is  plain  Michel  Lepelletier ;  and  Mirabeau  soon 
after  has  to  say  huffingly,  With  your  Riqjietti yon  have  set  Europe 
at  cross-purposes  for  three  days."  For  his  Counthood  is  not  in- 
different to  this  man  ;  which  indeed  the  admiring  People  treat 
him  with  to  the  last.  But  let  extreme  Patriotism  rejoice,  and 
chiefly  Anacharsis  and  Mankind  ;  for  now  it  seems  to  be  taken  for 
granted  that  one  Adam  is  Father  of  us  all  ! — 

Such  was,  in  historical  accuracy,  the  famed  feat  of  Anacharsis. 
Thus  did  the  most  extensive  of  Public  Bodies  find  a  sort  of  spokes- 
man. Whereby  at  least  we  may  judge  of  one  thing  :  what  a 
humour  the  once  sniffing  mocking  City  of  Paris  and  Baron  Clootz 
had  got  into  ;  when  such  exhibition  could  appear  a  propriety,  next 
door  to  a  sublimity.  It  is  true,  Envy  did  in  after  times,  pervert 
this  success  of  Anacharsis  ;  making  him,  from  incidental 
*  Speaker  of  the  Foreign-Nations  Committee,'  claim  to  be  official 
permanent  '  Speaker,  Orateur^  of  the  Human  Species,'  which  he 
only  deserved  to  be  ;  and  alleging,  calumniously,  that  his  astro- 
logical Chaldeans,  and  the  rest,  were  a  mere  French  tag-rag*and- 
bobtail  disguised  for  the  nonce  ;  and,  in  short,  sneering  and  fleer- 
ing at  him  in  her  cold  barren  way  ;  all  which,  however,  he,  the 
man  he  was,  could  receive  on  thick  enough  panoply,  or  even 
rebound  therefrom,  and  also  go  his  way. 

Most  extensive  of  Public  Bodies,  we  may  call  it  ;  and  also  the 
most  unexpected  :  for  who  could  have  thought  to  see  All  Nations 
in  the  Tuileries  Riding- Mall  ?  But  so  it  is  ;  and  truly  as  strange 
things  may  happen  when  a  whole  People  goes  mumming  and 
miming.  Hast  not  thou  thyself  perchance  seen  diademed  Cleo- 
patra, daughter  of  the  Ptolemies,  pleading,  almost  with  bended 
*  Moniiezir,  &c.  (in  Hist,  Pari,  xii.  283). 


AS  IN  THE  AGE  OE  GOLD, 


41 


knee,  in  unheroic  tea-parlour,  or  dimlit  retail-shop,  to  inflexible 
t^ross  Burghal  Dignitary,  for  leave  to  reign  and  die  ;  being  dressed 
for  it,  and  "moneyless,  with  small  children  ; — while  suddenly  Con- 
stables have  shut  the  Thespian  barn,  and  her  Antony  pleaded  in 
[vain  ?  Such  visual  spectra  flit  across  this  Earth,  if  the  Thespian 
[Stage  be  rudely  interfered  with  :  but  much  more,  when,  as  was 
said,  Pit  jumps  on  Stage,  then  is  it  verily,  as  in  Herr  Tieck's 
[Drama,  a  Verkehrte  IVelt,  of  World  Topsyturvied  ! 

Having  seen  the  Human  Species  itself,  to  have  seen  the  '  Dean 
\  of  the  Human  Species,'  ceased  now  to  be  a  miracle.  Such 
V  Doyen  du  Ge7ire  Ihimain,  Eldest  of  Men,'  had  shewn  himself 
|there,  in  these  weeks  :  Jean  Claude  Jacob,  a  born  Serf,  deputed 
[from  his  native  Jura  Mountains  to  thank  the  National  Assembly 
for  enfranchising  them.  On  his  bleached  worn  face  are  ploughed 
the  furrowings  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  years.  He  has  heard 
:  dim patois-tdiV^,  of  immortal  Grand-Monarch  victories  ;  of  a  burnt 
I  Palatinate,  as  he  toiled  and  moiled  to  make  a  little  speck  of  this 
rEarth  greener  ;  of  Cevennes  Dragoonings  ;  of  Marlborough  going 
to  the  war.  Four  generations  have  bloomed  out,  and  loved  and 
hated,  and  rustled  off :  he  was  forty-six  when  Louis  Fourteenth 
died.  The  Assembly,  as  one  man,  spontaneously  rose,  and  did 
'reverence  to  the  Eldest  of  the  World  ;  old  Jean  is  to  take  seance 
I  among  them,  honourably,  with  covered  head.  He  gazes  feebly 
there,  with  his  old  eyes,  on  that  new  wonder-scene  ;  dreamlike  to 
jhim,  and  uncertain,  wavering  amid  fragments  of  old  memories  and 
'dreams.  For  Time  is  all  growing  unsubstantial,  dreamlike  ;  Jean's 
'■  eyes  and  mind  are  weary,  and  about  to  close, — and  open  on  a  far 
other  wonder-scene,  which  shall  be  real.  Patriot  Subscription, 
Royal  Pension  was  got  for  him,  and  he  returned  home  glad; 
but  in  two  months  more  he  left  it  all,  and  went  on  his  unknown 
!  way.* 


CHAPTER  XL 

AS  IN  THE  AGE  OF  GOLD. 

Meanwhile  to  Paris,  ever  going  and  returning,  day  after  day, 
and  all  day  long,  towards  that  Field  of  Mars,  it  becomes  painfully 
apparent  that  the  spadework  there  cannot  be  got  done  in  time. 
There  is  such  an  area  of  it  ;  three  hundred  thousand  square  feet  : 
for  from  the  Ecole  militaire  (which  will  need  to  be  done  up  m 
wood  with  balconies  and  galleries)  westward  to  the  Gate  by  the 
river  (where  also  shall  be  wood,  in  triumphal  arches),  we  count 
same  thousand  yards  of  length  ;  and  for  breadth,  from  this  um- 
brageous Avenue  of  eight  rows,  on  the  South  side,  to  that  corrc- 
*  Deux  Amk,  iv.  iii. 


42 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


spending  one  on  the  North,  some  thousand  feet,  more  or  less.  AT 
this  to  be  scooped  out,  and  wheeled  up  in  slope  along  the  sides 
high  enough  ;  for  it  must  be  rammed  down  there,  and  shaper 
stair-wise  mto  as  many  as  '  thirty  ranges  of  convenient  seats,' 
firm-trmimed  with  turf,  covered  with  enduring  timber  ;--and  the'r 
our  huge  pyramidal  Fatherland's-Altar,  Auiel  de  la  Patrte,  in  the 
centre,  also  to  be  raised  and  stair-stepped  !  Force-work  with  1 
vengeance  ;  it  is  a  World's  Amphitheatre  !  There  are  but  fifteen, 
days  good  ;  and  at  this  languid  rate,  it  might  take  half  as  t7i;ui\ 
weeks.  What  is  singular  too,  the  spademen  seem  to  work  lazily'; 
they  will  not  work  double-tides,  even  for  offer  of  more  wages' 
though  their  tide  is  but  seven  hours  ;  they  declare  angrily  thatlhe 
human  tabernacle  requires  occasional  rest  ! 

Is  it  Aristocrats  secretly  bribing  ?  Aristocrats  were  capable  i>\ 
that.  Only  six  months  since,  did  not  evidence  get  afloat  that  sub- 
terranean Paris,  for  we  stand  over  quarries  and  catacombs, 
dangerously,  as  it  were  midway  between  Heaven  and  the  Abyss,' 
and  are  hollow  underground,— was  charged  with  gunpowder,  which 
should  make  us  Meap  ? '  Till  a  Cordelier's  Deputation  actually 
went  to  examine,  and  found  it— carried  off  again  !^  An  accursed^ 
mcurable  brood  ;  all  asking  for  '  passports,'  in  these  sacred  days! 
Trouble,  of  rioting,  chateau-burning,  is  in  the  Limousin  and  else- 
where ;  for  they  are  busy  !  Between  the  best  of  Peoples  and  the 
best  of  Restorer- Kings,  they  would  sow  grudges  ;  with  what  a 
fiend's-grin  would  they  see  this  Federation,  looked  for  by  the 
Universe,  fail ! 

Fail  for  want  of  spadework,  however,  it  shall  not.  He  that  has 
four  hmbs,  and  a  French  heart,  can  do  spadework  ;  and  will !  On 
the  first  July  Monday,  scarcely  has  the  signal-cannon  boomed  ; 
scarcely  have  the  languescent  mercenary  Fifteen  Thousand  laid 
down  then-  tools,  and  the  eyes  of  onlookers  turned  sorrowfully 
to  the  still  high  Sun  ;  when  this  and  the  other  Patriot,  fire  in  his. 
eye,  snatches  barrow  and  mattock,  and  himself  begins  indignantly 
wheeling.  Whom  scores  and  then  hundreds  follow  ;  and  soon  a 
volunteer  Fifteen  Thousand  are  shovelling  and  trundling  ;  with 
the  heart  of  giants  ;  and  all  in  right  order,  wi\h  that  extemporaneous 
adroitness  of  theirs  :  whereby  such  a  lift  has  been  given,  worth 
three  mercenary  ones  ;— which  may  end  when  the  late  twilight 
thickens,  in  triumph  shouts,  heard  or  heard  of  beyond  Mont- 
martre  !  * 

A  sympathetic  population  will  wcit,  next  day,  with  eagerness, 
till  the  tools  are  free.  Or  why  wait.?  Spades  elsewhere  exist  ! 
And  so  now  bursts  forth  that  effulgence  of  Parisian  enthusiasm, . 
good-heartedness  and  brotherly  love;  such,  if  Chroniclers  are 
trustworthy,  as  was  not  witnessed  since  the  Age  of  Gold.  Paris, 
male  and  female,  precipitates  itself  towards  *"its  South-west  ex- 
tremity, spade  on  shoulder.  Streams  of  men,  without  order  ;  or 
m  order,  as  ranked  fellow  craftsmen,  as  natural  or  accidental 

*  23rd  December,  1789  (Newspapers  in  Hist.  Pari,  iv,  44). 


AS  IN  THE  AGE  OF  GOLD, 


43 


reunions,  march  towards  the  Field  of  Mars.  Three-deep  these 
march  ;  to  the  sound  of  stringed  music  ;  preceded  by  young  girls 
with  green  boughs,  and  tricolor  streamers  :  they  have  shouldered, 
soldier- wise,  their  shovels  and  picks  ;  and  with  one  throat  are 
singing  ca-ira.  Yes,  pardieu  ca-ira,  cry  the  passengers  on  the 
streets.  '  All  corporate  Guilds,  and  pubhc  and  private  Bodies  of 
Citizens,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  march  ;  the  very  Hawkers, 
one  finds,  have  ceased  bawling  for  one  day.  The  neighbouring 
Villages  turn  out  :  their  able  men  come  marching,  to  village  fiddle 
or  tambourine  and  triangle,  under  their  Mayor,  or  Mayor  and 
Curate,  who  also  walk  bespaded,  and  in  tricolor  sash.  As  many 
as  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  workers  :  nay  at  certain 
seasons,  as  some  count,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  ;  for,  in 
the  afternoon  especially,  what  mortal  but,  finishing  his  hasty  day's 
work,  would  run  I  A  stirring  city  :  from  the  time  you  reach  the 
Place  Louis  Ouinze,  southward  over  the  River,  by  all  Avenues, 
:it  is  one  living  throng.  So  many  workers  ;  and  no  mercenary 
mock-workers,  but  real  ones  that  lie  freely  to  it  :  each  Patriot 
stretches  himself  against  the  stubborn  glebe  ;  hews  and  wheels 
with  the  whole  weight  that  is  in  him. 

Amiable  infants,  aimables  eitfafis !  They  do  the  'police  des 
*  r atelier^  too,  the  guidance  and  governance,  themselves ;  wdth 
that  ready  will  of  theirs,  with  that  extemporaneous  adroitness.  It 
is  a  true  brethren's  work  ;  all  distinctions  confounded,  abolished  ; 
as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  when  Adam  himself  delved.  Longfrocked 
tonsured  Monks,  with  short-skirted  Water-carriers,  with  swallow- 
tailed  well-frizzled //^^-r^/^^A^s  of  a  Patriot  turn  ;  dark  Charcoalmen, 
meal-white  Peruke-makers  ;  or  Peruke-wearers,  for  Advocate  and 
Judge  are  there,  and  all  Heads  of  Districts  :  sober  Nuns  sisterhke 
with  flaunting  Nymphs  of  the  Opera,  and  females  in  common  cir- 
cumstances named  unfortunate  :  the  patriot  Rag-picker,  and  per- 
fumed dweller  in  palaces  ;  for  Patriotism  like  New-birth,  and  also 
like  Death,  levels 'all.  The  Printers  have  come  marching,  Prud- 
homme's  all  in  Paper- caps  with  Revolutions  de  Paris  printed  on 
them  ;  as  Camille  notes  ;  wishing  that  in  these  great  days  there 
should  be  a  Facte  des  Ecrivains  too,  or  Federation  of  Able 
,  Editors.*  Beautiful  to  see  I  The  snov/y  linen  and  dehcate  panta- 
:  loon  alternates  with  the  soiled  check  shirt  and  bushel-breeches  ; 
1  for  both  have  cast  their  coats,  and  under  both  are  four  limbs  and 
and  a  set  of  Patriot  muscles.  There  do  they  pick  and  shovel ;  or 
bend  forward,. yoked  in  long  strings  to  box-barrow  or  overloaded 
tumbril ;  joyous,  with  one  mind.  Abbe  Sieyes  is  seen  pulling, 
wiry,  vehement,  if  too  light  for  draught  ;  by  the  side  of  Beauhar- 
nais,  who  shall  get  Kings  though  he  be  none.  Abbe  Maury  did 
not  pull  ;  but  the  Charcoalmen  brought  a  mummer  guised  hke 
him,  so  he  had  to  pull  in  effigy.  Let  no  august  Senator  disdain 
the  work  :  Mayor  Bailly,  Generalissimo  Lafayette  are  there  ; — 
and,  alas,  shall  be  there  ao^ain  another  day  !  The  King  himself 
Comes  to    see  :  sky-rending    Vive-le-roi ;  ^  and   suddenly  with 


*■  See  Newspapers,       (in  Ilisi.  Pari.  vi.  381-406). 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


^shouldered  spades  they  form  a  guard  of  honour  round  him' 
Whosoever  can  come  comes ;  to  work,  or  to  look,  and  bless  the 
work. 

Whole  families  have  come.  One  whole  family  we  see  clearly,  of 
three  generations  :  the  father  picking,  the  mother  shovelliix^,  the 
young  ones  wheeling  assiduous  ;  old  grandfather,  hoary  with 
ninety-three  years,  holds  in  his  arms  the  youngest  of  all  frisky, 
not  helpful  this  one  ;  who  nevertheless  may  tell  it  to  his  grand- 
children ;  and  how  the  Future  and  the  Past  alike  looked  on,  and 
with  failing  or  with  half-formed  voice,  faltered  their  qa-ira.  A 
vintner  has  wheeled  in,  on  Patriot  truck,  beverage  of  wine  : 
"  Drink  not,  my  brothers,  if  ye  are  not  dry  ;  that  your  cask  may 
last  the  longer  neither  did  any  drink,  but  men  '  evidently  ex- 
*hausted.'  A  dapper  Abbe  looks  on,  sneering  "  To  the  barrow  ! 
cry  several ;  whom  he,  lest  a  worse  thing  befal  him,  obeys  :  never- 
theless one  wiser  Patriot  barrowman,  arriving  now,  interposes  his 
^'  arretez setting  down  his  own  barrow,  he  snatches  the  Abbe's  ; 
trundles  it  fast,  hke  an  infected  thing,  forth  of  the  Champ-de-Mars 
circuit,  and  discharges  it  there.  Thus  too  a  certain  person  (of  some 
quality,  or  private  capital,  to  appearance),  entering  hastily,  flings 
down  his  coat,  waistcoat  and  two  watches,  and  is  rushing  to  the 
thick  of  the  work  :  ^- But  your  watches?''  cries  the  general  voice. 
— "  Does  one  distrust  his  brothers  ? "  answers  he  ;  nor  were  the 
watches  stolen.  How  beautiful  is  noble-sentiment :  like  gossamer 
gauze,  beautiful  and  cheap  ;  which  will  stand  no  tear  and  wear  ! 
Beautiful  cheap  gossamer  gauze,  thou  film-shadow  of  a  raw- 
material  of  Virtue,  which  art  not  woven,  nor  likely  to  be,  Into 
Duty  ;  thou  art  better  than  nothing,  and  also  worse  ! 

Young  Boarding-school  Boys,  College  Students,  shout  Vivi  la 
Natio7t^  and  regret  that  they  have  yet  '  only  their  sweat  to  give.' 
What  say  we  of  Boys?    Beautifullest  Hebes  ;    the  loveliest  of 
Paris,  in  their  light  air-robes,  with  riband-girdle  of  tricolor,  are 
there  ;  shovelling  and  wheeling  with  the  rest  :  their  Hebe  eyes 
brighter  with  enthusiasm,  and  long  hair  in  beautiful  dishevelment : 
hard-pressed  are  their  small  fingers  ;  but  they  make  the  patriot 
barrow  go,  and  even  force  it  to  the  summit  of  the  slope  (with  a 
little  tracing,  which  what  man's  arm  were  not  too  happy  to  lend? ) 
— then  bound  down  with  it  again,  and  go  for  more  ;  with  their 
long  locks  and  tricolors  blown  back  :  graceful  as  the  rosy  Hours. 
O,  as  that  evening  Sun  fell  over  the  Champ-de-Mars,  and  tinted 
with  fire  the  thick  umbrageous  boscage  that  shelters  it  on  this 
hand  and  on  that,  and  struck  direct  on  those  Domes  and  two-and-  j 
forty  Windows  of  the  Ecole  Militaire,  and  made  them  all  of  bur-  ; 
nished  gold, — saw  he  on  his  wide  zodiac  road  other  such  sight  ?  i 
A  living  garden  spotted  and  dotted  with  such  flowerage  ;  all 
colours  of  the  prism  ;    the  beautifullest  blent  friendly  with  the 
usefullest  ;  all  growing  and  working"  brotherlike  there,  under  one  j 
warm  feeling,  were  it  but  for  days  ;  once  and  no  second  time  !  | 
But  Night  is  sinking  ;  these  Nights  too,  into  Eternity.      The  | 


*  Mcrcicr.  ii.  76,  &c. 


AS  IN  THE  AGE  OF  GOLD, 


45 


hastiest  Traveller  Versailles-ward  has  drawn  bridle  on  the  heights 
of  Chaillot  :  and  looked  for  moments  over  the  River  ;  reporting 
at  Versailles  what  he  saw,  not  without  tears.* 

Meanwhile^  from  all  points  of  the  compass,  Federates  are 
arriving :  fervid  children  of  the  South,  who  glory  in  their 
'  Mirabeau  ; '  considerate  North-blooded  Mountaineers  of  Jura; 
sharp  Bretons,  with  their  Gaelic  suddenness  ;  Normans  not  to  be 
overreached  in  bargain  :  all  now  animated  with  one  noblest  hre  of 
Patriotism.  Whom  the  Paris  brethren  march  forth  to  receive  ; 
with  military  solemnities,  with  fraternal  embracing,  and  a  hospi- 
tality worthy  of  the  heroic  ages.  They  assist  at  the  Assembly's 
Debates,  these  Federates  :  the  Galleries  are  reserved  for  them. 
They  assist  in  the  toils  of  the  Champ-de-Mars  ;  each  new  troop 
will  put  its  hand  to  the  spade  ;  lift  a  hod  of  earth  on  the  Altar  of 
the  Fatherland.  But  the  flourishes  of  rhetoric,  for  it  is  a  gesticu- 
lating People  ;  the  moral-sublime  6f  those  Addresses  to  an  august 
Assembly,  to  a  Patriot  Restorer!  Our  Breton  Captain  of  Federates 
kneels  even,  in  a  fit  of  enthusiasm,  and  gives  up  his  sword  ;  he 
wet-eyed  to  a  King  wet-eyed.  Poor  Louis  !  These,  as  he  said 
afterwards,  were  among  the  bright  days  of  his  life. 

Reviews  also  there  mu?t  be ;  royal  'Federate-reviews,  with 
King,  Queen  and  tricolor  Court  looking  on  :  at  lowest,  if,  as  is  too 
common,  it  rains,  our  Federate  Volunteers  will  file  through  the 
inner  gateways,  Royalty  standing  dry.  Nay  there,  should  some 
stop  occur,  the  beautifullest  fingers  in  France  may  take  you  softly 
by  the  lapelle,  and,  in  mild  flute-voice,  ask  :  "  Monsieur,  of  what 
Province  are  you  ? "  Happy  he  who  can  reply,  chivalrously 
lowering  his  sword's  point,  "Madame,  from  the  Province  your 
ancestors  reigned  over."  He  that  happy  ^Provincial  Advocate,' 
now  Provincial  Federate,  shall  be  rewarded  by  a  sun-smile,  and 
such  melodious  glad  words  addressed  to  a  King  :  "  Sire,  these  are 
your  faithful  Lorrainers."  Cheerier  verily,  in  these  holidays,  is 
this  ^skyblue  faced  with  red'  of  a  National  Guardsman,  than  the 
dull  black  and  gray  of  a  Provincial  Advocate,  which  in  workdays 
one  was  used  to.  For  the  same  thrice-blessed  Lorrainer  shall, 
this  evening,  stand  sentry  at  a  Queen's  door;  and  feel  that  he 
could  die  a  thousand  deaths  for  her  :  then  again,  at  the  outer 
gate,  and  even  a  third  time,  she  shall  see  him ;  nay  he  will  make 
her  do  it  ;  presenting  arms  with  emphasis,  'making  his  musket 

jingle  again' :  and  in  her  salute  there  shall  again  be"  a  sun-smile, 
and  that  little  blonde-locked  too  hasty  Dauphin  shall  be  ad- 
monished, "  Salute  then,  'Monsieur,  don't  be  unpolite  :  '^  and 
therewith  she,  like  a  bright  Sky-wanderer  or  Planet  v/ith  hex  luae 

Moon,  issues  forth  pecuhar.f 

^  But  at  night,  when  Patriot  spadework  is  over,  figure  the  sacred 
nghts  of  hospitality  !  Lepelletier  Saint-Fargeau,\i  mere  private 
senator,  but  w'*h  great  possessions,  has  daily  his  '  hundred  dinne.  - 

juests  ; '  the  table  of  Generalissimo  Lafayette  may  aouble  that 
*  Mercier,  ii.  8i., 

f  Narrativf^  by  a  LoiTainc  Federate  (given  in  Hist.  Pari.  vi.  389-91). 


4.6  THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES, 


number.  In  lowly  parlour,  as  in  lofty  saloon,  the  wine-cup  passes 
round  ;  crowned  by  the  smiles  of  Beauty  ;  be  it  of  lightly-tripping 
Grisette,  or  of  high-sailing  Dame,  for  both  equally  have  beauty^ 
and  smiles  precious  to  the  brave. 


CHAPTER  XI L 

SOUND  AND  SMOKE. 

And  so  now,  in  spite  of  plotting  Aristocrats,  lazy  hired  spademen, 
and  almost  of  Destiny  itself  (for  there  has  been  much  rain),  the 
Champ-de-Mars,  on  the    13th.  of  the  month  is  fairly  ready; 
trimmed,  rammed,  buttressed  with  firm  masonry  ;  and  Patriotism 
can  stroll  over  it  admiring  ;  and  as  it  were  rehearsing,  for  in  every  • 
head  is  some  unutterable  image  of  the  morrow.    Pray  Heaven  ' 
there  be  not  clouds.    Nay  what  far  worse  cloud  is  this,  of  a  mis-  'i 
guided  Municipality  tl^at  talks  of  admitting  Patriotism,  to  the  1 
solemnity,  by  tickets  !    Was  it  by  tickets  we  were  admitted  to  the 
work  ;  and  to  what  brought  the  work  1    Did  we  take  the  Bastille  i 
by  tickets  ?    A  misguided  Municipality  sees  the  error ;  at  late 
midnight,  rolling  drums  announce  to  Patriotism  starting  half 
out  of  its  bed-clothes,  that  it  is  to  be  ticketless.     Pull  down 
thy   night-cap   therefore  ;   and,  with  demi-articulate  grumble, 
significant  of  several  things,  go  pacified  to  sleep  again.  To- 
morrow is  Wednesday  morning  ;  unforgetable  among  the  fasti- 
of  the  world. 

The  morning  comes,  cold  for  a  July  one  ;  but  such  a  festivity 
would  make  Greenland  smile.  Through  every  inlet  of  that 
National  Amphitheatre  (for  it  is  a  league  in  circuit,  cut  with  open- 
ings at  due  intervals),  iloods-in  the  living  throng  ;  covers  without 
tumult  space  after  space.  The  Scole  Militaire  has  galleries  and  . 
ovcrvaulting  canopies,  where  Carpentry  and  Painting  have  vied, 
for  the  upper  Authorities  ;  triumphal  arches,  at  the  Gate  by  the 
River,  bear  inscriptions,  if  weak,  yet  well-meant,  and  orthodox. 
Far  aloft,  over  the  Altar  of  the  Fatherland,  on  their  tall  crane 
standards  of  iron,  swing  pensile  our  antique  Cassolettes  ox  pans  of 
incense  ;  dispensing  sweet  incense-fumes, — unless  for  the  Heatlien 
Mythology,  one  sees  not  for  whom.  Two  hundred  thousand 
Patriotic  Men  ;  and,  twice  as  good,  one  hundred  thousand  Patriotic 
Women,  all  decked  and  glorified  as  one  can  fancy,  sit  waiting  in 
this  Champ-de-Mars. 

What  a  picture  :  that  circle  of  bright-dyed  Life,  spread  up  there, 
on  its  thirty-seated  Slope  ;  leaning,  one  would  say,  on  the  thick  um- 
brage of  those  Avenuc-Trccs,for  the  stems  of  them  are  hidden  by  the 
height  ;  and  all  beyond  it  mere  greenness  of  Summer  P^arth,  v/itb 
the  gleams  of  waters,  or  v/hitc  sparklings  of  stone-edifices  :  little 


SOUND  AND  SMOtCE. 


47 


circular  enamel-picture  in  the  centre  of  sucli  a  vase— of  eitieraW  t 
A  vase  not  empty  :  the  InvaUdes  Cupolas  want  not  their  popula- 
tion, nor  the  distant  Windmills  cf  Montmartre  ;  on  remotest 
.steeple  and  invisible  village  belfry,  stand  men  with  spy-glasses. 
On  the  heights  of  Chaillot  are  many-coloured  undulating  groups  ; 
round  and  far  on,  over  all  the  circling  heights  that  embosom 
Paris,  it  is  as  one  more  or  less  peopled  Amphitheatre  ;  which  the 
eye  grows  dim  with  measuring.  Nay  heights,  as  was  before 
hmted,  have  cannon  ;  and  a  floating-battery  of  cannon  is  on  the 
Seine.  When  eye  fails,  ear  shall  serve  ;  and  all  France  properly 
is  but  one  Amphitheatre  :  for  in  paved  town  and  unpaved  hamlet, 
men  walk  listening  ;  till  the  muffled  thunder  sound  audible  on 
their  horizon,  that  they  too  may  begin  swearing  and  firing  I"^  But 
now,  to  streams  of  music,  come  Federates  enough,— for  they  have 
assembled  on  the  Boulevard  Saint- Antoine  or  thereby,  and  come 
marching  through  the  City,  with  ttieir  Eighty-three  Department 
Banners,  and  blessings  not  loud  but  deep ;  comes  National 
Assembly,  and  takes  seat  under  its  Canopy  ;  comes  Royalty,  and 
takes  seat  on  a  throne  beside  it.  And  Lafayette,  on  white  charger, 
is  here,  and  all  the  civic  Functionaries  ;  and  the  Federates  form 
dances,  till  their  strictly  mihtary  evolutions  and  manceuvres  can 
begin. 

Evolutions  and  manoeuvres  ?  Task  not  the  pen  of  mortal  to 
describe  them  :  truant  imagination  droops  ; — declares  that  it  is 
not  v/orth  while.  There  is  v/heehng  and  sweeping,  to  slow,  to 
quick,  and  double  quick-cime  :  Sieur  Morter,  or  Generahssimo 
Lafayette,  loi'  they  are  one  and  the  same,  and  he  is  General  of 
France,  in  the  King'c  stead,  for  four-and-twenty  hours  ;  Sieur 
Metier  must  step  forth,  with  tho:  sublime  chivalrous  gait  of  his  ; 
solemnly  ascend  the  stc  ,^3  of  Che  Fatherland's  Altar,  in  sight  of 
Heaven  and  of  the  scarcely  breathing  Earth  ;  and,  under  the 
creak  of  those  swinging  Casso^^ffsc,  '  pressing  his  sword's  point 
firmly  there,'  pronounce  the  Oath,  To  King,  to  Law,^  and  Nation 
(not  to  mention  '  grains '  with  their  circulating),  in  his  own  name 
and  that  of  armed  France.  Whereat  there  is  waving  of  banners 
and  acclaim  sufficient.  The  Nationol  Assembly  must  swear,  stand- 
ing in  its  place  ^  the  King  him:.clf  audibly.  The  King  swears  ;  and 
now  the  welkin  split  with  vivats;  let  citizens  enfranchised  embrace, 
each  smiting  heartily  his  palm  into  his  fellow's  ;  and  armed  Fede- 
rates clang  their  arms  ;  above  all,  that  floating  battery  speak  !  It 
has  spoken, — to  the  four  corners  uf  France.  From  eminence  to 
eminence,  bursts  the  thunder  ;  faint-heard,  loud-repeated.  What 
a  stone,  cast  into  what  a  lake  ;  in  circles  that  do  not  grow  fainter. 
From  Arras  to  Avignon  ;  from  Metz  to  Bayonne  I  Over  3rleans 
and  Blois  it  rolls,  in  cannon-recitative  ;  Puy  bellows  of  it  amid  his 
granite  mountains  ;  Pau  where  is  the  shell-cradle  of  Great  Henri. 
At  far  Marseilles,  one  can  think,  the  ruddy  evening  witnesses^  it  ; 
over  the  deep-blue  Mediterranean  waters,  the  Castle  of  If  ruddy- 
tinted  darts  forth,  from  every  cannon's  mouth,  its  tongue  of  Are  ; 
and  ail  the  people  shout :  Yes,  France  is  free.  O  glorious  France 
*  Deux  AmiSf  v.  i68. 


4S 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKE?. 


that  has  burst  out  so  ;  into  universal  sound  and  smoke ;  and  at- 
tained—the Phrygian  Cap  of  Liberty  !  In  all  Towns,  Trees  of 
Liberty  also  may  be  planted  ;  with  or  without  advantage.  Said 
we  not,  It  is  the  highest  stretch  attained  by  the  Thespian  Art  on 
this  Planet,  or  perhaps  attainable  ? 

The  Thespian  Art,  unfortunately,  one  must  still  call  it  ;  for  behold 
there,  on  this  Field  of  Mars,  the  National  Banners,  before  there 
could  be  any  swearing,  were  to  be  all  blessed.  A  most  proper 
operation  ;  since  surely  without  Heaven's  blessing  bestowed,  say 
even,  audibly  or  inaudibly  sought,  no  Earthly  banner  or  contrivance 
can  prove  victorious  :  but  now  the  means  of  doing  it  }  By  what 
thrice-divine  Franklin  thunder-rod  shall  miraculous  fire  be  drawn 
out  of  Heaven  ;  and  descend  gently,  life-giving,  with  health  to  the 
souls  of  men Alas,  by  the  simplest  :  by  Two  Hundred  shaven- 
crowned  Individuals,  '  in  snow-white  albs,  with,  tricolor  girdles,' 
arranged  on  the  steps  of  Fatherland's  Altar  ;  and,  at  their  head  for 
spokesman,  SouFs  Overseer  Talleyrand- Perigord  !  These  shall 
act  as  miraculous  thunder-rod,— to  such  length  as  they  can.  O  ye 
deep  azure  Heavens,  and  thou  green  all-nursing  Earth  ;  ye  Streams 
ever-flowing  ;  deciduous  Forests  that  die  and  are  born  again,  con- 
tinually, like  the  sons  of  men  ;  stone  Mountains  that  die  daily  with 
every  rain-shower,  yet  are  not  dead  and  levelled  fpr  ages  of  ages, 
nor  born  again  (it  seems)  but  with  new  world-explosions,  and  such 
tumultuous  seething  and  tumbhng,  steam  half  way  to  the  Moon  ; 
O  thou  unfathomable  mystic  All,  garment  and  dwellingplace  of  the 
Unnamed  ;  O  spirit,  lastly,  of  Man,  who  mouldest  and  modellest 
that  Unfathomable  Unnameable  even  as  we  see,— is  not  the7'e  a 
miracle :  That  some  French  mortal  should,  we  say  not  have  be- 
lieved, but  pretended  to  imagine  that  he  believed  that  Talleyrand 
and  Two  Hundred  pieces  of  white  Cahco  could  do  it ! 

Here,  however,  we  are  to  remark  with  the  sorrowing  Historians 
of  that  day,  that  suddenly,  while  Episcopus  Talleyrand,  long-stoled, 
With  mitre  and  tricolor  belt,  was  yet  but  hitching  up  the  Altar-steps, 
to  do  his  miracle,  the  material  Heaven  grew  black  ;  a  north-wind, 
moaning  cold  moisture,  began  to  sing  ;  and  there  descended  a 
very  deluge  of  rain.  Sad  to  see  !  The  thirty-staired  Seats,  all 
round  our  Amphitheatre,  get  instantaneously  slated  with  mere 
umbrellas,  fallacious  when  so  thick  set  :  our  antique  Cassolettes 
become  Water-pots  ;  their  incense-smoke  gone  hissing,  in  a  whiff 
of  muddy  vapour.  Alas,  instead  of  vi  vats,  there  is  nothing  now 
but  the  furious  peppering  and  rattlin-  From  three  to  four  hun- 
dred thousand  human  individuals  feci  that  they  have  a  skin: 
happily  ///^pervious.  The  General's  sash  runs  water  :  how  all 
mihtary  banners  droop  ;  and  will  not  wave,  but  lazily  flap,  as  if 
metamorphosed  into  painted  tin-banners  !  Worse,  far  worse, 
these  hundred  thousand,  such  is  the  Historian's  testimony,  of  the 
fairest  of  France  !  Their  snowy  muslins  all  splashed  and 
draggled  ;  the  ostrich  feather  shrunk  shamefully  to  the  backbone 
of  a  feather:  all  caps  are  ruined;  innermost  pasteboard  molten 
into  Its  original  pap :  Beauty  no  longer  swims  decorated  in  her 
garniture,  like  Love-goddess  hidden-revealed  in  her  Paphian 


SOUND  A^^D  SMOKE. 


49 


douds,  but  struggles  in  disastrous  imprisonment  in  it,  for  *the 

*  shape  was  noticeable  ; '  and  now  only  sympathetic  interjections, 
titterings,  teeheeings,  and  resolute  good-humour  will  avail.  A 
deluge  ;  an  incessant  sheet  or  fluid-column  of  rain  such  that 
our  Overseer's  very  mitre  must  be  filled  ;  not  a  mitre,  but  a  filled 
and  leaky  fire-bucket  on  his  reverend  head  ! — Regardless  of  which, 
Overseer  Talleyrand  performs  his  miracle  :  the  Blessing  of  Talley- 
rand, another  than  that  of  Jacob,  is  on  all  the  Eighty-three  depart- 
mental flags  of  France  ;  which  wave  or  flap,  with  such  thankfulness 
as  needs.  Towards  three  o'clock,  the  sun  beams  out  again  :  the 
remaining  evolutions  can  be  transacted  under  bright  heavens, 
though  with  decorations  much  damaged.^ 

On  Wednesday  our  Federation  is  consummated  :  but  the 
festivities  last  out  the  week,  and  over  into  the  next.  Festivities 
such  as  no  Bagdad  Caliph,  or  Aladdin  with  the  Lamp,  could  have 
equalled.  There  is  a  Jousting  on  the  River  ;  with  its  water- 
somersets,  splashing  and  haha-ing  :  Abbe  Fauchet,  Te-Deum 
Fauchet,  preaches,  for  his  part,  in  'the  rotunda  of  the  Corn- 

*  market/  a  Harangue  on  Franklin  ;  for  whom  the  National 
Assembly  has  lately  gone  three  days  in  black.  The  Motier  and 
Lepelietier  tables  still  groan  with  viands  ;  roofs  ringing  with 
patriotic  toasts.  On  the  fifth  evening,  which  is  the  Christian 
Sabbath,  there  is  a  universal  Ball.  Paris,  out  of  doors  and  in, 
man,  woman  and  child,  is  jigging  it,  to  the  sound  of  harp  and 
four-stringed  fiddle.  The  hoariest-headed  man  will  tread  one 
other  measure,  under  this  nether  Moon  :  speechless  nurselings, 
infants  as  we  call  them,  vr]'nLa  T^Kva,  crow  in  arms  ;  and  sprawl  out 
numb-plump  little  limbs,~impatient  for  muscularity,  they  know 
not  why.    The  stiffest  balk  bends  more  or  less  ;  all  joists  croak. 

Or  out,  on  the  Earth's  breast  itself,  behold  the  Ruins  of  the 
Bastille.  All  lamplit,  allegorically  decorated  :  a  Tree  of  Liberty 
sixty  feet  high  ;  and  Phrygian  Cap  on  it,  of  size  enormous,  under 
which  King  Arthur  and  his  round-table  might  have  dined  !  In 
the  depths  of  the  background,  is  a  single  lugubrious  lamp,  render- 
ing dim-visible  one  of  your  iron  cages,  half-buried,  and  some 
Prison  stones,— Tyranny  vanishing  downwards,  all  r-one  but  the 
skirt  :  the  rest  wholly  lamp-festoons,  trees  real  or  of  pasteboard  ;  in 
the  similitude  of  a  fairy  grove  ;  with  this  inscription,  readable  to 
runner:  'Id  Von  danse.  Dancing  Here.'  As  mdeed  had  been 
obscurely  foreshadowed  by  Cagliostrof  prophetic  Quack  of  Quacks, 
when  he,  four  years  ago,  quitted  the  grim  durance  ;— to  falT  into  a 
grimmer,  of  the  Roman  Inquisition,  and  not  quit  it. 

But,  after  all,  what  is  this  Bastille  business  to  that  of  the  Champj: 
Elysees  I    Thither,  to  these  Fields  well  named  Elysian,  all  feet 
tend.    It  is  radiant  as  day  with  festooned  lamps  ;  little  oil-cups, 
;  like  variegated  fire-flies,  daintily  illumine  the  highest  leaves  :  trees 
1  there  are  all  sheeted  with  variegated  fire,  shedding  far  a  glimmer 
1  into  the  dub'ous  wood.    There,  under  the  free  sky,  do  tight- 
j  Umbed  Federate?,  with  fairest  newfound  sweethearts',  elastic  as 
*  Deux  Amis,  v.  143-170. 

t  See  his  Leitrc  au  Pcuplc  Franvais  (London,  1786). 


so 


THE  FEAST  OF  PIKES. 


Diana,  and  not  of  that  coyness  and  tart  humour  of  Diana,  thread 
their  jocund  mazes,  all  through  the  ambrosial  night  ;  and  hearts 
were  touched  and  fired  ;  and  seldom  surely  had  our  old  Planet,  in 
that  huge  conic  Shadow  of  hers  '  wL^ch  goes  beyond  the  Moon, 
*  and  is  named  Nighty  curtained  such  a  Ball-room.    O  if,  accord 
ing  to  Seneca,  the  very  gods  look  down  on  a  good  man  strugglin 
with  adversity,  and  smile  ;  what  must  they  think  of  Five-anc 
twenty  million  indifferent  ones  victorious  over  it, — for  dght  days 
and  more  ? 

In  this  way,  and  in  such  ways,  however,  has  the  Feast  of  Pikes 
danced  itself  off ;  gallant  Federates  wending  homewards,  towards 
every  point  of  the  compass,  with  feverish  nerves,  heart  and  head 
much  heated  ;  some  of  them,  indeed,  as  Dampmartin's  elderly 
respectable  friend,  from  Strasburg,  quite  '  burnt  out  with  liquors; 
and  flickering  towards  extinction."^  The  Feast  of  Pikes  has 
danced  itself  off,  and  become  defunct,  and  the  ghost  of  a  Feast ; — 
nothing  of  it  now  remaining  but  this  vision  in  men's  memory  ;  and 
the  place  that  knew  it  (for  the  slope  of  that  Champ-de-Mars  is 
crumbled  to  half  the  original  heightf)  now  knowing  it  no  more. 
Undoubtedly  one  of  the  memorablest  National  Hightides.  Never 
or  hardly  ever,  as  we  said,  was  Oath  sworn  with  such  heart-effusion, 
emphasis  and  expenditure  of  joyance  ;  and  then  it  was  broken 
irremediably  within  year  and  day.  Ah,  why  ?  When  the  swearing 
of  it  was  so  heavenly-joyful,  bosom  clasped  to  bosom,  and  Five- 
and-twenty  million  hearts  all  burning  together  :  O  ye  inexorable 
Destinies,  why?— Partly  because  it  was  sworn  with  such  over- 
joyance ;  but  chiefly,  indeed,  for  an  older  reason  :  that  Sin  had 
come  into  the  world  and  Misery  by  Sin  !  These  Five-and-twenty 
millions,  if  we  will  consider  it,  have  now  henceforth,  with  that 
Phrygian  Cap  of  theirs,  no  force  over  them,  to  bind  and  guide  ; 
neither  in  them,  more  than  heretofore,  is  guiding  force,  or  rule  of 
just  living  :  how  then,  while  they  all  go  rushing  at  such  a  pace^  on 
unknown  ways,  with  no  bridle,  towards  no  aim,  can  hurlyburly  un- 
utterable fail  For  verily  not  Federation-rosepink  is  the  colour  of 
this  Earth  and  her  work  :  not  by  outbursts  of  noble-sentiment, 
but  with  far  other  ammunition,  shall  a  man  front  the  world. 

But  how  wise,  in  all  cases,  to  '  husband  your  fire  ; '  to  keep  it 
deep  down,  rather,  as  genial  radical-heat  !  Explosions,  the 
forciblest,  and  never  so  well  directed,  are  questionable  ;  far  oftenest 
futile,  always  frightfully  wasteful :  but  think  of  a  man,  of  a  Nation 
of  men,  spending  its  whole  stock  of  fire  in  one  artificial  Firework  ! 
So  have  we  seen  fond  v/eddings  (for  individuals,  like  Nations,  have 
their  Hightides)  celebrated  with  an  outburst  of  triumph  and  deray, 
at  which  the  eklerly  shook  their  heads.  Better  had  a  serious 
cheerfulness  been  ;  for  the  enterprise  was  great.  Fond  pair  !  the 
more  triumphant  ye  feel,  and  victorious  over  terrestrial  evil,  which 
seems  all  abolished,  the  wider-eyed  will  your  disappointment  be  to 
6nd  terrestrial  evil  still  extant.    "  And  why  extant     will  each  of 

*  Dampmartin,  Evcnemens,  i.  144-184, 

f  Duiaure,  IJistoire  dc  Paris ^  viii.  35,  i^, 


SOUND  A'NJ)  S^lOK} 


,  .1  cry  :  "  Because  my  false  mate  has  })layed  the  traitor  ;  evil  was 
abolished  :  /  meant  faithfully,  and  did,  or  would  have  done," 
Whereby  the  overs weet  moon  of  honey  changes  itself  into  long 
years  of  vinegar  ;  perhaps  divulsive  vinegar,  like  Hannibal's. 

Shall  we  say  then,  the  French  Nation  has  led  Royalty,  or  wooed 
and  teased  poor  Royalty  to  lead  her^  to  the  hymeneal  Fatherland's 
Altar,  in  such  oversweet  manner ;  and  has,  most  thoughtlessly,  to 
celebrate  the  nuptials  witii  due  shine  and  demonstration, — burnt 
her  bed  ? 


-I 

BOOK  SECOND.  j 

NANCI,  * 


CHAPTER  L  » 

BOUILLE. 

Dimly  visible,  at  Metz  on  the  North- Eastern  frontier,  a  certain- 
brave  Bouille,  last  refuge  of  Royalty  in  all  straits  and  meditationsi 
of  flight,  has  for  many  months  hovered  occasionally  in  our  eye  ;] 
some  name  or  shadow  of  a  brave  Bouille  :  let  us  now,  for  a  little/i 
look  fixedly  at  him,  till  he  become  a  substance  and  person  for  us.j 
The  man  himself  is  worth  a  glance  ;  his  position  and  procedure, 
there,  in  these  days,  will  throw  light  on  many  things.  j 

For  it  is  with  Bouille  as  with  all  French  Commanding  Officers  ;| 
only  in  a  more  emphatic  aegitre.  The  grand  National  Federation, 
we  already  guess,  was  but  empty  sound,  or  worse  :  a  last  loudest 
universal  Hep-hep-hurrah,  with  full  bumpers,  in  that  National, 
Lapithi€-feast  of  Constitution-making  ;  as  in  loud  denial  of  the. 
palpably  existing  ;  as  if,  with  hurrahings,  you  would  shut  out 
notice  of  the  inevitable  already  knocking  at  the  gates  !  Which 
new  National  bumper,  one  may  say,  can  but  deepen  the  drunken-, 
ness  ;  and  so,  the  louder  it  swears  Brotherhood,  will  the  sooner 
and  the  more  surely  lead  to  Cannibalism.  Ah,  under  that  fra-, 
*ernal  shine  and  clangour,  what  a  deep  world  of  irreconcileable  i 
/iscords  lie  momentarily  assuaged,  damped  down  for  one  moment ! 
Respcctal^le  military  Federates  have  barely  got  home  to  their 
quarters  ;  and  the  inflammablest,  '  dying,  burnt  up  with  liquors, 
*  and  kindness,'  has  not  yet  got  extinct  ;  the  shine  is  hardly  out 
of  men's  eyes,  and  still  blazes  filling  all  men's  memories,— when 
your  discords  burst  forth  again  very  considerably  darker  than 
ever.    Let  us  look  at  l^ouilld,  and  see  how. 

Bouille  for  the  present  commands  in  the  Garrison  of  Metz,  and! 
far  and  wide  over  the  East  and  North  ;  being  indeed,  by  a  late 
act  of  Government  with  sanction  of  National  Assembly,  appointed  i 
one  of  our  Four  supreme  Generals.  Rochambeau  and  Mailly,  | 
men.  and  Marshals  of  note  in  these  days,  though  to  us  of  small  I 
moment,  are  two  of  his  colleagues  ;  tough  old  babbling  Liickner,  | 
also  of  small  moment  tor  us,  will  probably  be  the  third.    Marquis  ! 


ARREARS  AND  ARISTOCRATS. 


de  Bouille  is  a  determined  Loyalist:  ;  not  indeed  disinclined  to 
moderate  reform,  but  resolute  against  immoderate.  A  man  long 
suspect  to  Patriotism  ;  who  has  more  than  once  given  the  august 
Assembly  trouble  ;  who  would  not,  for  example,  take  the  National 
Oath,  as  he  was  bound  to  do,  but  always  put  it  off  on  this  or  the 
other  pretext,  till  an  autograph  of  Majesty  requested  him  to  do  it 
as  a  favour.  There,  in  this  post  if  not  of  honour,  yet  of  eminence 
and  danger,  he  waits,  in  a  silent  concentered  manner ;  very 
dubious  of  the  future.  'Alone,'  as  he  says,  or  almost  alone,  of  ah 
the  old  military  Notabilities,  he  has  not  emigrated  ;  but  thinks 
always,  in  atrabiliar  moments,  that  there  will  be  nothing  for  him 
too  but  to  cross  the  marches.  He  might  cross,  sa}^,  to  Treves  or 
Coblentz  where  Exiled  Princes  will  be  one  day  ranking  ;  or  say, 
over  into  Luxemburg  where  old  Broghe  loiters  and  languishes. 
Or  is  there  not  the  great  dim  Deep  of  European  Diplomacy  ; 
where  your  Calonnes,  your  Breteuils  are  beginning  to  hover,  dimly 
discernible  ? 

With  immeasurable  confused  outlooks  and  purposes,  with  no 
clear  purpose  but  this  of  still  trying  to  do  His  Majesty  a  service, 
Bouille  waits  ;  struggling  what  he  .can  to  keep  his  district  loyal, 
his  troops  faithful,  his  garrisons  furnished.  He  maintains,  as  yet, 
with  his  Cousin  Lafayette'  some  thin  diplomatic  correspondence, 
by  letter  and  messenger  ;  chivalrous  constitutional  professions  on 
the  one  side,  military  gravity  and  brevity  on  the  other  ;  which  thin 
correspondence,  one  can  see  growing  ever  the  thinner  and  hollower, 
towards  the  verge  of  entire  vacuity  *  A  quick,  choleric,  sharply 
discerning,  stubbornly  endeavouring  man  ;  with  suppressed-ex- 
plosive  resolution,  with  valour,  nay  headlong  audacity  :  a  man  who 
was  more  in  his  place,  Honlike  defending  those  Windward  Isles, 
or,  as  with  military  tiger- spring,  clutching  Nevis  and  Montserrat 
from  the  English, — than  here  in  this  suppressed  condition,  muzzled 
and  fettered  by  diplomatic  packthreads  ;  looking  out  for  a  civil 
war,  which  may  never  arrive.  Fev\^  years  ago  Bouille  was  to  have 
led  a  French  East- Indian  Expedition,  and  reconquered  or  con- 
quered Pondicherri  and  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Sun  :  but  the  whole 
world  is  suddenly  changed,  and  he  with  it  ;  Destiny  willed  it  not 
in  that  way  but  in  this. 


CHAPTER  IL 

ARREARS  AND  ARISTOCRATS. 

Indeed,  as  to  the  general  outlook  of  things,  Bouille  himself 
;  augurs  not  well  of  it.  The  French  Army,  ever  since  those  old 
Bastille  days,  and  earlier,  has  been  universally  in  the  questionablest 
State,  and  growing  daily  worse.    Discipline,  which  is  at  all  times 

*  Bouille,  Mimoires  (London,  1797),  i.  c.  8, 


KANCI 


a  kind  of  miracle,  and  \vorks  by  faith  broke  down  then  ;  one  sees 
not  with  that  near  prospect  of  recovering  itself.  The  Gardes 
Frangaises  played  a  deadly  §;an:c  ;  but  how  they  won  it,  and  wear 
the  prizes  of  it,  all  men  know.  In  that  general  overturn,  we  saw 
the  Hired  Fighters  refuse  to  fight.  The  very  Swiss  of  Chateau- 
Vieux,  w^hich  indeed  is  a  kind  of  French  Swiss,  from  Geneva  and 
the  Pays  de  Vaud,  are  understood  to  have  declined  Deserters 
glided  over;  Royal- Allemand  itself  looked  disconsolate,  though' 
stanch  of  purpose.  In  a  word,  we  there  saw  Military  Rule,  in 
the  shape  of  poor  Besenval  with  that  convulsive  unmanageable 
Camp  of  his,  pass  two  martyr  days  on  the  Champ-de-Mars ;  and 
then,  veiling  itself,  so  to  speak,  'under  cloud  of  night,'  depart' 
*  down  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine/  to  seek  refuge  elsewhere ;  this' 
ground  having  clearly  become  too  hot  for  it. 

But  what  new  ground  to  seek,  what  remedy  to  try  ?  Quarters 
that  were  '  uninfected : '  this  doubtless,  with  judicious  strictness  of 
drilling,  were  the  plan.  Alas,  in  all  quarters  and  places,  from 
Paris  onward  to  the  remotest  hamlet,  is  infection,  is  seditious 
contagion:  inhaled,  propagated  by  contact  and  converse,  till  the 
dullest  soldier  catch  it !  There  is  speech  of  men  in  uniform ' 
with  m.en  not  in  uniform;  men  in  uniform  read  journals,  and  even 
write  in  them.*  There  are  public  petitions  or  remonstrances, ' 
private  emissaries  and  associations  ;  "there  is  discontent,  jealousy,^ 
uncertainty,  sullen  suspicious  humour.  The  whole  French  Army, 
fermenting  in  dark  heat;  glooms  ominous,  boding  good  to  no  one. 

So  that,  in  the  general  social  dissolution  and  revolt,  we  are  to 
have  this  deepest  and  dismallest  kind  of  it,  a  revolting  soldiery  ? 
Barren,  desolate  to  look  upon  is  this  same  business  of  revolt 
under  all  its  aspects  ;  but  how  infinitely  more  so,  when  it  takes 
the  aspect  of  military  mutiny  1  The  very  implement  of  rule  and 
restraint,  whereby  all  the  rest  was  managed  and  held  in  order,  has 
become  precisely  the  frightfullest  immeasurable  implement  of  mis- 
rule ;  like  the  element  of  Fire,  our  indispensable  all-ministering 
servant,  when  it  gets  the  mastery,  and  becomes  conflagration. 
Discipline  we  called  a  kind  of  miracle  :  in  fact,  it  is  not  miracu- 
lous how  one  man  moves  hundreds  of  thousands;  each  unit  of 
whom  it  may  be  loves  him  not,  and  singly  fears  him  not,  yet  has 
to  obey  him,  to  go  hither  or  go  thither,  to  march  and  halt,  to  give 
death,  and  even  to  receive  it,  as  if  a  Fate  had  spoken  ;  and  the 
wwd-of-command  becomes,  almost  in  the  literal  sense,  a  magic- 
word  .J* 

Which  magic-word,  again,  if  it  be  onc^ /or^^otte?t;  the  spell  of  it 
once  broken  !  The  legions  of  assiduous  ministering  spirits  rise 
on  you  now  as  menacing  fiends  ;  your  free  orderly  arena  becomes 
a  tumult-place  of  the  Nether  Pit,  and  the  hapless  magician  is  rent 
limb  from  limb.  Military  mobs  are  mobs  with  muskets  in  their 
hands  ;  and  also  with  death  hanging  over  their  heads,  for  death 
is  the  penalty  of  disobedience  and  they  have  disobeyed.  AnH 
now  if  all  mobs  are  properly  frenzies,  and  work,  frenetically  wit! 
mad  fits  of  hot  and  of  cold,  fierce  rage  alternating  so  incoherent!) 
See  Newspapers  of  July,  1789  (ia  Hist,  Purl.  ii.  35)/&c. 


ARREARS  AND  ARISTOCRATS. 


55 


with  panic  terror,  consider  what  your  mihtary  mob  will  be,  with 
such  a  conflict  of  duties  and  penalties,  whirled  between  remorse 
and  fury,  and,  for  the  hot  fit,  loaded  fire-arms  in  its  hand  !  To 
the  soldier  himself,  revolt  is  frightful,  and  oftenest  perhaps  pitiable; 
and  yet  so  dangerous,  it  can  only  be  hated,  cannot  be  pitied.  An 
anomalous  class  of  mortals  these  poor  Hired  Killers !  With  a 
frankness,  which  to  the  Moralist  in  these  times  seems  surprising, 
they  have  sworn  to  become  machines;  and  nevertheless  they  are 
still  partly  men.  Let  no  prudent  person  in  authority  remind  them 
of  this  latter  fact ;  but  always  let  force,  let  injustice  above  all, 
stop  short  clearly  on  i/n's  side  of  the  rebounding-point  !  Soldiers, 
as  we  often  say,  do  revolt :  were  it  not  so,  several  things  which  are 
transient  in  this  world  might  be  perennial. 

Over  and  above  the  general  quarrel  which  all  sons  of  Adam 
maintain  with  their  lot  here  below,  the  grievances  of  the  French 
soldiery  reduce  themselves  to  two,  First  that  their  Officers  are 
Aristocrats ;  secondly  that  they  cheat  them  of  their  Pay.  Two 
grievances  ;  or  rather  we  might  say  one,  capable  of  becoming  a 
hundred;  for  in  that  single  first  proposition,  that  the  Officers  are 
Aristocrats,  what  a  multitude  of  corollaries  lie  ready !  It  is  a 
bottomless  ever-flowing  fountain  of  grievances  this ;  what  you 
may  call  a  general  raw-material  of  grievance,  wherefrom  individual 
grievance  after  grievance  will  daily  body  itself  forth.  Nay  there 
will  even  be  a  kind  of  comfort  in  getting  it,  from  time  to  time,  so 
embodied.  Peculation  of  one's  Pay !  It  is  embodied ;  made 
tangible,  made  denounceable ;  exhalable,  if  only  in  angry  words. 

For  unluckily  that  grand  fountain  of  grievances  does  exist : 
Aristocrats  almost  all  our  Officers  necessarily  are ;  they  have  it  in 
the  blood  and  bone.  By  the  law  of  the  case,  no  man  can  pretend 
to  be  the  pitifuUest  lieutenant  of  militia,  till  he  have  first  verified, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Lion-King,  a  Nobihty  of  four  genera- 
tions. Not  Nobility  only,  but  four  generations  of  it :  this  latter  is 
the  improvement  bit  upon,  in  comparatively  late  years,  by  a  certain 

'  War-minister  much  pressed  for  commissions.*  An  improvement 
which  did  relieve  the  over  pressed  War-minister,  but  which  split 
France  still  funber  into  yawning  contrasts  of  Commonalty  and 
Mobility,  nay  of  nevv  Nobility  and  old  ;  as  if  already  with  your 
tiew  and  old,  and  then  with  your  old,  older  and  oldest,  there  were 
not  contrastsand  discrepancies  enough; — the  general  clash  whereof 
men  now  see  and  hear,  and  in  the  singular  vrhirlpool,  all  contrasts 

I  gone  together  to  the  bottom  !    Gone  to  the  bottom  or  going;  with 

I  uproar,  without  return  ;  going  every  v/here  save  in  the  Military 
section  of  things ;  and  there,  it  may  be  asked,  can  they  hope  to 
continue  always  at  the  top  ?    Apparently,  not. 

It  is  true,  in  a  time  of  external  Peace,  when  there  is  no  fighting 
but  only  drilling,  this  question,  How  you  rise  from  the  ranks,  may 
seem  tlicoretical  rather.  But  in  reference  to  the  rights  of  Man  it 
is  continually  practical.    The  soldier  has  sworn  to  be  faithful  not 

I  to  the  King  only,  but  to  the  Law  and  the  Nation.    Do  our  com- 
Dainpinartin,  Lvcncmcns^  i  S9. 


NANCL 


manders  love  the  Revolution  ?  ask  all  soldiers.    Unhappily  no,^ 
they  hate  it,  and  love  the  Counter-Revolution.    Young  epauletted  ' 
men,  with  quahty-blood  in  them,  poisoned  with  quality-pride,  do 
sniff  openly,  with  indignation  struggling  to  become  contempt,  at 
our  Rights  of  Man,  as  at  some  newfangled  cobweb,  which  shall ; 
be  brushed  down  again.    Old  officers,  more  cautious,  keep  silent, 
with  closed  uncurled  lips  ;  but  one  guesses  what  is  passing  within. ; 
Nay  who  knows,  how,  under  the  plausiblest  word  of  command, , 
might  lie  Counter-Revolution  itself,  sale  to  Exiled  Princes  and  the  ; 
Austrian  Kaiser  :  treacherous  Aristocrats  hoodwinking  the  smai]  ; 
insight  of  us  common  men      In  such  manner  works  that  general 
raw-material  of  grievance  ;  disastrous  ;  instead  of  trust  and  reve- 1 
rence,  breeding  hate,  endless  suspicion,  the  impossibility  of  com- 
manding  and  obeying.    And  now  when  this  second  more  tangible 
grievance  has  articulated  itself  universally  in  the  mind  of  the  com-  \ 
mon  man  :  Peculation  of  his  Pay  !  Peculation  of  the  despicablest  I 
sort  does  exist,  and  has  long  existed  ;  but,  unless  the  new-declared  j 
Rights  of  Man,  and  all  rights  whatsoever,  be  a  cobweb,  it  shall  no  \ 
longer  exist. 

The  French  Military  System  seems  dying  a  sorrowful  suicidal  \ 
death.  Nay  more,  citizen,  as  is  natural,  ranks  himself  against  citizen  j 
in  this  cause.  The  soldier  finds  audience,  of  numbers  and  sympathy  1 
unlimited,  among  the  Patriot  lower-classes.    Nor  are  the  higher  ! 
wanting  to  the  officer.    The  officer  still  dresses  and  perfumes  him-  ' 
self  for  such  sad  unemigrated  soiree  as  there  may  still  be  ;  and 
speaks  his  woes,— which  woes,  are  they  not  Majesty's  and  Nature's  ? 
Speaks,  at  the  same  time,  his  gay  defiance,  his  hrm-set  resolution. 
Citizens,  still  more  Citizenesses,  se^  the  right  and  the  wrong  ;  noi 
the  Military  System  alone  will  die  by  suicide,  but  much  along  with 
it.    As  was  said,  there  is  yet  possible  a  deeper  overturn  than  ans 
yet  witnessed  :   that  deepest  tipinm  of  the  black-burning  sul- j 
phurous  stratum  whereon  all  rests  and  grows  ! 

But  how  these  things  may  act  on  the  rude  soldier-mind,  with  its 
military  pedantries,  its  inexperience  of  all  that  lies  off  the  parade- 
ground  ;  inexperience  as  of  a  child,  yet  fierceness  of  a  man  and 
vehemence  of  a  Frenchman  !    It  is  long  that  secret  communin 
in  mess-room  and  guard-room,  sour  looks,  thousandfold  pel 
vexations  between  commander  and  commanded,  measure  eve 
where  the  weary  military  day.    Ask  Captain  Dampmartin  ; 
authentic,  ingenious  literary  officer  of  horse  ;  who  loves  the  Rei 
of  Liberty,  after  a  sort  ;  yet  has  had  his  heart  grieved  to  the  qm 
many  times,  in  the  hot  South-W^cstcrn  region  and  elsewhere  ;  niul 
has  seen  riot,  civil  battle  by  daylight  and  by  torchlight,  and  anarchy  | 
hatefuller  than  death.    How  insubordinate  Troopers,  with  drink, 
in  their  heads,  meet  Captain  Dampmartin  and  another  on  the' 
ramparts,  where  there  is  no  escape  or  side-path";  and  make  mili- 
tary salute  punctually,  for  we  look  calm  on  them  ;  yet  make  it  in! 
a  snappish,  almost  insulting  manner  :  how  one  morning  they 
Meave  all  their  chamois  shirts'  and  siipcrtluous  buffs,  which  they 
are  tired  of,  laid  in  piles  at  the  Captain's  doors  ;  whereat  ^  we 
*  laugh,'  as  the  ass  docs,  eating  thistles  :  nay  how  they  ^  knot  twa! 


ARREARS  AND  ARISTOCRATS, 


S7 


'forage-cords  together/  with  universal  noisy  cursing,  with  evident 
intent  to  hang  the  (Quarter-master  : — all  this  the  worthy  Captain, 
looking  on  it  through  the  ruddy-and-sable  of  fond  regretful 
memory,  has  flowingiy  written  down."^  Men  growl  in  vague 
discontent ;  officers  fling  up  their  commissions,  and  emigrate  in 
disgust. 

Or  let  us  ask  another  literary  Officer ;  not  yet  Captain  ;  Sub- 
lieutenant only,  in  the  Artillery  Regiment  La  Fere  :  a  young  man 
of  twenty-one  ;  not  unentitled  to  speak  ;  the  name  of  him  is 
Napoleon  Buo7iaparte.  To  such  height  of  Sublieutenancy  has  he 
now  got  promoted,  from  Brienne  School,  five  years  ago  ;  ^  being 
'found  qualified  in  mathematics  by  La  Place/  He  is  lying  at 
Auxonne,  in  the  West,  in  these  months  ;  not  sumptuously  lodged — 
*in  the  house  of  a  Barber,  to  whose  wife  he  did  not  pay  the  cus- 
'  tomary  cegree  of  respect ; '  or  even  over  at  the  Pavilion,  in  a 
chamber  wic^i  bare  walls  ;  the  only  furniture  an  indifferent  *  bed 

*  without  curtains,  two  chairs,  and  in  the  recess  of  a  window  a  table 

*  covered  with  books  and  papers  :  his  Brother  Louis  sleeps  on  a 

*  coarse  mattrass  in  an  adjoining  room.^  However,  he  is  doing 
something  great  :  v^^riting  his  first  Book  or  Pamphlet, — eloquent 
vehement  Letter  to  M.  Matteo  Bttttafitoco,  our  Corsican  Deputy, 
who  is  not  a  Patriot  but  an  Aristocrat,  unworthy  of  Deputyship. 
Joly  of  Dole  is  Publisher.  The  literary  Subheutenant  corrects  the 
proofs  ;  '  sets  out  on  foot  from  -Auxonne,  every  morning  at  four 
'o'clock,  for  Dole  :  after  looking  over  the  proofs,  he  partakes  of  an 
'  extremeiy  frugal  breakfast  with  Joly,  and  immediately  prepares 
^  for  returning  to  his  Garrison  ;  where  he  arrives  before  noon, 
'having  thus  walked  above  twenty  miles  in  the  course  of  the 
'  morning.' 

This  Sublieutenant  can  remark  that,  in  drawing-rooms,  on 
streets,  on  highways,  at  inns,  every  where  mxn's  minds  are  ready 
Lo  kindle  into  a  flame.  That  a  Patriot,  if  he  appear  in  the  drawing- 
room,  or  amid  a  group  of  officers,  is  liable  enough  to  be  dis- 
':ouraged,  so  great  is  the  m.ajority  against  him  :  but  no  sooner 
does  he  get  into  the  street,  or  among  the  soldiers,  than  he  feels 
ig-m  as  if  the  whole  Nation  were  with  him.  That  after  the 
amous  Oath,  To  the  Kmg^  to  the  Nation  a7td  Law^  there  was  a 
jreat  change  ;  that  before  this,  if  ordered  to  fire  on  the  people,  he 
X)r  one  would  have  done  it  in  the  King's  name  ;  but  that  after  this, 
I  n  tho  I^ation's  name,  he  would  not  have  done  it.  Likewise  that 
i:he  1  i.triot  officers,  more  numerous  too  in  the  Artillery  and 
iKngincers  than  elsewhere,  were  few  in  number;  yet  that  having 
|ihe^j'_diors  on  their  side,  they  ruled  the  regiment ;  and  did  often 
lieliver  the  Aristocrat  brother  officer  out  of  peril  and  strait.  One 
:  iay,  fo?  example,  '  a  member  of  our  own  mess  roused  the  mob,  by 
j  "  singing,  from  the  windows  of  our  dining-room,  O  Richard,  O  niy 
\' King;  and  I  had  to  snatch  him  from  their  furv.'f 
'  All  w.hich  let  ihe  reader  multiply  by  ten  thousand  ;  and  spread 
Timpinartin,  livcnenicns,  i.  122-146. 
\orvins,  Histoirede  Napoleon,  i.  47;  Las  Cases,  Md))ioires  (translated 
^  OtO  Hazlitt's  Life  of  Napoleon,  i.  23-31). 


NANCI. 


it  with  slight  variations  over  all  the  camps  and  garrisons  of  \ 

France     The  French  Army  seems  on  the  verge  of  universal  \ 

mutiny.  n       i  . 

Universal  mutiny  !    There  is  m  that  what  may  well  make  \ 

Patriot   Constitutionalism   and   an  august  Assembly  shudder.  | 

Something  behoves  to  be  done  ;  yet  what  to  do  no  man  can  tell.  \ 

Mirabeau  proposes  even  that  the  Soldiery,  having  come  to  such  a  \ 

pass,  be  forthwith  disbanded,  the  whole  Two  Hundred  and  Eighty  j 

Thousand  of  them  ;  and  organised  anew.^   Impossible  this,  in  so  j 

sudden  a  manner  !  cry  all  men.    And  yet  hterally,  answer  vve,  it  | 

is  inevitable,  in  one  matter  or  another.    Such  an  Army,  with  its  \ 

four-generation  Nobles,  its  Peculated  Pay,  and  m.en  knotting  | 

forage-cords  to  hang  their  quartermaster,  cannot  subsist  beside  1 
such  a  Revolution.  Your  alternative  is  a  slow-pining  chronic  dis- 
solution and  new  organization ;  or  a  swift  decisive  one  ;^  the 
agonies  spread  over  years,  or  concentrated  into  an  hour.  With  a 
Mirabeau  for  Minister  or  Governor  the  latter  had  been  the 
choice  ;  with  no  Mirabeau  for  Governor  it  will  naturally  be  the 
former. 


CHAPTER  HI. 


BOUILLE  AT  METZ. 


To  Bouille,  inhis  North-Eastern  circle,  none  of  these  things  are 
altojrether  hid.  Many  times  flight  over  the  marches  gleam  out 
on  him  as  a  last  guidance  in  such  bewilderment :  nevertheless  he 
continues  here  :  struggling  always  to  hope  the  best,  not  from  nev\^ 
organisations  but  from  happy  Counter-Revolution  and  return  to  the 
"old  For  the  rest  it  is  clear  to  him  that  this  same  National 
Federation,  and  universal  swearing  and  fraternising  of  People  and 
Soldiers,  has  done  *  incalculable  mischief.'  So  much  that  fer- 
mented secretly  has  thereby  got  vent  and  become  open  :  National 
Guards  and  Soldiers  of  the  line,  solemnly  embracing  one  another 
on  all  parade-fields,  drinking,  swearing  patriotic  oaths,  fall  into 
disorderly  street  processions,  constitutional  unmilitary  exclama- 
tions and  hurrahings.  On  which  account  the  Regiment  Picardie, 
for  one,  has  to  be  drawn  out  in  the  square  of  the  barracks,  here  at 
M^tz,  and  sharply  harangued  by  the  General  himself;  but  ex- 
presses penitence.!  T     .      1      1-      •       1  u 

Far  and  near,  as  accounts  testify,  insubordmation  has  begun 
eriimbling  louder  and  louder.  Otlicers  liave  been  seen  shut  up  in 
their  mess-rooms;  assaulted  witli  rlamorous  demands,  not  without 
menaces.  The  insubordinate  ringleader  is  dismissed  with  '  yellow 
fiirlou^di,'  vellow  infamous  thing  they  call  a^r/.^z/^^^^y^^////^  but 
ten  new  ringleaders  rise  in  his  stead,  and  the  yellow  cartouche 
*  Monitcur,  1790,  No.  233.         \  Bouille,  Me??ioires,  i.  113- 


BOUILLE  AT  METZ. 


59 


ceases  to  be  thought  disgraceful.  '  Within  a  fortnight,'  or  at 
furthest  a  month,  of  that  subUine  Feast  of  Pikes,  the  whole  French 
Army,  demanding  Arrears,  forming  Reading  Clubs,  frequenting 
Popular  Societies,  is  in  a  state  which  Bouille  can  call  by  no  name 
but  that  of  mutiny.  Bouille  knows  it  as  few  do;  and  speaks  by 
dire  experience.    Take  one  instance  instead  of  many. 

It  is  still  an  early  day  of  August,  the  precise  date  now  undis- 
coverable,  when  Bouille,  about  to  set  out  for  the  waters  of  Aix  la 
Chapelle,  is  once  more  suddenly  summoned  to  the  barracks  of 
Metz.  The  soldiers  stand  ranked  in  fighting  order,  muskets 
loaded,  the  officers  all  there  on  compulsion ;  and  require,  with 
many-voiced  emphasis,  to  have  their  arrears  paid.  Picardie  was 
penitent ;  but  we  see  it  has  relapsed  :  the  wide  space  bristles  and 
lours  with  mere  mutinous  armed  men  Brave  Bouille  advances  to 
the  nearest  Regiment,  opens  his  commanding  lips  to  harangue ; 
obtains  nothing  but  querulous-indignant  discordance,  and  the 
sound  of  so  many  thousand  livres  legally  due.  The  moment  is 
trying ;  there  are  some  ten  thousand  soldiers  now  in  Metz,  and 
one  spirit  seems  to  have  spread  among  them. 

Bouille  is  firm  as  the  adamant ;  but  what  shall  he  do  ?  A 
German  Regiment,  named  of  Salm,  is  thought  to  be  of  better 
temper :  nevertheless  Salm  too  may  have  heard  of  the  precept. 
Thou  shall  not  steal ;  Salm  too  may  know  that  money  is  money. 
Bouille  walks  trustfully  towards  the  Regiment  de  Salm,  speaks 
trustful  words  ;  but  here  again  i-s  answered  by  thecry  of  forty- four 
thousand  livres  odd  sous.  A  cry  waxmg  more  and  more  vociferous, 
as  Salm's  humour  mounts;  which  cry,  as  it  will  produce  no  cash  or 
promise  of  cash,  ends  in  the  wide  simultaneous  whirr  of  shouldered 
muskets,  and  a  determined  quick-time  march  on  the  part  of  Salm 
—towards  its  Colonel's  house,  in  the  next  street,  there  to  seize  the 
colours  and  military  chest.  Thus  does  Salm,  for  its  part ;  strong 
in  the  faith  that  meuin  is  not  tuwn,  that  fair  speeches  are  not 
forty-four  thousand  livres  odd  sous. 

Unrestrainable !  Salm  tramps  to  military  time,  quick  con- 
suming the  way.  Bouille  and  the  officers,  drawing  sword,  have 
to  dash  into  double  quick  pas-de-charge,  or  unmilitary  running  ; 
to  get  the  start ;  to  station  themselves  on  the  outer  staircase,  and 
stand  there  with  what  of  death-defiance  and  sharp  steel  they 
have  ;  Salm  truculently  coiling  itself  up,  rank  after  rank,  opposite 
them,  in  such  humour  as  we  can  fancy,  which  happily  has  not  yet 
mounted  to  the  murder-pitch.  There  will  Bouille  stand,  certain 
at  least  of  one  man's  purpose  ;  in  grim  calmness,  awaiting  the 
issue.  What  the  intrepidest  of  men  and  generals  can  do  is  done. 
Bouille,  though  there  is  a  barricading  pricket  at  each  end  of  the 
street,  and  death  under  his  eyes,  contrives  to  send  for  a  Dragoon 
Regiment  with  orders  to  charge  :  the  dragoon  officers  mount ;  the 
dragoon  men  will  not :  hope  is  none  there  for  him.  The  street, 
as  we  say,  barricaded  ;  the  earth  all  shut  out,  only  the  indifferent 
heavenly  Vault  overhead  :  perhaps  here  or  there  a  timorous 
householder  peering  out  of  window,  with  prayer  for  Bouille ; 
copious  Rascality,  on  the  pavement,  with  prayer  for  Salm  :  there 


NANCL 


do  the  two  parties  stand  -—like  chariots  locked  in  a  narrow 
thoroughfare ;  Hke  locked  wrestlers  at  a  dead-grip  !  For  two 
hours  they  stand  ;  Bouille's  sword  glittering  in  his  hand,  adaman- 
tine resolution  clouding  his  brows  :  for  two  hours  by  the  clocks  of 
Metz  Moody-silent  stands  Salm,  with  occasional  clangour  ;  but 
does  not  fire.  Rascality  from  time  to  time  urges  some  grenadier 
to  level  his  musket  at  the  General  ;  who  looks  on  it  as  a  bronze 
General  would  ;  and  always  some  corporal  or  other  strikes  it  up. 

In  such  remarkable  attitude,  standing  on  that  staircase  for  two 
hours,  does  brave  Bouille,  long  a  shadow,  dawn  on  us  visibly  out 
of  the  dimness,  and  become  a  person.  For  the  rest,  smce  Salm 
has  not  shot  him  at  the  first  instant,  and  since  in  himself  there  is 
no  variableness,  the  danger  will  diminish.  The  Mayor,  '  a  man 
'  infinitely  respectable,'  with  his  Municipals  and  tricolor  sashes, 
finally  gains  entrance  ;  remonstrates,  perorates,  promises  ;  gets 
Salm  persuaded  home  to  its  barracks.  Next  day,  our  respectable 
Mayor  lending  the  money,  the  officers  pay  down  the  half  of  the 
demand  in  ready  cash.  With  which  liquidation  Salm  pacifies 
itself,  and  for  the  present  all  is  hushed  up,  as  much  as  may  be."^ 

Such  scenes  as  this  of  Metz,  or  preparations  and  demonstra-  ' 
tions  towards  such,  are  universal  over  France  :  Dampmartm,  with  , 
his  knotted  forage-cords  and  piled  chamois  jackets,  is  at  Stras- 
burg  in  the  South-East  ;  in  these  same  days  or  rather  nights, 
Royal  Champagne  is  '  shouting  Vive  la  Natum,  an  diable  les 
'  Aristocrates,  with  some  thirty  lit  candles,'  at  Hesdm,  on  the  far 
North- West.  "  The  garrison  of  Bitche,"  Deputy  Rewbell  is  sorry 
to  state,  "  went  out  of  the  town,  with  drums  beating  ;  deposed  its 
officers ;  and  then  returned  into  the  town,  sabre  m  hand.''t 
Ought  not  a  National  Assembly  to  occupy  itself  with  these  ob- 
jects ?  Military  France  is  everywhere  full  of  sour  inflammatory 
humour,  which  exhales  itself  fuliginously,  this  way  or  that  :  a 
whole  continent  of  smoking  flax  ;  which,  blown  on  here  or  there 
by  any  angry  wind,  might  so  easily  start  into  a  blaze,  into  a  con- 
tinent of  fire  !  1    1         ^  .1  ^ 

Constitutional  Patriotism  is  in  deep  natural  alarm  at  these 
things.  The  august  Assembly  sits  diligently  deliberating  ;  dare 
nowise  resolve,  with  Mirabeau,  on  an  instantaneous  disbandment 
and  extinction  ;  finds  that  a  course  of  palliatives  is  easier.  But  at 
least  and  lowest,  this  grievance  of  the  Arrears  shall  be  rectified. 
A  plan,  much  noised  of  in  those  days,  under  the  name  Decree  ot 
'  the  Sixth  of  August,'  has  been  devised  for  that.  Inspectors  shall 
visit  all  armies  ;  and,  with  certain  elected  corporals  and  soldiers 
*  able  to  write,'  verify  what  arrears  and  peculations  do  he  due,  and 
make  them  good.  Well,  if  in  this  way  the  smoky  heat  be  cooled 
down  ;  if  it  be  not,  as  we  say,  ventilated  over-much,  or,  by  sparks 
and  collision  somewhere,  sent  /// 1 

*  Bouille,  i.  140-5.  t  Moniicur  (in  Hist.  Pari,  vil  29). 


ARREARS  AT  NANCL 


6i 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ARREARS    AT  NANCI. 

We  are  to  remark,  however,  that  of  all  districts,  this  of  Bouille's 
seems  the  mfiammablest.  It  was  always  to  Bouille  and  Metz  that 
Royalty  would  fly  :  Austria  lies  near ;  here  more  than  elsewhere 
must  the  disunited  People  look  over  the  borders,  into  a  dim  sea  of 
foreign  Politics  and  Diplomacies,  with  hope  or  apprehension, 
with  mutual  exasperation. 

It  was  but  in  these  days  that  certain  Austrian  troops,  marching 
peaceably  across  an  angle  of  this  region,  seemed  an  Invasion 
realised:  and  there  rushed  towards  Stenai,  with  musket  on 
shoulder,  from  all  the  winds,  some  thirtv  thousand  National 
Guards,  to  inquire  what  the  matter  was.^  A  matter  of  mere 
diplomacy  it  proved  ;  the  Austrian  Kaiser,  in  haste  to  get  to  Bel- 
gium, had  bargained  for  this  short  cut.  The  infinite  dim  move- 
ment of  European  Politics  waved  a  skirt  over  these  spaces  pass- 
mg  on  Its  way  ;  like  the  passing  shadow  of  a  condor ;  and  such  a 
winged  flight  of  thirty  thousand,  with  mixed  cackling  and  crowing- 
rose  m  consequence  !  For,  in  addition  to  all,  this  people,  as  we 
said,  IS  much  divided  :  Aristocrats  abound  ;  Patriotism  has  both 
Aristocrats  and  Austrians  to  watch.  It  is  Lorraine,  this  reo-ion  • 
not  so  illuminated  as  old  France :  it  remembers  ancient  Feudal- 
isms; nay,  withm  man's  memory,  it  had  a  Court  and  King  of  its 
own  or  indeed  the  splendour  of  a  Court  and  King,  without  the 
burden.  Then,  contrariwise,  the  Mother  Society,  which  sits  in 
the  Jacobins  Church  at  Paris,  has  Daughters  in  the  Towns  here  • 
^riU-tongued,  driven  acrid  :  consider  how  the  memory  of  o-ood 
King  Stanislaus,  and  ages  of  Imperial  Feudalism,  may  comport 
with  this  New  acrid  Evangel,  and  what  a  virulence  of  discord 
there  may  be  !  In  all  which,  the  Soldiery,  officers  on  one  side 
private  men  on  the  other,  takes  part,  and  now  indeed  principal 
part ;  a  J^oldiery,  moreover,  all  the  hotter  here  as  it  lies  the  denser, 
the  frontier  Province  requiring  more  of  it. 

So  stands  Lorraine  :  but  the  capital  City,  more  especially  so  The 
pleasant  City  of  Nanci,  which  faded  Feudalism  loves,  where  Kino- 
Stanislaus  personally  dwelt  and  shone,  has  an  Aristocrat  Municipa''. 
hty,  and  then  also  a  Daughter  Society:  it  has  some  forty  thousand 
divided  souls  of  population  ;  and  three  large  Regiments,  one  of 
which  is  Swiss  Chateau-Vieux,  dear  to  Patriotism  ever  since  it  re- 
lused  fighting,  or  was  thought  to  refuse,  in  the  Bastille  days.  Here 
unhappily  all  evil  influences  seem  to  meet  concentered  ;  here,  of 
all  places,  may  jealousy  and  heat  evolve  itself.  These  many 
months,  accordingly,  man  has  been  set  against  man.  Washed 
against  Unwashed;  Patriot  Soldier  against  Aristocrat  Captain, 
ever  the  more  bitterly ;  and  a  long  score  of  grudges  has  been  run- 
nmg  up. . 

*  MoniiezLr^  Seance  du  9  Ao^it  179a 


62  NANCI.   

Nameable  grudges,  and  likewise  unnameable  :  for  there  is  a 
punctual  nature  in  Wrath  ;  and  daily,  were  there  but  glances  of 
the  eye  tones  of  the  voice,  and  minutest  commissions  or  omissions, 
it  will  jot  down  somewhat,  to  account,  under  the  head  of  sundries, 
which  always  Swells  the  sum-total.  For  example,  m  April  last, 
in  those  times  of  preliminary  Federation,  when  National  Guards 
and  Soldiers  were  every  where  swearing  brotherhood,  and  ail 
France  was  locally  federating,  preparing  for  the  grand  National 
Feast  of  Pikes,  it  v/as  observed  that  these  Nanci  Officers  threw 
cold  water  on  the  whole  brotherly  business  ;  that  they  first  hung 
back  from  appearing-  at  the  Nanci  Federation  ;  then  did  appear, 
but  in  mere  redingote  and  undress,  with  scarcely  a  clean  shirt  on  ; 
nay  that  one  of  them,  as  the  National  Colours  flaunted  by  m  that 
solemn  moment,  did,  without  visible  necessity,  take  occasion  to 
S'bit  ^ 

Small  '  sundries  as  per  journal,'  but  then  incessant  ones  !  The 
Aristocrat  Municipality,  pretending  to  be  Constitutional,  keeps 
mostly  quiet ;  not  so  the  Daughter  Society,  the  five  thousand  adult 
male  Patriots  of  the  place,  still  less  the  five  thousand  female  :  not 
so  the  young,  whiskered  or  whiskerless,  four-generation  Noblesse 
in  epaulettes  ;  the  grim  Patriot  Swiss  of  Chateau- Vieux  etferves- 
cent  infantry  of  Regiment  du  Roi,  hot  troopers  of  Mestre-de- 
Camp  '  Walled  Nanci,  which  stands  so  bright  and  trim,  with  its 
straight  street,,  spacious  squares,  and  Stanislaus'  Architecture  on 
ihe  fniitful  alluvium  of  the  Meurthe  ;  so  bright,  amid  the  yellow 
cornfields  in  these  Reaper-Months,— is  inwardly  but  a  den  of  dis- 
cord, anxiety,  inflammability,  not  far  from  exploding  Let  BouillS 
look  to  it.  If  that  universal  military  heat,  which  we  liken  to  a  vast 
continent  of  smoking  flax,  do  any  where  take  fire  his  beard,  here 
in  Lorraine  and  Nanci,  may  the  most  readily  of  all  get  singed 
by  it. 

Bouilli,  for  his  part,  is  busy  enough,  but  only  with  the  general 
superintendence  ;  getting  his  pacified  Salm,  and  all  other  still 
tole-able  Regiments,  marched  out  of  Metz,  to  southward  towns  and 
villages  •  to  rural  Cantonments  as  at  Vic,  Marsal  and  thereabout, 
by  the  still  waters  ;  where  is  plenty  of  horse-forage,  sequestered 
parade-ground,  and  the  soldier's  speculative  faculty  can  be  sti  led 
by  drilling.  Salm,  as  we  said,  received  only  half  payment  of 
arrears  ;  naturally  not  without  grumbling.  Nevertheless  that 
scene  of  the  drawn  sword  may,  after  all,  have  raised  LouiUe  in  the 
mind  of  Salm  ;  for  men  and  soldiers  love  intrepidity  and  swift  in- 
flexible decision,  even  when  they  suffer  by  it.  As  '"deed  -s  not 
this  fundamentallv  the  quality  of  qualities  for  a  man  ?  A  qualuy 
which  by  itself  is'  next  to  nothing,  since  inferior  anirnals,  asses, 
dogs,  even  mules  have  it ;  yet,  in  due  combination,  it  is  the  indis- 
pensable basis  of  all.  .  u  i  i 

Of  Nanci  and  its  heats.  Bouill^,  commanaer  of  the  whole,  knows 
nothing  special ;  understands  generally  that  the  troops  in  that 

*  Deux  Amis,  v.  2.17. 


ARREARS  AT  NANCI. 


63 


City  are  perhaps  the  worst.^  The  Officers  there  have  it  all,  as 
they  have  long  had  it,  to  themselves  ;  and  unhappily  seem  to  man- 
age it  ill.  '  Fifty  yellow  furloughs,'  given  out  in  one  batch,  do 
surely  betoken  difficulties.  But  what  was  Patriotism  to  think  of 
certain  light-fencing  Fusileers  *  set  on,'  or  supposed  to  be  set  on, 
*  to  insult  the  Grenadier-club,'  considerate  speculative  Grenadiers, 
and  that  reading-room  of  theirs  ?  With  shoutings,  with  hootings; 
till  the  speculative  Grenadier  drew  his  side-arms  too;  and  there 
ensued  battery  and  duels  !  Nay  more,  are  not  swashbucklers  of 
the  same  stamp  '  sent  out '  visibly,  or  sent  out  presumably,  now  in 
the  dress  of  Soldiers  to  pick  quarrels  with  the  Citizens  ;  now,  dis- 
guised as  Citizens,  to  pick  quarrels  with  the  Soldiers  ?  For  a  cer- 
tain Roussiere,  expert  in  fence,  was  taken  in  the  very  fact ;  four 
Officers  (presum.ably  of  tender  years)  hounding  him  on,  who  there- 
upon fled  precipitately  !  Fence  master  Roussiere,  hailed  to  the 
guardhouse,  had  sentence  of  three  months' imprisonment :  but  his 
comrades  demanded  'yellow  furlough'  for/^/;;^  of  all  persons;  nay, 
thereafter  they  produced  him  on  parade ;  capped  him  in  paper- 
helmet  inscribed,  Iscariot ;  marched  him  to  the  gate  of  City  ;  and 
there  sternly  commanded  him  to  vanish  for  evermore. 

On  all  which  suspicions,  accusations  and  noisy  procedure,  and 
on  enough  of  the  like  continually  accumulating,  the  Officer  could 
not  but  look  with  disdainful  indignation  ;  perhaps  disdainfully 
express  the  same  in  w^ords,  and  '  soon  after  fly  over  to  the 
'  Austrian s,' 

So  that  when  it  here  as  elsewhere  comes  to  the  question  of 
Arrears,  the  humor  and  procedure  is  of  the  bitterest :  Regiment 
Mestre-de-Camp  getting,  amid  loud  clamour,  some  three  gold  louis 
a-man,  which  have,  as  usual,  to  be  borrowed  from  the  Municipality; 
Swiss  Chateau-Vieux  applying  for  the  like  ;  but  getting  instead \v- 
stantaneouS(f^>?/rr6>/.s-,or  cat-o'-nine-tails,  with  subsequent  unsuffer- 
able  hisses  from  the  women  and  children  ;  Regiment  du  Roi,  sick 
of  hope  deferred,  at  length  seizing  its  military  chest  and  marching 
it  to  quarters,  but  next  day  marching  it  back  again,  through  streets, 
all  struck  silent :  -  unordered  paradings  and  clamours,  not  without 
strong  liquor  ;  objurgation,  insurbordination  ;  your  military  ranked 
Arrangement  going  all  (as  Typographers  say  of  set  types,  in  a^ 
similar  case)  rapidly  to  pie  !t  Such  is  Nanci  in  these  early  days  of^ 
August ;  the  sublime  Feast  of  Pikes  not  yet  a  month  old.  . 

Constitutional  Patriotism,  at  Paris  and  elsewhere,  may  well 
quake  at  the  news.  War-Minister  Latour  du  Pin  runs  breathless 
to  the  National  Assembly,  with  a  written  message  that  *  all  is 
'  burning,  tout  bride  tout pr esse!  The  National  Assembly,  on  the 
spur  of  the  instant,  renders  such  Decret,  and  *  order  to  submit  and 
'  repent,'  as  he  requires  ;  if  it  will  avail  any  thing.  On  the  other 
hand.  Journalism,  through  all  its  throats,  gives  hoarse  outcry,  con- 
demnatory, elegiac-applausive.     The  Forty-eight  Sections,  lift  up 

ires;  sonorous  Brevv^er,  or  call  him  now^  CWd?;/^?/ Santerre,  is  not 
nt,  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- Antoine.  For,  meanwhile,  the  Nanci 
:/^l(liers  have  sent  a  Deputation  of  Ten,  furnished  with  documents 
Bouillc,  i.  c,  9,  \  Deux  Amis^  v.  c.  8. 


64 


NANCL 


and  proofs  ;  v/ho  will  tell  another  story  than  the  ^  all-is-burning 
one  Which  deputed  Ten,  before  ever  they  reach  the  Assembly 
Hall,  assiduous  Latour  du  Pin  picks  up,  and  on  warrant  of  Mayor 
Bailly,  claps  in  prison  !  Most  unconstitutionally  ;  for  they  had 
officers'  furloughs.  Whereupon  Saint-Antoine,  in  mdignant  un- 
certainty of  the  future,  closes  its  shops.  Is  Bouille  a  traitor  then, 
sold  to  Austria?  In  that  case,  these  poor  private  sentinels  have 
revoked  mainly  out  of  Patriotism  ? 

New  Deputaticn,  Deputation  of  National  Guardsmen  now,  sets 
forth  from  Nanci  to  enlighten  the  Assembly.  It  mee::  the  old 
deputed  Ten  returning,  quite  unexpectedly  ^///hanged  ;  ana  pro- 
ceeds thereupon  with  better  prospects ;  but  effects  nothing.  De- 
putations, Government  Messengers,  Orderlies  at  hand-gallops, 
Alarms,  thousand-voiced  Rumours,  go  vibrating  continually; 
backwards  and  forwards,— scattering  distraction.  N  ot  till  the  last 
week  of  August  does  M.  de  Malseigne,  selected  as  Inspector,  get 
down  to  the  scene  of  mutiny  ;  with  Authority,  with  cash,  and 
'  Decree  of  the  Sixth  of  August.'  He  now  shall  see  these  Arrears 
liquidated,  justice  done,  or  at  least  tumult  quashed. 


CHAPTER  V. 

INSPECTOR  MALSEIGNE. 

Of  Inspector  Malseigne  we  discern,  by  direct  light,  that  he  is 
*of  Herculean  stature  ; '  and  infer,  with  probabihty,  that  he  is  of 
truculent  moustachioed  aspect,— for  Royalist  Officers  now  leave 
the  upper  lip  unshaven  ;  that  ho  is  of  indomitable  bull-heart ;  and 
also,  unfortunately,  of  thick  bull-head. 

On  Tuesday  the  24th  of  August,  1790,  be  opens  session  as 
Inspecting  Commissioner;  meets  those  'elected  corporals  and 
'  soldiers  that  can  write.'  He  finds  the  accounts  of  Chateau-Vieux 
to  be  complex  ;  to  require  delay  and  reference  :  he  takes  to  haran^ 
sruine,  to  reprimanding  ;  ends  amid  audible  grumbling.  Next 
morning,  he  resumes  session,  not  at  the  Townha  1  as  prudent 
Municipals  counselled,  but  once  more  at  the  barracks  Unfortu- 
nately Chateau-Vieux,  grumbling  all  night,  w;ill  now  hear  of  no 
delay  or  reference  ;  from  reprimanding  on  his  part,  it  goes  to 
bullying,— answered  with  continual  cries  of  Ju(!:cz  iotii  de  suite 
judge  it  at  once  whereupon  M.  de  Malseigne  will  off  in  a  hull 
But  lo,  Chateau-Vieux,  swarming  all  about  the  barrack-court,  has 
sentries  at  every  gate  ;  M.  de  Malseigne,  demanding  egress,  can- 
not get  it,  though  Commandant  Denoue  backs  him  ;  can  get  only 
"  Juires  tout  de  suited    Here  is  a  nodus  !  '  . 

Bull-hearted  M.  de  Malseigne  draws  his  sword  ;  and  will  torce 
egress.  Confused  splutter.  M.  de  Malseigne's  sword  breaks  ;  he 
snatches  Commandant  Denoue's  :  the  sentry  is  wounded.    M.  de 


INSPECTOR  MALSEIGNE. 


65 


Malseigne,  whom  one  is  loath  to  kill,  does  force  egress, — followed 
by  Chateau-Vieux  all  in  disarray  ;  a  spectacle  to  Nanci.  M.  de 
Malseigne  walks  at  a  sharp  pace,  yet  never  runs  ;  wheeling  from 
time  to  time,  with  menaces  and  movements  of  fence  ;  and  so 
reaches  Denoue's  house,  unhurt ;  which  house  Chateau-Vieux,  in 
an  agitated  manner,  invests, — hindered  at  yet  from  entering,  by  a 
crowd  of  officers  formed  on  the  staircase.  M.  de  Malseigne 
retreats  by  back  ways  to  the  Townhall,  flustered  though  undaunted; 
amid  an  escort  of  National  Guards.  From  the  Townhall  he,  on 
the  morrow,  emits  fresh  orders,  fresh  plans  of  settlement  with 
Chateau-Vieux ;  to  none  of  which  will  Chateau-Vieux  listen  : 
whereupon  finally  he,  amid  noise  enough,  emits  order  that 
Chateau-Vieux  shall  march  on  the  morrow  morning,  and  quarter 
at  Sarre  Louis.  Chateau-Vieux  flatly  refuses  marching  ;  M.  de 
Malseigne  'takes  act^  due  notarial  protest,  of  such  refusal, — if 
happily  that  may  avail  him. 

This  is  the  end  of  Thursday  ;  and,  indeed,  of  M.  de  Malseigne's 
Inspectorship,  which  has  lasted  some  fifty  hours.  To  such  length, 
in  fifty  hours,  has  he  unfortunately  brought  it.  Mestre-de-Camp 
and  Regiment  du  Roi  hang,  as  it  were,  fluttering  :  Chateau-Vieux 
is  clean  gone,  in  what  way  we  see.  Over  night,  an  Aide-de-Camp 
of  Lafayette's,  stationed  here  for  such  emergency,  sends  swift 
emissaries  far  and  wide,  to  summon  National  Guards.  The  slum- 
ber of  the  country  is  broken  by  clattering  hoofs,  by  loud  fraternal 
knockings  ;  every  where  the  Constitutional  Patriot  must  clutch  his 
fighting-gear,  and  take  the  road  for  Nanci. 

And  thus  the  Herculean  Inspector  has  sat  all  Thursday,  among 
terror-struck  Municipals,  a  centre  of  confused  noise  :  all  Thurs- 
day, Friday,  and  till  Saturday  towards  noon.  Chiteau-Vieux,  in 
spite  of  the  notarial  protest,  will  not  march  a  step.  As  many  as 
four  thousand  National  Guarcjs  are  dropping  or  pouring  in ;  un- 
certain what  is  expected  of  them,  still  more  uncertain  what  will  be 
obtained  of  them.  For  all  is  uncertainty,  commotion,  and  sus- 
picion :  there  goes  a  word  that  Bouille,  beginning  to  bestir  himself 
in  the  rural  Cantonments  eastward,  is  but  a  Royalist  traitor  ;  that 
Chdteau-Vieux  and  Patriotism  are  sold  to  Austria,  of  which  latter 
M.  de  Malseigne  is  probably  some  agent.  Mestre-de-Camp  and 
Roi  flutter  still  more  questionably  :  Chateau-Vieux,  far  from 
marching,  '  waves  red  flags  out  of  two  carriages,'  in  a  passionate 
manner,  along  the  streets  ;  and  next  morning  answers  its  Officers  : 
"  Pay  us,  then  ;  and  we  will  march  with  you  to  th-  r/orld's  end  !  " 

Under  which  circumstances,  towards  noon  on  Saturday,  M.  de 
Malseigne  thinks  it  were  good  perhaps  to  inspect  the  ramparts, — 
on  horseback.  He  mounts,  accordingly,  with  escort  of  three 
troopers.  At  the  gate  of  the  city,  he  bids  tvx^o  of  them  wait  for 
his  return  ;  and  with  the  third,  a  trooper,  to  be  depended  upon,  he 
—gallops  off  for  Luneville  ;  where  lies  a  certain  Carabineer 
Regiment  not  yet  in  a  mutinous  state  !  The  two  left  troopers 
soon  get  uneasy  ;  discover  how  it  is,  and  give  the  alarm.  Mestre- 
de-Camp,  to  the  number  of  a  hundred,  saddles  in  frantic  haste,  as 
if  sold  to  Austria  ;  gallops  out  pellmell  in  chase  of  its  Inspector. 

VOL.  II.  D 


66  NANCL  

And  so  they  spur,  and  the  Inspector  spurs  ;  careering,  with  noise 
and  jingle,  up  the  valley  of  the  River  Meurthe,  towards  Luneyille 
and  the  midday  sun:  through  an  astonished  country;  indeed 
almost  their  own  astonishment.         .  ,     ,  j     ivt  i 

What  a  hunt ,  Actason-like  ;— wnich  Action  ^  de  Malse  gnc 
happily  m.'  I'o  arms,  ye  Carabineers  of  Luneville  :  to  chas- 
tise mutinous  men,  insulting  your  General  Officer,  msuUmg  your 
own  quarters  ;-above  all  things,  fire  soo7i,  lest  there  be  parleying 
and  ye  refuse  to  fire  !  The  Carabineers  fire  soon,  exploding  upon 
the  first  stragglers  of  Mestre-de-Camp  ;  who  shrink  at  the  very 
flash,  and  fall  back  hastily  on  Nanci,  in  a  state  not  far  from  dis- 
traction. Panic  and  fury  :  sold  to  Austria  without  an  tf;  so  much 
per  regiment,  the  very  sums  can  be  specified  ;  and  traitorous  Mai- 
seigne  is  fled  !  Help,  O  Heaven  ;  help,  thou  Earth,-ye  un- 
washed Patriots  ;  ye  too  are  sold  like  us  !  M^ef.^ 

Effervescent  Regiment  du  Roi  primes  its  firelocks  Mestre-de- 
Camp  saddles  wholly  :  Commandant  Denoue  is  seized,  is  flung  in 
prison  with  a  'canvass  shirt'  {sarreau  de  /^^^/^  about  him  ; 
Chiteau-Vieux  bursts  up  the  magazines  ;  distribuces  three 
'thousand  fusils 'to  a  Patriot  people:  Austria  shall  have  a  hot 
bargain.  Alas,  the  unhappy  hunting-dogs,  as  we  said,  have 
hunted  away  their  huntsman  ;  and  do  now  run  .hownng  and 
baying,  on  what  trail  they  know  not  ;  nigh  rabid  ! 

And  so  there  is  tumultuous  march  of  men,  through  the  niglit  ; 
with  halt  on  the  heights  of  Flinval,  whence  Luneville  can  be  seen 
all  illuminated.    Then  there  is  parley,  at  four  in  the  morning  ;  and 
reparley  ;  finally  thete  is  agreement  :  the  Carabineers  give  la  ; 
Malseigne  is  surrendered,  with  apologies  on  all  sides.  After  weary 
confused  hours,  he  is  even  got  under  way  ;  the  Lunevillers  all 
turning  out,  in  the  idle  Sunday,  to  see  such  departure :  home- 
eoing  of  mutinous  Mestre-de-Camp  with  its  Inspector  captive. 
Mestre-de.Camp  accordingly    marches  ;  the   LuncviUers  look 
See!  at  the  corner  of  the  first  street,  our  Inspector  bounds  ott 
again,  bull-hearted  as  he  is  ;  amid  the  slash  of  sabres  the  crackle 
of  musketry  ;  and  escapes,  full  gallop,  with  only  a  ball  lodged  in 
his  hvifi-jerkin.    The  Herculean  man  !    And  yet  it  is  an  escape  to 
no  purpose.    For  the  Carabineers,  to  whom  after  the  hardest 
Sunday's  ride  on  record,  he  has  come  circling  back,    stand  de- 
'  liberating  by  their  nocturnal  watch-fires  ;'  deliberatmg  of  Austria, 
of  traitors,  and  the  rage  of  Mestre-de  Camp.    So  that,  on  he 
whole,  the  next  sight  we  have  is  that  of  M.  de  Malseigne,  on  the 
Monday  afternoon,  faring  bull-hearted  through  the  streets  ot 
Nanci ;  in  open  carriage,  a  soldier  standing  over  him  with  drawn 
sword ;  amid  the  '  furies  of  the  women,'  hedges  of  National 
Guards,  and  confusion  of  Babel  :  to  the  Prison  beside  Com- 
mandam  Denoue  !    That  finally  is  the  lodging  of  Inspector  Mal- 


^^Sui^ely  it  is  time  Bouill($  were  drawing  near.    The  Country  all 

«  Deux  Amis.  v.  206-251;  Newspapers  and  Documents  (in  Hut:.Parl.  vii. 
59-162). 


BOUILLE  AT  NANCI. 


67 


round,  alarmed  with  watchfires,  illuminated  towns,  and  marching 
and  rout,  has  been  sleepless  these  several  nights.  Nanci,  with  its 
uncertain  National  Guards,  with  its  distributed  fusils,  mutinous 
soldiers,  black  panic  and  redhot  ire,  is  not  a  City  but  a  Bedlam. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

BOUILLE  AT  NANCL 

Haste  with  help,  thou  brave  Bouille :  if  sv/ift  help  come  not, 
all  is  now  verily 'burning and  may  burn,— to  what  lengths  and 
breadths  !  Much,  in  these  hours,  depends  on  Bouille ;  as  it  shall 
now  fare  with  him,  the  whole  Future  may  be  this  way  or  be  that. 
If,  for  example,  he  were  to  loiter  dubitating,  and  not  come  :  if  he 
were  to  come,  and  fail :  the  whole  Soldiery  of  France  to  blaze  into 
mutiny.  National  Guards  going  some  this  way,  some  that ;  and 
Royalism  to  draw  its  rapier,  and  Sansculottism  to  snatch  its  pike ; 
and  the  Spirit  of  Jacobinism,  as  yet  young,  girt  with  sun-rays,  to 
grow  instantaneously  mature,  girt  with  hell-fire,— as  mortals,  in 
one  night  of  deadly  crisis,  have  had  their  heads  turned  gray  ! 

Brave  Bouille  is  advancing  fast,  with  the  old  inflexibihty; 
gathering  himself,  unhappily  'in  small  affluences,'  from  East,  from 
West  and  North  ;  and  now  on  Tuesday  morning,  the  last  day  of 
the  month,  he  stands  all  concentered,  \mhappily  still  in  small, 
force,  at  the  village  of  Frouarde,  within  some  few  miles.  Son  of 
Adam  with  a  more  dubious  task  before  him  is  not  in  the  world 
this  Tuesday  morning.  A  weltering  inflammable  sea  of  doubt  ano 
peril,  and  Bouille  sure  of  simply  one  thing,  his  own  determination. 
Which  one  thing,  indeed,  may  be  worth  many.  He  puts  a  most 
firm  face  on  the  matter  :  '  Submission,  or  unsparing  battle  and 
'destruction;  twenty>four  hours  to  make  your  choice  : '  this  was 
the  tenor  of  his  Proclamation  ;  thirty  copies  of  which  he  sent 
yesterday  to  Nanci :— all  which,  we  find,  were  intercepted  and  not 
posted.^ 

Nevertheless,  at  half-past  eleven,  this  morning,  seemingly  by 
way  of  answer,  there  does  wait  on  him  at  Frouarde,  some  Deputa- 
tion from  the  mutinous  Regiments,  from  the  Nanci  Municipals,  to 
see  what  can  be  done.  Bouille  receives  this  Deputation,  'in  a 
'large  open  court  adjoining  his  lodging:'  pacified  Salm,  and  the 
rest,  attend  also,  being  invited  to  do  it,— all  happily  still  in  the 
right  humour.  The  Mutineers  pronounce  themselves  with  a 
decisiveness,  which  to  Bouille  seems  insolence;  and  happily  to 
Salm  also.  Salm,  forgetful  of  the  Metz  staircase  and  sabre, 
demands  that  the  scoundrels  'be  hanged'  there  and  then.  Bouille 

*  Compare  Bouille,  Memoires,  i.  i53-r76 ;  Dtux  Amis,  v.  2^1-271  :  HiO^ 
Petri,  ubi  supra. 

D  3 


6S  NANCL 


represses  the  hanging ;  but  answers  that  mutinous  Soldiers  have  i 

one  course,  and  not  more  than  one :   To  hberate,  with  heartfelt  \ 

contrition,  Messieurs  Denoue  and  de  Malseigne;    to  get  ready  j 

forthwith  for  marching  off,  whither  he  shall  order;  and  ^submit  \ 

*and  repent,'  as  the    National   Assembly  has   decreed,  as  he  i 

yesterday  did  in  thirty  printed  Placards  proclaim.     These  are  his  k 

terms,  unalterable  as  the  decrees  of  Destiny.     Which  term's  as  j 

they,  the  Mutineer  deputies,  seemingly  do  not  accept,  it  were  good  3 

for  them  to  vanish  from  this  spot,  and  even  promptly;  with  him  \ 

too,  in  few  instants,  the  word  will  be.  Forward  !   The  Mutineer  I 

deputies  vanish,  not  unpromptly;   the  Municipal  ones,  anxious  | 

beyond  right  for  their  own  individualities,  prefer  abiding  with  \ 

Bouille.  ! 

Brave  Bouille,  though  he  puts  a  most  firm  face  on  the  matter,  i 

knows  his  position  full  well :   how  at  Nanci,  what  with  rebellious  j 

soldiers,  with  uncertain  National  Guards,  and  so  many  disiributed  \ 

fusils,  there  rage  and  roar  some  ten  thousand  fighting  men ;  while  j 

with  himself  is  scarcely  the  third  part  of  that  number^  in  National  \ 

Guards  also  uncertain,  in  mere   pacified   Regiments, — for  the  \ 

present  full  of  rage,  and  clamour  to  march  ;  but  whose  rage  and  \ 
clamour  may  next  moment  take  such  a  fatal  new  figure.    On  the 

top  of  one  uncertain  billow,  therewith  to  calm  billows  !    Bouille  j 

must  ^abandon  himself  to  Fortune;'  who  is  said  sometimes  to  \ 

favour  the  brave.     At  half-past  twelve,  the  Mutineer  deputies  j 

having  vanished,  our  drums  beat ;    we  march  :  for  Nanci !    Let  \ 

Nanci  bethink  itself^  then;  for  Bouille  has  thought  and  de-  \ 
termined. 

And  yet  how  shall  Nanci  think  :    not  a  City  but  a  Bedlam  !  | 

Grim  Chateau- Vieux  is  for  defence  to  the  death ;  forces  the  j 
Municipahty  to  order,  by  tap  of  drum,  all  citizens  acquainted  with 

artillery  to  turn  out,  and  assist  in  managing  the  cannon.     On  the-  3 

other  hand,  effervescent  Regiment  du  Roi,  is  drawn  up  in  its  : 

barracks ;  quite  disconsolate,  hearing  the  humour  Salm  is  in ;  and  ; 

ejaculates  dolefully  from  its  thousand  throats:    "-La  lot,  la  lot,  \ 
Law,  law        Mestre-de-Camp  blusters,  with  profane  swearing,  in 
mixed  terror  and  furor ;  National  Guards  look  this  way  and  that, 

not  knowing  what  to  do.    What  a  Bedlam-City  :  as  many  plans  ^ 
as  heads  ;  all  ordering,  none  obeying  :   quiet  hone,— except  the 
Dead,  who  sleep  underground,  having  done  their  fighting  ! 

And,  behold,  l^ouille'proves  as  good  as  his  word  :  'at  half-past 
^two'  scouts  report  that  he  is  within  half  a  league  of  the  gates  ; 
rattling  along,*  with  cannon,  and  array ;  breathing  nothing  but 
destruction.  A  new  Deputation,  Municipals,  Mutineers,  Officers, 
goes  out  to  meet  him  ;  with  passionate  entreaty  for  yet  one  other 
hour.  Bouille  grants  an  hour.  Then,  at  the  end  thereof,  no 
Denoue  or  Malseigne  appearing  as  promised,  he  rolls  his  drums, 

and  again  takes  the  road.  Towards  four  o'clock,  the  terror-struck  ; 
Townsmen  may  see  him  face  to  face.     His  cannons  rattle  there, 

in  their  carriages  ;  his  vanguard  is  within  thirty  paces  of  the  Gate  i 

Stanislaus.     Onward  like  a  Planet,  by  appointed  times,  by  law. of  J 

Nature  !  What  next?  I-o,  flag  of  truce  and  chamade  ;  conjuration  I 


EOVILLE  AT  NANCI. 


69 


to  halt  :  Malseigne  and  Denoue  are  on  the  street,  coming  hither  ; 
the  soldiers  all  repentant,  ready  to  submit  and  march  !  Adaman- 
tine Bouille's  look  alters  not ;  yet  the  word  Halt  is  given  :  gladder 
moment  he  never  saw.  Joy  of  joys  !  Malseigne  and  Denoue  do 
verily  issue  ;  escorted  by  National  Guards ;  from  streets  all 
frantic,  with  sale  to  Austria  and  so  forth  :  they  salute  Bouille,  un- 
scathed. Bouille  steps  aside  to  speak  with  them,  and  with  other 
heads  of  the  Town  there  ;  having  already  ordered  by  what  Gates 
and  Routes  the  mutineer  Regiments  shall  file  out. 

Such  colloquy  with  these  two  General  Officers  and  other 
principal  Townsm.en,  was  natural  enough  ;  nevertheless  one 
wishes  Bouille  had  postponed  it,  and  not  stepped  aside.  Such 
tumultuous  inflammable  masses,  tumbling  along,  making  way  for 
each  other ;  this  of  keen  nitrous  oxide,  that  of  sulphurous  fire- 
damp,— were  it  not  well  to  stand  between  them,  keeping  them  well 
separate,  till  the  space  be  cleared  ?  Numerous  stragglers  of  Cha- 
teau-Vieux  and  the  rest  have  not  marched  with  their  main  columns, 
which  are  filing  out  by  the  appointed  Gates,  taking  station  in  the 
open  meadows.  National  Guards  are  in  a  state  of  nearly  dis- 
tracted uncertainty ;  the  populace,  armed  and  unharmed,  roll  openly 
dehrious, — betrayed,  sold  to  the  Austrians,  sold  to  the  Aristocrats. 
There  are  loaded  cannon  with  lit  matches  among  them,  and 
Bouille's  vanguard  is  halted  within  thirty  paces  of  the 
Gate.  Command  dwells  not,  in  that  mad  inflam.mable  mass  ; 
which  smoulders  and  tumbles  there,  in  blind  smoky  rage  ;  which 
will  not  open  the  Gate  when  summoned  ;  says  it  will  open  the 
cannon's  throat  sooner  ! — Cannonade  not,  O  Friends,  or  be  it 
through  my  body  !  cries  heroic  young  Desilles,  young  Captain  of 
Roi^  clasping  the  murderous  engine  in  his  arms,  and  holding  it. 
Chateau- Vieux  Swiss,  by  main  force,  with  oaths  and  menaces, 
wrench  off  the  heroic  youth  ;  who  undaunted,  amid  still  louder 
oaths,  seats  himself  on  the  touch-hole.  Amid  still  louder  oaths  ; 
with  ever  louder  clangour,— and,  alas,  with  the  loud  crackle  of  first 
one,  and  then  three  other  muskets  ;  w^hich  explode  into  his  body  ; 
which  roll  //  in  the  dust, — and  do  also,  in  the  loud  madness  of  such 
moment,  bring  lit  cannon-match  to  ready  priming  ;  and  so,  with 
one  thunderous  belch  of  grapeshot,  blast  some  fifty  of  Bouille's 
vanguard  into  air  ! 

Fatal  !  That  sputter  of  the  first  musket-shot  has  kindled  such  a 
cannon-shot,  such  a  death-blaze  ;  and  all  is  now  redhot  madness, 
conflagration  as  of  Tophet.  With  demoniac  rage,  the  Bouille  van- 
guard storms  through  that  Gate  Stanislaus  ;  with  fiery  sweep, 
sweeps  Mutiny  clear  away,  to  death,  or  into  shelters  and  cellars  ; 
from  which  latter,  again,  Mutiny  continues  firing.  The  ranked 
Regiments  hear  it  in  their  meadow  ;  they  rush  back  again  through 
the  nearest  Gates  ;  Bouille  gallops  in,  distracted,  inaudible  ;~and 
now  has  begun,  in  Nanci,  as  in  that  doomed  Hall  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen,  '  a  murder  grim  and  great.' 

•  Miserable  :  such  scene  of  dismal  aimless  madness  as  the  anger 
of  Heaven  but  ^^rely  permits  among  men  !  From  cellar  or  from 
[garret,  from  open  street  in  front,  from  successive  corners  of  cross- 


70 


NANCL 


streets  on  each  hand,  Chateau-Vieux  and  Patriotism  keep  up  the 
murderous  roUing-fire,  on  murderous  not  Unpatriotic  fires.  Your 
blue  National  Captain,  riddled  with  balls,  one  hardly  knows  on 
whose  side  fighting,  requests  to  be  laid  on  the  colours  to  die  :  the 
patriotic  Woman  (name  not  given,  deed  surviving)  screams  to 
Chateau-Vieux  that  it  must  not  fire  the  other  cannon ;  and  even 
flings  a  pail  of  water  on  it,  since  screaming  avails  not."^  Thou 
shalt  fight ;  thou  shalt  not  fight ;  and  with  whom  shalt  thou  fight  ! 
Could  tumult  awaken  the  old  Dead,  Burgundian  Charles  the  Bold 
might  stir  from  under  that  Rotunda  of  his  :  never  since  he.  raging, 
sank  in  the  ditches,  and  lost  Life  and  Diamond,  was  such  a  noise 
heard  here. 

Three  thousand,  as  some  count,  lie  mangled,  gory  ;  the  half  of 
Chateau-Vieux  has  been  shot,  without  need  of  Court  Martial. 
Cavalry,  of  Mestre-de-Camp  or  their  foes,  can  do  httle.  Regiment 
du  Roi  was  persuaded  to  its  barracks  ;  stands  there  palpitating. 
Bouille,  armed  with  the  terrors  of  the  Law,  and  favoured  of  For- 
tune, finally  triumphs.  In  two  murderous  hours  he  has  penetrated 
to  the  grand  Squares,  dauntless,  though  with  loss  of  forty  officers 
and  five  hundred  men  :  the  shattered  remnants  of  Chateau-Vieux 
are  seeking  covert.  Regiment  du  Roi,  not  effervescent  now,  alas 
no,  but  having  effervesced,  will  offer  to  ground  its  arms  ;  will 
'  march  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour.'  Nay  these  poor  effervesced  re- 
quire '  escort '  to  march  with,  and  get  it ;  though  they  are  thousands 
strong,  and  have  thirty  ball-cartridges  a  man  !  The  Sun  is  not  yet 
down,  when  Peace,  which  might  have  come  bloodless,  has  come 
bloody  :  the  mutinous  Regiments  are  on  march,  doleful,  on  their 
three  Routes  ;  and  from  Nanci  rises  wail  of  women  and  rnen,  the 
voice  of  weeping  and  desolation  ;  the  City  weeping  for  its  slain 
who  awaken  not.  These  streets  are  empty  but  for  victorious 
patrols. 

Thus  has  Fortune,  favouring  the  brave,  dragged  Bouille,  as  him- 
self says,  out  of  such  a  frightful  peril,  '  by  the  hair  of  the  head.' 
An  intrepid  adamantine  man  this  Bouille  :— had  he  stood  m  old 
Broglie's  place,  in  those  Bastille  days,  it  might  have  been  all 
different !  He  has  extinguished  mutiny,  and  immeasurable  civil 
war.  Not  for  nothing,  as  we  see  ;  yet  at  a  rate  which  he  and  Con- 
stitutional Patriotism  considers  cheap.  Nay,  as  for  Bouille,  he, 
urged  by  subsequent  contradiction  which  arose,  declares  coldly,  it 
was  rather  against  his  own  private  mind,  and  more  by  public 
military  rule  of  duty,  that  he  did  extinguish  it,*!— immeasurable 
( ivil  war  being  now  the  only  chance.  Urged,  we  say,  by  sub- 
sequent contradiction  !  Civil  war,  indeed,  is  Chaos  ;  and  in  all 
vital  Chaos,  there  is  new  Order  shaping  itself  free  :  but  what  a 
faith  this,  that  of  all  new  Orders  out  of  Chaos  and  Possibility  of 
Man  and  his  Universe,  Louis  Sixteenth  and  Two-Chamber 
Monarchy  were  precisely  the  one  that  would  sha|)e  itself!  It  is 
like  undertaking  to  throw  deuce-ace,  say  only  live  hundred  sue* 
cessive  times,  and  any  other  throw  to  be  fatal- for  Bouille. 
*  Deux  Amis,  v.  268,  Bouille,  i.  175. 


BOViLLE  AT  NANCY, 


7t 


Rather  thank  Fortune,  and  Heaven,  always,  thou  intrepid  Bouille  ; 
and  let  contradiction  go  its  way  !  Civil  war,  conflagrating  uni- 
versally over  France  at  this  moment,  might  have  led  to  one  thmg 
or  to  another  thing  :  meanwhile,  to  quench  conflagration,  whereso- 
ever one  finds  it,  wheresoever  one  can ;  this,  in  all  times,  is  the 
rule  for  man  and  General  Officer. 

But  at  Paris,  so  agitated  and  divided,  fancy  how  it  went,  when 
the  continually  vibrating  Orderlies  vibrated  thither  at  hand 
gallop,  with  such  questionable  news  !  High  is  the  gratulation  ; 
and  also  deep  the  indignation.  An  august  Assembly,  by  over- 
whelming majorities,  passionately  thanks  Bouille ;  a  King's  auto- 
graph, the  voices  of  all  Loyal,  all  Constitutional  men  run  to  the 
same  tenor.  A  solemn  National  funeral-service,  for  the  Law- 
defenders  slain  at  Nanci,  is  said  and  sung  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  ; 
Bailly,  Lafayette  and  National  Guards,  all  except  the  few  that 
protested,  assist.  With  pomp  and  circumstance,  with  episcopal 
Calicoes  in  tricolor  girdles,  Altar  of  Fatherland  smoking  with  cas- 
solettes, or  incense-kettles  ;  the  vast  Champ-de-Mars  wholly  hung 
round  with  black  mortcloth— which  mortcloth  and  expenditure 
Marat  thinks  had  better  have  been  laid  out  in  bread,  in  these  dear 
days,  and  given  to  the  hungry  hving  Patriot.^  On  the  other  hand, 
living  Patriotism,  and  Saint-Antoine,  which  we  have  seen  noisily 
closing  its  shops  and  such  like,  assembles  now  '  to  the  number 
^of  forty  thousand  ; '  and,  ;7^nh  loud  cries,  under  the  very  windows 
of  the  thanking  National  Assembly,  demands  revenge  for  murdered 
Brothers,  judgment  on  Bouille,  and  instant  dismissal  of  War- 
Minister  Latour  du  Pin. 

At  sound  and  sight  of  which  things,  if  not  War-Minister  Latour, 
yet  ^  Adored  Minister^  Necker,  sees  good  on  the  3d  of  September 
1790,  to  withdraw  sofdy  almost  privily,— with  an  eye  to  the 
'recovery  of  his  health.'  Home  to  native  Switzerland  ;  not  as  he 
last  came  ;  lucky  to  reach  it  ahve  !  Fifteen  months  ago,  we  saw 
him  coming,  with  escort  of  horse,  with  sound  of  clarion  and 
trumpet  :  and  now  at  Arcis-sur-Aube,  while  he  departs  unescorted 
soundless,  the  Populace  and  Municipals  stop  him  as  a  fugitive, 
are  not  unlike  massacring  him  as  a  traitor  ;  the  National 
Assembly,  consuked  on  the  matter,  gives  him  free  egress  as  a 
nullity.  Such  an  unstable  'drift-mould  of  Accident'  is  the 
substance  of  this  lower  world,  for  them  that  dwell  in  houses  of 
clay  ;  so,  especially  in  hot  regions  and  times,  do  the  proudest 
palaces  we  Wild  of  it  take  wings,  and  become  Sahara  sand- 
palaces,  spinning  many  pillared  in  the  whirlwind,  and  bury  us 
tinder  their  sand  ! — 

In  spite  of  the  forty  thousand,  the  National  Assembly  persists  in 
its  thanks  ;  and  Royalist  Latour  du  Pin  continues  Minister.  The 
forty  thousand  assemble  next  day,  as  loud  as  ever  ;  roll  towards 
Latour's  Hotel ;  find  cannon  on  the  porch-steps  with  flambeau 
lit ;  and  have  to  retire  elsewhither,  and  digest  their  spleen,  or 
re-absorb  it  into  the  blood. 

Over  in  Lorraine,  meanwhile,  they  of  the  distributed  fusils, 
*  Ami  du  Peuple  (in  Hist.  Pari,  ubi  siipr^i). 


72 


NANCL 


ringleaders  of  Mestre-de-Camp,  of  Roi^  have  got  marked  out  for 
judgment  ;—yet  shall  never  get  judged.  Briefer  is  the  doom  of 
Chateau-Vieux.  Chateau-Vieux  is,  by  Swiss  law,  given  up  for 
instant  trial  in  Court-Martial  of  its  own  officers.  Which  Court- 
Martial,  with  all  brevity  (in  not  many  hours),  has  hanged  some 
Twenty-three,  on  conspicuous  gibbets  ;  marched  some  Three- 
score in  chains  to  the  Galleys  ;  and  so,  to  appearance,  fmished  the 
matter  off.  Hanged  men  do  cease  for  ever  from  this  Earth  ;  but 
out  of  chains  and  the  Galleys  there  may  be  resuscitation  in 
triumph.  Resuscitation  for  the  chained  Hero  ;  and  even  for  the 
chained  Scoundrel,  or  Semi-scoundrel  !  Scottish  John  Knox, 
such  World-Hero,  as  we  know,  sat  once  nevertheless  pulling: 
grim-taciturn  at  the  oar  of  French  Galley,  '  in  the  W ater  of 
'  Lore 2ind  even  flung  their  Virgin-Mary  over,  instead  of 
kissing  her,— as  'a  pefited  bredd'  or  timber  Virgin,  who  could 
naturally  swim.-^  So,  ye  of  Chateau-Vieux,  tug  patiently,  not 
without  hope  ! 

But  indeed  at  Nanci  generally,  Aristocracy  rides  triunaphantj 
rough.  Eouille  is  gone  again,  the  second  day  ;  an  Aristocrat^ 
Municipahty,  with  free  course,  is  as  cruel  as  it  had  before  been 
cowardly.  The  Daughter  Society,  as  the  mother  of  the  whole- 
mischief,  lies  ignominiously  suppressed  ;  the  Prisons  can  hold  no. 
more  ;  bereaved  down-beaten  Patriotism  murmurs,  not  loud  buf 
deep.  Here  and  in  the  neighbouring  Towns,  'flattened  balls' 
picked  from  the  streets  of  Nanci  are  worn  at  buttonholes  :  balls 
flattened  in  carrying  death  to  Patriotism  ;  men  wear  them  there, 
in  perpetual  memento  of  revenge.  Mutineer  Deserters  roam  the 
woods  ;  have  to  demand  charity  at  the  musket's  end.  All  is 
dissolution,  mutual  rancour,  gloom  and  despair  :-— till  National- 
Assembly  Commissioners  arrive,  v/ith  a  steady  gentle  flame  of 
ConstiJtutionahsm  in  their  hearts  ;  who  gently  lift  up  the  down- 
trodden, gently  pull  down  the  too  uplifted  ;  reinstate  the  Daughter 
Society,  recall  the  Mutineer  Deserter;  gradually  levelling,  strive 
in  all  wise  ways  to  smooth  and  soothe.  With  such  gradual  mild 
levelling  on  the  one  side  ;  as  with  solemn  funeral-service, 
Cassolettes,  Courts-Martial,  National  thanks,— all  that  Officiality 
can  do  is  done.  The  buttonhole  will  drop  its  flat  ball ;  the  black 
ashes,  so  far  as  may  be,  get  green  again. 

This  is  the  'Affair  of  Nanci  by  some  called  the  '  Massacre  of 
'Nanci  ;'— properly  speaking,  the  unsightly  wrong-side  oi  that 
thrice  glorious  Feast  of  Pikes,  the  right-side  of  which  formed  a 
spectacle  for  the  very  gods.  Right-side  and  wrong  lie  always  so 
near  :  the  one  was  in  July,  in  August  the  other  !  Theatres,  the 
theatres  over  in  London,  are  bright  with  their  pasteboard  simu- 
lacrum of  that  '  Federation  of  the  French  People,'  brought  out  as 
Drama  :  this  of  Nanci,  we  may  say,  though  not  played  in  any 
pasteboard  Theatre,  did  for  many  months  enact  itself,  and  even: 
walk  spectrally— in  all  French  heads.  For  the  news  of  it  fly; 
pealing  through  all  France  ;  awakening,  in  town  and  village,  in 
*  Knox's  History  of  the  A'e/ormation,  b.  i. 


BO'UILLE  AT  NANCL 


n 


clubroom,  messroom,  to  the  utmost  borders,  some  mimic  reflex  or 
imaginative  repetition  of  the  business  ;  always  with  the  angry 
questionable  assertion  :  It  was  right  ;  It  was  wrong.  Whereby 
come  controversies,  duels  ;  embitterment,  vam  jargon  ;  the  has- 
tening forward,  the  augmentmg  and  intensifying  of  whatever  new 
explosions  lie  in  store  for  us 

Meanwhile,  at  this  cost  or  at  that,  the  mutiny,  as  we  say,  is 
stilled.  The  French  Army  has  neither  burst  up  in  universal 
simultaneous  delirium  ;  nor  been  at  once  disbanded,  put  an  end 
to,  and  made  new  again.  It  must  die  in  the  chronic  manner, 
through  years,  by  inches  ;  with  partial  revolts,  as  of  Brest  Sailors 
or  the  like,  which  dare  not  spread  ;  with  men  unhappy,  insubor- 
dinate ;  officers  unhappier,  in  Royalist  moustachioes,  taking 
horse,  singly  or  in  bodies,  across  the  Rhine  :^  sick  dissatisfaction, 
sick  disgust  on  both  sides  ;  the  Army  moribund,  fit  for  no  duty  :— 
till  it  do,  in  that  unexpected  manner.  Phoenix-like,  vvith  long 
throes,  get  both  dead  and  newborn  ;  then  start  forth  strong,  nay 
stronger  and  even  strongest. 

Thus  much  was  the  brave  Bouille  hitherto  fated  to  do.  Where- 
with let  him  again  fade  into  dimness  ;  and  at  Metz  or  the  rural 
Cantonments,  assiduously  drilling,  mysteriously  diplomatising,  in 
scheme  within  scheme,  hover  as  formerly  a  faint  shadow,  the  hop© 
of  Royalty. 

*  See  Dampmartin,  i.  249,  &c.  &c. 


BOOK  THIRD. 

THE  TUILERIES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EPIMENIDES. 

How  true  that  there,  is  nothing  dead  in  this  Universe ;  that 
what  we  call  dead  is  only  changed,  its  forces  working  in  inverse 
order  !  '  The  leaf  that  lies  rotting  in  moist  winds/  says  one,  '  has 
"  still  force  ;  else  how  could  it  rol  ? '  Our  whole  Universe  is  but 
an  infinite  Complex  of  Forces  ;  thousandfold,  from  Gravitation 
up  to  Thought  and  Will  ;  man's  Freedom  environed  with  Necessity 
of  Nature  :  in  all  which  nothing  at  any  moment  slumbers,  but  all 
is  for  ever  awake  and  busy.  The  thing  that  lies  isolated  inactive 
thou  shalt  nowhere  discover  ;  seek  every  where  from  the  granite 
mountain,  slow-mouldering  since  Creation,'  to  the  passing  cloud- 
vapour,  to  the  living  man  ;  to  the  action,  to  the  spoken  word  of 
man.  The  word  that  is  spoken,  as  we  know,  flies-irrevocable  : 
not  less,  but  more,  the  action  that  is  done.  '  The  gods  themselves,' 
sings  Pindar,  '  cannot  annihilate  the  action  that  is  done.'  No  : 
this,  once  done,  is  done  always  ;  cast  forth  into  endless  Time  ; 
and,  long  conspicuous  or  soon  hidden,  must  verily  work  and  grow 
for  ever  there,  an  indestructible  new  element  in  the  Infinite  of 
Things.  Or,  indeed,  what  is  this  Infinite  of  Things  itself,  which 
men  name  Universe,  but  an  action,  a  sum-total  of  Actions  and 
Activities.'^  The  living  ready-made  sum-total  of  these  three, — 
which  Calculation  cannot  add,  cannot  bring  on  its  tablets  ;  yet  the 
sum,  we  say,  is  written  visible  :  All  that  has  been  done.  All  that  is 
doing.  All  that  will  be  done  !  Understand  it  well,  the  Thing  thou 
beholdest,  that  Thing  is  an  Action,  the  product  and  expression  of 
exerted  Force  :  the  All  of  Things  is  an  infmite  conjugation  of  the 
verb  To  do.  Shoreless  Founl>iin-()ccan  of  Force,  of  power  to  do  ,* 
wherein  Force  rolls  and  circles,  billowing,  many-streamed,  har- 
monious ;  wide  as  Immensity,  deep  as  Eternity  ;  beautiful  and 
terrible,  not  to  be  comprehended  :  this  is  what  man  names 
Existence  and  Universe;  lliis  tliousand-tinlcd  Flame-image,  at 
once  veil  and  revelation,  reflex  such  as  he,  in  his  poor  brain  and 
jbeart,  can  naiiit^  of  One  Unnarneable  dwelling  in  inaccessible 


EPJMENIDES, 


7S 


light  !  From  beyond  the  Star-galaxies,  from  before  the  Beginning 
of  Days,  it  biliows  and  rolls, — round  thee,  nay  thyself  art  of  it,  in 
this  point  of  Space  where  thou  now  standest,  in  this  moment  which 
thy  clock  measures. 

Or  apart  from  all  Transcendentalism,  is  it  not  a  plain  truth  of 
sense,  which  the  duller  mind  can  even  consider  as  a  truism,  that 
human  things  wholly  are  in  continual  movement,  and  action  and 
reaction  ;  working  continually  forward,  phasis  after  phasis,  by 
unalterable  laws,  towards  prescribed  issues  ?  How  often  must  w^e 
say,  and  yet  not  rightly  lay  to  heart  :  The  seed  that  is  sown,  it  will 
spring  !  Given  the  summer's  blossoming,  then  there  is  also  given 
the  autumnal  withering  :  so  is  it  ordered  not  with  seedfields  only, 
but  with  transactions,  arrangements,  philosophies,  societies,  French 
Revolutions,  whatsoever  man  works  with  in  this  lov/er  world.  The 
Beginning  holds  in  it  the  End,  and  all  that  leads  thereto  ;  as  the 
acorn  does  the  oak  and  its  fortunes.  Solemn  enough,  did  we  think 
of  it, — which  unhappily  and  also  happily  w^e  do  not  very  much  ! 
Thou  there  canst  begin  ;  the  Beginning  is  for  thee,  and  there  :  but 
where,  and  of  what  sort,  and  for  whom  will  the  End  be  1  All 
grows,  and  seeks  and  endures  its  destinies  :  consider  likewise  how 
much  grows,  as  the  trees  do,  whether  ive  think  of  it  or  not.  So 
that  when  your  Epimenides,  your  somnolent  Peter  Klaus,  since 
named  Rip  van  Winkle,  awakens  again,  he  hnds  it  a  changed 
world.  In  that  seven-years'  sleep  of  his,  so  much  has  changed  ! 
All  that  is  without  us  will  change  while  we  think  not  of  it ;  much 
even  that  is  within  us.  The  truth  that  was  yesterday  a  restless 
Problem,  has  to-day  grown  a  Belief  burning  to  be  uttered  :  on  the 
morrow,  contradiction  has  exasperated  it  into  mad  Fanaticism  ; 
obstruction  has  dulled  it  into  sick  Inertness  ;  it  is  sinking  towards 
silence,  of  satisfaction  or  of  resignation.  To-day  is  not  Yesterday, 
for  man  or  for  thing.  Yesterday  there  was  the  oath  of  Love-  ; 
to-day  has  come  the  curse  of  Hate.  Not  willingly  :  ah,  no  ;  but 
it  could  not  help  coming.  The  golden  radiance  of  youth,  would 
it  willingly  have  tarnished  itself  into  the  dimness  of  old  age  ? — 
Fearful  :  how  we  stand  enveloped,  deep-sunk,  in  that  Mystery  of 
Time  ;  and  are  Sons  of  Time  ;  fashioned  and  woven  out  of  Time  ; 
and  on  us,  and  on  all  that  we  have,  or  see,  or  do,  is  written  :  F^est 
notp  Continue  not,  Forward  to  thy  doom  ! 

But  in  seasons  of  Revolution,  which  indeed  distinguish  them- 
selves from  common  seasons  by  their  velocity  mainly,  your 
miraculous  Seven-sleeper  might,  with  miracle  enough,  xvuk^' sooner  : 
not  by  the  century,  or  seven  years,  need  he  sleep  ;  often  not  by  the 
seven  months.  Fancy,  for  example,  some  new  Peter  Klaus,  sated 
with  the  jubilee  of  that  Federation  day,  had  lain  down,  say  directlv 
after  the  Blessing  of  Talleyrand  ;  and,  reckoning  it  all  safe  7iow, 
had  fallen  composedly  asleep  under  the  timber-work  of  the  Father- 
land's Altar  ;  to  sleep  there,  not  twenty-one  years,  but  as  it  were 
year  and  day.  The  cannonading  of  Nanci,  so  far  off,  does  not 
disturb  him  ;  nor  does  the  black  mortcloth,  close  at  hand,  nor  the 
requiemb  chanted,  and  minute  guns,  incense  pans  and  concourse 


76  THE  TUILERIES. 


right  over  his  head  :  none  of  these  ;  but  Peter  sleeps  through  them 
all.  Through  one  circling  year,  as  we  say  ;  from  July  the  14th  of 
1790,  till  July  the  17th  of  1791  :  but  on  that  latter  day,  no  Klaus, 
nor  most  leaden  Epimenides,  only  the  Dead  could  continue 
sleeping  ;  and  so  our  miraculous  Peter  Klaus  awakens.  With 
what  eyes,  O  Peter  !  Earth  and  sky  have  still  their  joyous  July 
look,  and  the  Champ-de-Mars  is  niiiltitudinous  with  men  :  but  the 
jubilee-huzzahing  has  become  Bedlam- shrieking,  of  terror  and 
revenge  ;  not  blessing  of  Talleyrand^  or  any  blessing,  but  cursing, 
imprecation  and  shrill  wail ;  our  cannon- salvoes  are  turned  to  sharp 
shoi  ;  for  swinging  of  incenj^e-pans  and  Eighty  three  Departmental 
Banners,  we  have  waving  of  the  one  sanguineus  Drapeau- Rouge. — 
Thou  foolish  Klaus  !  The  one  lay  in  the  other,  the  one  was  the 
other  minus  Time  ;  even  as  Hannibal's  rock-rending  vinegar  lay 
in  the  sweet  new  wine.  That  sweet  Federation  was  of  last  year  ; 
this  sour  Divulsion  is  the  self-same  substance,  only  older  by  the 
appointed  days. 

No  miraculous  Klaus  or  Epimenides  sleeps  in  these  times  :  and 
yet,  may  not  many  a  man,  if  of  due  opacity  and  levity,  act  the 
same  miracle  in  a  natural  way  ;  we  mean,  with  his  eyes  open  ? 
Eyes  has  he,  but  he  sees  not,  except  what  is  under  his  nose.  With 
a  sparkling  briskness  of  glance,  as  if  he  not  only  saw  but  saw- 
through,  such  a  one  goes  whisking,  assiduous,  in  his  circle  of 
ofhcialities  ;  not  dreaming  but  that  it  is  the  whole  world  :  as, 
indeed,  where  your  vision  terminates,  does  not  inanity  begin  there, 
and  the  world's  end  clearly  disclose  itself — to  you  ?  Whereby  our 
brisk  sparkling  assiduous  official  person  (call  him,  for  instance, 
Lafayette),  suddenly  startled,  after  year  and  day,  by  huge  grape- 
shot  tumult,  stares  not  less  astonished  at  it  than  Peter  Klaus  would 
have  done.  Such  natural-miracle  Lafayette  can  perform  ;  and 
indeed  not  he  only  but  most  other  officials,  non-officials,  and 
generally  the  whole  French  People  can  perform  it ;  and  do  bounce 
up,  ever  and  anon,  like  amazed  Seven-sleepers  awakening ; 
awakening  amazed  at  the  noise  they  themselves  make.  So 
strangely  is  Freedom,  as  we  say,  environed  in  Necessity ;  such  a 
singular  Somnambulism,  of  Conscious  and  Unconscious,  of  Volun- 
tary and  Involuntary,  is  this  life  of  man.  If  any  where  in  the 
world  there  was  astonishment  that  the  Federation  Oath  went  into 
grape-shot,  surely  of  all  persons  the  French,  first  swearers  and 
then  shooters,  felt  astonished  the  most. 

Alas,  offences  must  come.  The  sublime  Feast  of  Pikes,  with 
its  effulgence  of  brotherly  love,  unknown  since  the  Age  of  Gold, 
has  changed  nothing.  That  prurient  heat  in  Twenty-fTve  milhons 
of  hearts  is  not  cooled  thereby  ;  br  is  still  hot,  nay  hotter.  Lift 
off  the  pressure  of  command  from  so  many  millions  ;  all  pressure 
or  binding  rule,  except  such  melodramatic  Federation  Oath  as 
they  have  bound  theuisehws  with  !  F'or  Thou  sJialt  was  from 
of  old  the  condition  of  man's  being,  and  his  weal  and  blessedness 
was  in  obeying  that.  Wo  for  him  when,  were  it  on  best  of  the 
clearest  necessity,  rebelHon,  disloyal  isolation,  and  mere  /  willy 
becomes  his  rule  !    But  the  Gospel  of  Jean- Jacques  has  come, 


THE  WAKEFUL.  77 


and  the  first  Sacrament  of  it  has  been  celebrated  :  all  things,  as 
we  say,  are  got  into  hot  and  hotter  prurience  ;  and  must  go  on 
pruriently  fermenting,  in  continual  change  noted  or  unnoted. 

*Worn  out  with  disgusts,'  Captain  after  Captain,  in  Royalist 
moustachioes,  mounts  his  warhorse,  or  his  Rozinante  war-garron, 
and  rides  minatory  across  the  Rhine  ;  till  all  have  ridden.  Neither 
does  civic  Emigration  cease  :  Seigneur  after  Seigneur  must,  in 
like  manner,  ride  or  roll ;  impelled  to  it,  and  even  compelled.  For 
the  very  Peasants  despise  him  in  that  he  dare  not  join  his  order 
and  fight. Can  he  bear  to  have  a  Distaff,  a  Qiteitoidlle  sent  to 
him  ;  say  in  copper-plate  shadow,  by  post ;  or  fixed  up  in  wooden 
reality  over  his  gate-lintel  :  as  if  he  were  no  Hercules  but  an 
Omphale  1  Such  scutcheon  they  forward  to  him  diligently  from 
behind  the  Rhine  ;  till  he  too  bestir  himself  and  march,  and  in 
sour  humour,  another  Lord  of  Land  is  gone,  not  taking  the  Land 
with  him.  Nay,  what  of  Captains  and  emigrating  Seigneurs  ? 
There  is  not  an  angry  word  on  any  of  those  Twenty-five  million 
French  tongues,  and  indeed  not  an  angry  thought  in  their  hearts, 
but  is  some  fraction  of  the  great  Battle.  Add  many  successions  of 
angry  words  together,  you  have  the  manual  brawl  ;  add  brawls 
together,  with  the  festering  sorrows  they  leave,  and  they  rise  to 
riots  and  revolts.  One  reverend  thing  after  another  ceases  to  meet 
reverence :  in  visible  material  combustion,  chateau  after  chateau 
mounts  up;  in  spiritual  invisible  combustion,  one  authority  after 
another.  With  noise  and  glare,  or  noisily  and  unnoted,  a  whole 
Old  System  of  things  is  vanishing  piecemeal :  on  the  morrow 
thou  shalt  look  and  it  is  not. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE  WAKEFUL 

^  Sleep  who  will,  cradled  in  hope  and  short  vision,  like  Lafayette, 
^  who  always  in  the  danger  done  sees  the  last  danger  that  will 
threaten  him,'— Time  is  not  sleeping,  nor  Time's  seedfield. 
:  That  sacred  Herald  s-College  of  a  new  Dynasty  ;  we  mean  the 
i  Sixty  and  odd  Billstickers  with  their  leaden  badges,  are  not  sleep- 
ing. Daily  they,  with  pastepot  and  cross-staff,  new  clothe  the 
walls  of  Paris  in  colours  of  the  rainbow  :  authoritative  heraldic,  as 
we  say,  or  indeed  almost  magical  thaumaturgic  ;  for  no  Placard- 
Journal  that  they  paste  but  will  convince  some  soul  or  souls  of 
nien.  The  Hawkers  bawl  ;  and  the  Balladsingers  :  great  Journal- 
ism blows  and  blusters,  through  all  its  throats,  forth  from  Paris 
towards  all  corners  of  France,  like  an  Coins'  Cave  ;  keeping  alive 
all  manner  of  fires. 


*  Dftmpmartin, 


THE  TUILERIES. 


Throats  or  Journals  there  are,  as  men  count,"^  to  the  number  of 
some  hundred  and  thirty-three.  Of  various  cahbre  ;  from  vour 
Cheniers,  Gorsases,  Camilles,  down  to  your  Marat,  down  now  to 
your  incipient  Hebert  of  the  Pere  Duchesne j  these  blow,  wrtk 
fierce  weight  of  argument  or  quick  light  banter,  for  the  Rights  of 
Man  :  Durosoys,  Royous,  Peltiers,  Sulleaus,  equally  with^mixed 
tactics,  inclusive,  singular  to  say,  of  much  profane  Parody,t  arc 
blowing  for  Altar  and  Throne.  As  for  Marat  the  People's- Friend, 
his  voice  is  as  that  of  the  bullfrog,  or  bittern  by  the  sohtary  pools  ; 
he,  unseen  of  men,  croaks  harsh  thunder,  and  that  alone  con- 
tinually,—of  indignation,  suspicion,  incurable  sorrow.  The  Peo-; 
pie  are  sinking  towards  luin,  near  starvation  itself :  *  My  dear 
'  friends,'  cries  he,  'your  indigence  is  not  the  fruit  of  vices  nor  of 
'idleness,  you  have  a  right  to  life,  as  good  as  Louis  XVI.,  or  the 

*  happiest  of  the  century.  What  man  can  say  he  has  a  right  to 
'  dine,  when  you  have  no  bread  ?  'J  The  People  sinking  on  the 
one  hand  :  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  but  wretched  Sieur  Motiers, 
treasonous  Riquetti  Mirabeaus  ;  traitors,  or  else  shadows,  and 
simulacra  of  Quacks,  to  be  seen  in  high  places,  look  where  you 
will !  Men  that  go  mincing,  grimacing,  with  plausible  speech  and^ 
brushed  raiment ;  hollow  within  :  Quacks  Political  ;  Quacks 
scientific.  Academical ;  all  with  a  felTow-feeling  for  eacli^other, 
and  kind  of  Quack  public- spirit  !  Not  great  Lavoisier  himse..,  or 
any  of  the  Forty  can  escape  this  rough  tongue  ;  which  wants  not 
fanatic  sincerity,  nor,  strangest  of  all,  a  certain  rough  caustic  sense. 
And  then  the  '  three  thousand  gaming-houses '  that  are  in  Paris  ; 
cesspools  for  the  scoundrelism  of  the  world  ;  sinks  of  iniquity  and 
debauchery, — whereas  without  good  morals  Liberty  is  impossible  ! 
There,  in  these  Dens  of  Satan,  which  one  knows,  and  perseveringly 
denounces,  do  Sieur  Motier's  mouchards  consort  and  colleague  ; 
battening  vampyre-like  on  a  People  next-door  to  starvation.  '  O 
Peuple  ! '  cries  he  oftimes,  with  heart-rending  accent.  Treason, 
delusion,  vampyrism,  scoundrelism,  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  !  The 
soul  of  Marat  is  sick  with  the  sight  :  but  what  remedy  ?  To  erect 
'  Eight  Hundred  gibbets,'  in  convenient  rows,  and  proceed  to 

.  hoisting  ;  '  Riquetti  on  the  first  of  them  ! '  Such  is  the  brief  recipe 
of  Marat,  Friend  of  the  People. 

So  blow  and  bluster  the  Hundred  and  thirty-three  :  nor,  as 
would  seem,  are  these  sufficient ;  for  there  are  benighted  nooks  in 
France,  to  which  Newspapers  do  not  reach  ;  a,nd  every  where  is 

*  such  an  appetite  for  news  as  was  never  seen  in  any  country.' 
Let  an  expeditious  Dampmartin,  on  furlough,  set  out  to  return 
home  from  Paris,§  he  cannot  get  along  for  'peasants  stopping hiiu 
'  on  the  highway  ;  overwhelming  him  with  questions  : '  the  Mailrc 
de  Paste  will  not  send  out  the  horses  till  you  have  well  nigh 
quarrelled  with  him,  but  asks  always.  What  ncws.^  At  Autun,  Mn 
'spite  of  the  rigorous  frost 'for  it  is  now  January,  1 791,  nothing 

*  Mercier,  iii.  163.  f  See  Hist.  Pari.  vii.  51. 

X  Ami  du  Peuplt,  No.  306.    S«3e  other  Excerpts  in  Hist.  Petri,  viii.  I39« 
349,  428-433 ;  ix.  85-93,  &c. 
§  Dampmartin,  i.  184. 


THE  WAKEFUL. 


^ill  serve  but  you  must  gather  your  wayworn  limbs,  and  thouglits, 
and  '  speak  to  the  muUitudes  from  a  window  opening  mto  the 
market-place.'  It  is  the  shortest  method  :  This,  good  Christian 
people,  is  Eerily  what  an  August  Assembly  seemed  to  me  to  be 
doing  ;  this  and  no  other  is  the  news  ; 

•  Now  my  weary  lips  I  close ; 
Leave  me,  leave  me  lo  repose.' 

The  good  Dampmartin  !— But,  on  the  whole,  are  not  Nations  as^ 
lonishingly  true  to  their  National  character  ;  which  indeed  runs  m 
:he  blood?    Nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  Juhus  Caesar,  with  his 
quick  sure  eye,  took  note  how  the  Gauls  waylaid  men.    *  It  is  a 
habit  of  theirs,'  says  he,  'to  stop  travellers,  were  it  even  by 
constraint,  and  inquire  whatsoever  each  of  them  may  have  heard 
'  or  known  about  any  sort  of  matter  :  in  their  towns,  the  common 
•  people  beset  the  passing  trader  ;  demanding  to  hear  from  what 
'regions  he  came,  what  things  he  got  acquainted  with  there.  Ex- 
;  '  cited  by  which  rumours  and  hearsays  they  will  decide  about  the 
■  'weightiest  matters;  and  necessarily  repent  next  m.oment  that  they 
'  did  it,  on  such  guidance  of  uncertain  reports,  and  many  a  traveller 
•answering  with  mere  fictions  to  please  them,  and  get  off.'*  Nme- 
teen  hundred  years  ;  and  good  Dampmartin,  wayworn,  in  winter 
frost,  prabably  with  scant  light  of  stars  and  fish-oil,  still  perorates 
from  the  Inn-window  !    This  People  is  no  longer  called  Gaulish  ; 
and  it  has  wholly  become  braccatus,  has  got  breeches,  and  suffered 
change  enough  :  certain  fierce  German  Fi^anken  came  storming 
over  ;  and,  so  to  speak,  vaulted  on  the  back  of  it ;  and  always 
after,  in  their  grim  tenacious  way,  have  ridden  it  bridled  ;  for 
German  is,  by  his  very  name,  Gtterre-\s\7m,  or  man  that  wars  and 
9!;ars.    And  so  the  People,  as  we  say,  is  now  called  French  or 
;  Frankish  :  nevertheless,  does  not  the  old  Gaulish  and  Gaehc  Celt- 
.  hood,  with  its  vehemence,  effervescent  promptitude,  and  what  good 
and  ill  it  had,  still  vindicate  itself  httle  adulterated  ?—  _ 

For  the  rest,  that  in  such  prurient  confusion,  Clubbism  thrives 
;and  spreads,  need  not  be  said.  Already  the  Mother  of  Patriotism, 
I  sitting  in  the  Jacobins,  shines  supreme  over  all  ;  and  has  paled 
J;  the  poor  lunar  light  of  that  Monarchic  Club  near  to  final  extinc- 
::tion.  She,  we  say,  shines  supreme,  girt  with  sun-light,  not  yet 
with  infernal  lightning  ;  reverenced,  not  without  fear,  by  Munici- 
:  pal  Authorities  ;  counting  her  Barnaves,  Lameths,  Petions,  of  a 
I  National  Assembly  ;  most  gladly  of  all,  her  Robespierre.  Corde- 
jliers,  again,  your  Hebert,  Vincent,  Bibliopolist  Momoro,  groan 
j  audibly  that  a  tyrannous  Mayor  and  Sieur  Motier  harrow  them 
\  with  the  sharp  iribula  of  Law,  intent  apparently  to  suppress  them 
i  by  tribulation.  How  the  Jacobin  Mother-Society,  as  hinted  for- 
\  merly,  sheds  forth  Cordeliers  on  this  hand,  and  then  Feuillans  on 
jthat;  the  Cordeliers  'an  ehxir  or  double-distillation  of  Jacobin 
1  'Patriotism  ;'  the  other  a  wide-spread  weak  dilution  thereof;  how 
i;  she  will  re-absorb  the  former  into  her  Mother-bosom,  and  storni- 
;  fully  dissipate  the  latter  into'  Nonentity  :  how  she  breeds  and 
*  De  Bcllo  Galileo,  iv.  5- 


So 


THE  TUILERIES. 


brings  forth  Three  Hundred  Daughter- Societies  ;  her  rearing  o 
them,  her  correspondence,  her  endeavourings  and  continue' 
travail  :  how,  under  an  old  figure,  Jacobinism  shoots  forth  organic 
filaments  to  the  utmost  corners  of  confused  dissolved  France 
organising  it  anew  :— this  properly  is  the  grand  fact  of  th< 
Time. 

To  passionate  Constitutionalism,  still  more  to  Royalism,  whicl 
see  all  their  own  Clubs  fail  and  die,  Clubbism  will  naturally  gro\\' 
to  seem  the  root  of  all -evil.  Nevertheless  Clubbism  is  not  death 
but  rather  new  organisation,  and  life  out  of  death:  destructive,  indeed 
of  the  remnants  of  the  Old  ;  but  to  the  New  important,  indispens- 
able. That  man  can  co-operate  and  hold  communion  with  manj 
herein  lies  his  miraculous  strength.  In  hut  or  hamlet.  Patriotism 
mourns  not  now  like  voice  in  the  desert :  it  can  walk  to  the  nearest 
Town  ;  and  there,  in  the  Daughter-Society,  make  its  ejaculation 
into  an  articulate  oration,  into  an  action,  guided  forward  by  the 
Mother  of  Patriotism  herself.  All  Clubs  of  ConstitutionaHsts, 
and  such  like,  fail,  one  after  another,  as  shallow  fountains  :  Jaco- 
binism alone  has  gone  down  to  the  deep  subterranean  lake  of 
waters  ;  and  may,  unless  filled  in,  flow  there,  copious,  continual] 
like  an  Artesian  well.  Till  the  Great  Deep  have  drained  itseli 
up  :  and  all  be  flooded  and  submerged,  and  Noah's  Deluge  out-* 
deluged  ! 

On  the  other  hand,  Claude  Fauchet,  preparing  mankind  for  a 
Golden  Age  now  apparently  just  at  hand,  has  opened  his  Cercle 
Social^  with  clerks,  corresponding  boards,  and  so  forth  ;  in  the 
precincts  of  the  Palais  Royal.  It  is  Te-Den7n  Fauchet  ;  the  samd 
who  preached  on  Franklin's  Death,  in  that  huge  Medicean  rotundai 
of  the  Halle  aux  bleds.  He  here,  t^is  winter,  by  Printing-press 
and  melodious  Colloquy,  spreads  bruit  of  himself  to  the  utmost 
City-barriers.  *  Ten  thousand  persons '  of  respectability  attend 
there ;  and  listen  to  this  '  Procureur-Gencral  de  la  Verite,  Attorney- 
'  General  of  Truth,'  so  has  he  dubbed  himself ;  to  his  sage  Con- 
dorcet,  or  other  eloquent  coadjutor.  Eloquent  Attorney-tieneral 
He  blows  out  from  him,  better  or  Worse,  what  crude  or  ripe  thing 
he  holds:  not  without  result  to  himself  ;  for  it  leads  to  a  Bishoprick, 
though  only  a  Constitutional  one.  Fauchet  approves  himself  a! 
glib-tongued,  strong-lunged,  .  whole-hearted  human  individual : 
much  flowi'ng  matter  there  is,  and  really  of  the  better  sort,  about 
Right,  Nature,  P>encvolence,  Progress  ;  v/hich  flowing  matter, 
whether  'it  is  pantheistic,'  or  is  pot-theistic,  only  the  greener  mind, 
in  these  days,  need  read.  Busy  Brissot  was  long  ago  of  purpose 
to  estal)lish  precisely  some  such  regenerative  Social  Circle:  nay 
he  had  tried  it,  in  '  Newman-street  Oxford-street,'  of  the  Fo^ 
Babylon;  and  failed, — as  some  say,  surreptitiously  pocketing  the 
cash.  Fauchet,  not  Brissot,  was  fated  to  be  the  happy  man ;! 
whereat,  however,  generous  Brissot  will  with  sincere  heart  sing 
a  timber-toned  Ni/nc  I)o7?mie*  But  'ten  thousand  persons  of 
^respectability  :' what  a  bwlk  have  many  things  in  proportion  to 

*  Sec  Brissot,  Patnote-Fraitqais  Newspaper ;  Fauchet,  Douche  de-J'W,  &C 
Icxcerpted  in  Hist,  Purl,  viii.,  ix.  et  seqq.)» 


SWORD  IN  HAND. 


8i 


their  magnitude  !  This  Cercle  Social,  for  which  Brissot  chants  in 
sincere  timber-tones  such  Nunc  Domine,  what  is  it  ?  Unfortun- 
ately wind  and  shadow.  The  main  reahty  one  finds  m  it  now  is 
perhaps  this  :  that  an  ^Attorney-General  of  Truth'  did  once  take 
shape  of  a  body,  as  Son  of  Adam,  on  our  Earth,  though  but  for 
months  or  moments  ;  and  ten  thousand  persons  of  respectability 
attended,  ere  vet  Chaos  and  Nox  had  reabsorbed  him. 

Hundred  and  thirty-three  Paris  Journals  ;  regenerative  Social 
Circle  ;  oratory,  in  Mother  and  Daughter  Societies,  from  the  bal- 
conies of  Inns,  by  chimney-nook,  at  dinner-table,— polemical, 
ending  many  times  in  duel  !  Add  ever,  like  a  constant  growling 
accompaniment  of  bass  Discord  :  scarcity  of  work,  scarcity  ot 
food.  The  winter  is  hard  and  cold  ;  ragged  Bakers'-queues,  liRe 
a  black  tattered  flag-of-distress,  wave  out  ever  and  anon.  It  is 
the  third  of  our  Hunger-years  this  new  year  of  a  glorious  Revolu- 
tion. The  rich  man  when  invited  to  dinner,  in  such  distress- 
seasons,  feels  bound  in  pohteness  to  carry  his  own  bread  m  his 
pocket :  how  the  poor  dine  ?  And  your  glorious  Revolution  has 
done  it,  cries  one.  And  our  glorious  Revolution  is  subtilety,  by 
black  traitors  worthy  of  the  Lamp-iron, /^r-z/^r/^^  to  do  it,  cries 
another  1  Who  will  paint  the  huge  whirlpool  wherein  France,  all 
shivered  into  wild  incoherence,  whirls  ?  The  jarring  that  went  on 
under  every  French  roof,  in  every  French  heart  ;  the  diseased 
things  that  were  spoken,  done,  the  sum-total  whereof  is  the  French 
Revolution,  tongue  of  man  cannot  tell.  Nor  the  laws  of  action 
that  work  unseen  in  the  depths  of  that  huge  blind  Incoherence  ! 
With  amazement,  not  with  measurement,  men  look  on  the 
Immeasureable  ;  not  knowing  its  laws  ;  seei7tg,  with  all  different 
degrees  of  knowledge,  what  new  phases,  and  results  of  event,  its 
laws  bring  forth.  France  is  as  a  monstrous  Galvanic  Mass, 
wherein  all  sorts  of  far  stranger  than  chemical  galvanic  or  electric 
forces  and  substances  are  at  work  ;  electrifying  one  another,  posi- 
tive and  negative  ;  filling  with  electricity  your  Ley  den-jar  s,-- 
Twenty-five  millions  in  number  1  As  the  jars  get  full,  there  will, 
from  time  to  time,  be,  on  slight  hint,  an  explosion. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SWORD  IN  HAND. 

!i  On  such  wonderful  basis,  however,  has  Law,  Royalty,  Authority, 
[  and  whatever  yet  exists  of  visible  Order,  to  maintain  itself,  while 
I  it  can.  Here,  as  in  that  Commixture  of  the  Four  Elements  did 
:  the  Anarch  Old,  has  an  august  Assembly  Spread  its  pavilion  ;  cur- 
Uined  by  the  dark  infihite  of  discords  ;  founded  on  the  wavering 
I  l^ttomless  of  the  Abyss  ;  and  keeps  continual  hubbub.  Time 


82  THE  TUILERIES.  % 

around  it,  and  Eternity,  and  the  Inane  ;  and  it  does  what  it  can^  : 
what  is  given  it  to  do. 

Glancing  relunctantly  in,  once  more,  we  discern  httle  that  is 
edifying  :  a  Constitutional  Theory  of  Defective  Verbs  struggling  i 
forward,  with  perseverance,  amid  endless  interruptions  :  Mirabeau,  . 
from  his  tribune,  with  the  weight  of  his  name  and  genius,  awing 
down  much  JaCobin  violence  ;  which  in  return  vents  itself  the 
louder  over  in  its  Jacobins  Hall,  and  even  reads  him  sharp  lectures  : 
there.*    This  man's  path  is  mysterious,  questionable  ;  difficult,  ' 
and  he  walks  without  companion  in  it.    Pure  Patriotism  does  not 
now  count  him  among  her  chosen  ;  pure  Royalism  abhors  him  :  ,' 
yet  his  weight  with  the  world  is  overwhelming.    Let  him  travel  ■ 
on,  companionless,  unwavering,  whither  he  is  bound,  — while  it  is 
yet  day  with  him,  and  the  night  has  not  come. 

But  the  chosen  band  of  pure  Patriot  brothers  is  small ;  counting  ' 
only  some  Thirty,  seated  now  on  the  extreme  tip  of  the  Left, 
separate  from  the  world.    A  virtuous  Petion  ;  an  incorruptible 
Robespierre,  most  consistent,  incorruptible  of  thin  acrid  men  :  ; 
Triumvirs  Barnave,  Duport,  Lameth,  great  in  speech,  thought, 
action,  each  according  to  his  kind  ;  a  lean  old  Goupil  de  Prefeln 
on  these  and  what  will  follow  them  has  pure  Patriotism  to 
depend.  ' 

There  too,  conspicuous  among  the  Thirty,  if  seldom  audible,  i 
Phihppe  d'Orleans  may  be  seen  sitting  :  in  dim  fuliginous  be-  ' 
wilderment  ;  having,  one  might  say,  arrived  at  Chaos  !    Gleams  ' 
there  are,  at  once  of  a  Lieutenancy  and  Regency  ;  debates  in  the 
Assembly  itself,  of  succession  to  the  Throne  ^  in  case  the  present 
•  Branch  should  fail  ;  ^  and  Philippe,  they  say,  walked  anxiously, 
in  silence,  through  the  corridors,  till  such  high  argument  were 
done  :  but  it  came  all  to  nothing  ;  Mirabeau,  glaring  into  the 
man,  and  through  him,  had  to  ejaculate  in  strong  untranslatable 
language  :   Ce  j —  f- —  ne  vaut  pas  la  peine  qn^on  se  don?te  pour 
lui.    It  came  all  to  nothing  ;  and  in  the  meanwhile  Philippe's 
money,  they  say,  is  gone  !    Could  he  refuse  a  little  cash  to  the 
gifted  Patriot,  in  want  only  of  that ;  he  himself  in  want  of  all  bi/t 
that?    Not  a  pamphlet  can  be  printed  without  cash  ;  or  indeed 
written,  without  food  purchasable  by  cash.    Without  cash  your 
hopcfullest  Projector  cannot  stir  from  the  spot  :  individual  patriotic 
or  other  Projects  require  cash  :  how  much  more  do  wide-spread 
Intrigues,  which  live  and  exist  by  cash  ;  lying  widespread,  with 
dragon-appetite  for  cash  ;  fit  to  swallow  Princedoms  !    And  so 
Prince  Philippe,  amid  his  Sillerys,  Lacloses,  and  confused  Sons 
Night,  has  rolled  along:  the  centre  of  the  strangest  cloudy  | 
coil  ;  out  of  which  has  *'isibly  come,  as  we  often  say,  an  Epic  i 
Preternatural  Machinery  of  SUSPICION  ;  and  within  which  there 
lias  dwelt  and  worked,  —what  specialties  of  treason,  stratagem, , 
aimed  or  aimless  endeavour  towards  mischief,  no  party  living  (if  it  | 
be  not  the  Presiding  (ienius  of  it,  Prince  of  the  Power  of  the  Air)  I 
has  now  any  chance  to  know.  Camille\s  conjecture  is  the  likeliest;! 
nnor  Philippe  did  mount  up,  a  little  way,  in  treasonable i 
Carnille'sjournal  (in  Hist,  Pari.  ix.  366-85).  ] 

i 


SWOIW  IN  HAND. 


83 


loeculation,  as  he  mounted  formerly  in  one  of  the  eariiest  Bal- 
00ns  ;  but,  frightened  at  the  new  position  he  was  getting  into,  had 
,oon  turned  the  cock  again,  and  come  down.  More  fool  than  he 
•ose  !  To  create  Preternatural  Suspicion,  this  was  his  function  m 
he  Revolutionary  Epos.  But  now  if  he  have  lost  his  cornucopia 
)f  ready-money,  what  else  had  he  to  lose?  In  thick  darkness, 
n-wd  and  outward,  he  must  welter  and  flounder  on,  m  that 
jiteous  death-element,  the  hapless  man.  Once,  or  even  twice,  we 
^hall  still  behold  him  emerged  ;  strugghng  out  of  the  thick  death- 
element  :  in  vain.  For  one  moment,  it  is  the  last  moment,  he 
starts  aloft,  or  is  flung  aloft,  even  'into  clearness  and  a  kind  of 
memorability,— to  sink  then  for  evermore  ! 

The  CoU  Droit  persists  no  less  ;  nay  with  more  animation  than 
ever,  though  hope  has  now  well  nigh  fled.  Tough  Abbe  Maury, 
when  the  obscure  country  Royahst  grasps  his  hand  with  transport 
of  thanks,  answers,  rolling  his  indomitable  brazen  head  :  "  Helas, 
Monsieur,  all  that  I  do  here  is  as  good  as  simply  nothingP 
Gallant  Faussigny,  visible  this  one  time  in  History,  advances 
frantic,  into  the  middle  of  the  Hall,  exclaiming  :  "  There  is  but 
one  way  of  deahng  with  it,  and  that  is  to  fall  sword  in  hand  on 
those  gentry  there,  sabre  a  la  main  'sur  ces  gaillards  la,''^  franticly 
indicating  our  chosen  Thirty  on  the  extreme  tip  of  the  Left ! 
Whereupon  is  clangour  and  clamour,  debate,  repentance,— 
evaporation.  Things  ripen  towards  downright  incompatibihty, 
and  what  is  called  '  scission  : '  that  fierce  theoretic  onslaught  of 
Faussigny's  was  in  August,  1790  ';  next  August  will  not  have  come, 
till  a  famed  I  vvo  Hundred  and  Ninety-two,  the  chosen  of  Royal- 
ism,  make  solemn  final  '  scission'  from  an  Assembly  given  up  to 
faction  ;  and  depart,  shaking  the  dust  off  their  feet. 

Connected  with  this  matter  of  sword  in  hand,  there  is  yet 
another  thing  to  be  noted.  Of  duels  we  have  sometimes  spoken  : 
how,  in  all  parts  of  France,  innumerable  duels  were  fought ;  and 
argumentative  men  and  messmates,  flinging  down  the  wme-cup 
and  weapons  of  reason  and  repartee,  met  in  the  measured  field  ; 
to  part  bleeding  ;  or  perhaps  not  to  part,  but  to  fall  mutually 

-  skewered  through  with  iron,  their  wrath  and  life  alike  ending, — 
and  die  as  fools  die.  Long  has  this  lasted,  and  still  lasts.  But 
now  it  would  seem  as  if  in  an  august  Assembly  itself,  traitorous 
Royalism,  in  its  despair,  had  taken  to  a  new  course  :  that  of  cut- 
ting off    Patriotism   by  systematic    duel  1  Bully-swordsmen, 

•  '  Spadassins '  of  that  party,  go  swaggering  ;  or  indeed  they  can  be 

.  had  for  a  trifle  of  money.  'Twelve  Spadassins'  were  seen,  by  the 
yellow  eye  of  Journalism,  *  arriving  recently  out  of  Switzerland  ; ' 
also  'a  considerable  number  of  Assassins,  no7nb7'e  considerable 

■  ^  d' assassins,  exercising  in  fencing-schools  and  at  pistol-targets. 

i  Any  Patriot  Deputy  of  mark  can  be  called  out  ;  let  him  escape 
one  time,  or  ten  times,  a  time  there  necessarily  is  when  he  must 
fall,  and  France  mourn.    How  many  cartels  has  Mirabeau  had; 

,  especially  ivhile  he  was  the  People's  champion!    Cartels  by  the 

j  *  Moniteit}\  Seance  du  21  AoCit,  1790. 


84 


THE  TUILERIES. 


hundred  :  which  he,  since  the  Constitution  must  be  made  first 
and  his  time  is  precious,  answers  now  always  with  a  kind  of 
stereotype  formula  :  "  Monsieur,  you  are  put  upon  my  List ;  but  I 
warn  you  that  it  is  long,  and  I  grant  no  preferences." 

Then,  in  Autumn,  had  we  not  the  Duel  of  Cazales  and  Bar- 
nave  ;  the  two  chief  masters  of  tongue-shot  meeting  now  to  ex= 
change  pistol-shot?  For  Cazales,  chief  of  the  Royalists,  whom 
we  call  Blacks  or  Noirs^  said,  in  a  moment  of  passion,  "  the 
Patriots  were  sheer  Brigands,"  nay  in  so  speaking,  he  darted,  or 
seemed  to  dart,  a  fire-glance  specially  at  Barnave  ;  who  thereupon 
could  not  but  reply  by  fire-glances —by  adjournment  to  the  Bois- 
de-Boulogne.  Barnave's  second  shot  took  effect  :  on  Cazales's 
hat.  The  '  front  nook'  of  a  triangular  Felt,  such  as  mortals  th^^n 
wore,  deadened  the  ball  ;  and  saved  that  fine  brow  from  more 
than  temporary  injury.  But  how  easily  might  the  lot  have  fallen 
the  other  way,  and  Barnave's  hat  not  been  so  good  !  Patriotism 
raises  its  loud  denunciation  of  Duelhng  in  general  ;  petitions 
an  august  Assembly  to  stop  such  Feudal  barbarism  by  law. 
Barbarism  and  solecism  :  for  will  it  convince  or  convict  any  man 
to  blow  half  an  ounce  of  lead  through  the  head  of  him  ?  Surely 
not  —Barnave  was  received  at  the  Jacobins  with  embraces,  yet 
with  rebukes. 


Mindful  of  which,  and  also  that  his  reputation  in  America  was 
that  of  headlong  foolhardiness  rather,  and  want  of  brain  not  of 
heart,  Charles  Lameth  does,  on  the  eleventh  day  of  November, 
with  httle  emotion,  decline  attending  some  hot  young  Gentlemen 
from  Artois,  come  expressly  to  challenge  him  :  nay  indeed  he  first 
coldly  engages  to  attend  ;  then  coldly  permits  two  Friends  to 
attend  instead  of  him,  and  shame  the  young  Gentleman  out  of  it, 
which  they  successfully  do.  A  cold  procedure  ;  satisfactory  to  the 
two  Friends,  to  Lameth  and  the  hot  young  Gentleman  ;  whereby, 
one  might  have  fancied,  the  whole  matter  was  cooled  down. 

N ot  so,  however  :  Lameth,  proceeding  to  his  senatorial  duties, 
in  the  decline  of  the  day,  is  met  in  those  Assembly  corridors  by 
nothing  but  Royalist  brocards j  sniffs,  huffs,  and  open  insults. 
Human  patience  has  its  limits  :  Monsieur,"  said  Lameth, 
breaking  silence  to  one  Lautrec,  a  man  with  hunchback,  or 
natural  deformity,  but  sharp  of  tongue,  and  a  Black  of  the 
deepest  tint,  "  Monsieur,  if  you  were  a  man  to  be  fought  with  !" 

1  am  one,"  cries  the  young  Duke  de  Castries.  F^ast  as  fire- 
fiash  Lameth  replies,  Tojit  d  Vhcurc,  On  the  instant,  then!" 
And  so,  as  the  shades  of  dusk  thicken  in  that  Bois-de-Boulogne, 
we  behold  two  men  with  lion-look,  with  alert  attitude,  side  fore- 
most, right  foot  advanced  ;  flourishing  and  thrusting,  stoccado 
and  passado,  in  tierce  and  quart  ;  intent  to  skewer  one  another. 
See,  with  most  skewering  purpose,  headlong  Lameth,  with  his 
whole  weight,  makes  a  furious  lunge  ;  but  deft  Castries  whisks 
aside  :  Lameth  skewers  only  the  air,~and  slits  deep  and  far,  on 
Castries'  sword's-point,  his  own  extended*  left  arm  !  Whereupon 
with  bleeding,  pallor,  surgcon's-lint,  and  formalities,  the  Duel  iS 
considered  satisfactorily  done.  . 


SWORD  IN  HAND. 


85 


But  will  there  be  no  end,  then  ?  Beloved  Lameth  lies  deep-slit, 
not  out  of  danger.  Black  traitorous  Aristocrats  kill  the  People's 
defenders,  cut  up  not  with  arguments,  but  with  rapier-slits.  And 
the  Twelve  Spadassins  out  of  Switzerland,  and  the  considerable 
number  of  Assassins  exercising  at  the  pistol-target  ?  So  meditates 
and  ejaculates  hurt  Patriotism,  with  ever-deepening  ever-widening 
fervour,  for  the  space  of  six  and  thirty  hours. 

The  thirty-six  hours  past,  on  Saturday  the  13th,  one  beholds  a 
new  spectacle  :  The  Rue  de  Varennes,  and  neighbouring  Boule- 
vard des  Invalides,  covered  with  a  mixed  flowing  multitude  :  the 
Castries  Hotel  gone  distracted,  devil-ridden,  belching  from  ever\ 
window,  '  beds  with  clothes  and  curtains,'  plate  of  silver  and  gold 
with  filigree,  mirrors,  pictures,  images,  commodes,  chiffoniers,  and 
endless  crockery  and  jingle  :  amid  steady  popular  cheers,  abso- 
lutely without  theft  ;  for  there  goes  a  cry,  "  He  shall  be  hanged 
that  steals  a  nail!"  It  I's,  2.' Plebiscittim^  ox  \xiioxm2X  iconoclastic 
Decree  of  the  Common  People,  in  the  course  of  being  executed  ! 
— The  Municipality  sit  tremulous  ;  deliberating  whether  they  will 
hang  out  the  Di^apeau  Rotige  and  Martial  Law  :  National 
Assembly,  part  in  loud  wail,  part  in  hardly  suppressed  applause  : 
Abbe  Maury  unable  to  decide  whether  the  iconoclastic  Plebs 
amount  to  forty  thousand  or  to  two  hundred  thousand. 

Deputations,  swift  messengers,  for  it  is  at  a  distance  over  the 
River,  come  and  go.  Lafayette  and  National  Guardes,  though 
without  Drapeaii  Roiige^  get  under  way  ;  apparently  in  no  hot 
haste.  Nay,  arrived  on  the  scene,  Lafayette  salutes  with  doffed 
hat,  before  .ordering  to  fix  bayonets.  What  avails  it?  The 
Plebeian  '  Court  of  Cassation^  as.  Camille  might  punningly  name 
it,  has  done  its  work  ;  steps  forth,  with  unbuttoned  vest,  with 
pockets  turned  inside  out  :  sack,  and  just  ravage,  not  plunder  ! 
With  inexhaustible  patience,  the  Hero  of  two  Worlds  remon- 
strates ;  persuasively,  with  a  kind  of  sweet  constraint,  though 
also  with  fixed  bayonets,  dissipates,  hushes  down  :  on  the  morrow 
it  is  once  more  all  as  usual. 

Considering  which  things,  however,  Duke  Castries  may  justly 
'write  to  the  President,'  justly  transport  himself  across  the 
Marches  ;  to  raise  a  corps,  or  do  what  else  is  in  him.  Royalism 
totally  abandons  that  Bobadilian  method  of  contest,  and  the 
Twelve  Spadassins  return  to  Switzerland, — or  even  to  Dreamland 
through  the  Horn-gate,  whichsoever  their  true  home  is.  Nay 
Editor  Prudhomme  is  authorised  to  publish  a  curious  thing  :  '  We 
*are  authorised  to  publish,'  says  he,  dull-blustering  Publisher, 
'that  M.  Boyer,  champion  of  good  Patriots,  is  at  the  head  of 

*  Fifty  Spadassinicides  or  ^wViy- killers.  His  address  is  :  Passage  du 

*  Bois-de-Boulonge,  Faubourg  St.  Denis. '"^  One  of  the  strangest 
Institutes,  this  of  Champion  Boyer  and  the  Bully-killers  !  Whose 
services,  however,  are  not  wanted  ;  Royalism  having  abandoned 
the  rapier-method  as  plainly  impracticable. 


*  Rdvolutions  de  Paris  {in  Hist.  Pari.  viii.  440), 


86  THE  TUILERIES, 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TO  FLY  OR  NOT  TO  FLY. 

The  truth  is  Royalism  sees  itself  verging  towards  sad  extremities ; 
nearer  and  nearer  daily.  From  over  the  Rhine.it  comes  asserted 
that  the  King  in  his  Tuileries  i  :  not  free  :  this  the  poor  King  may 
contradict,  with  the  oflicial  mouth,  but  in  his  heart  feels  often  to 
be  undeniable.  Civil  Constitution  of  the  Clergy  ;  Decree  of  eject- 
ment against  Dissidents  from  it  :  not  even  to  this  latter,  though 
almost  his  conscience  rebels,  can  he  say  '  Nay  ;  but,  after  two 
months'  hesitating,  signs  this  also.  It  was  on  January  2ist,'  of 
this  1790,  that  he  signed  it ;  to  the  sorrow  of  his  poor  heart  yet, 
on  anot^  Twenty-hrst  of  January  !  Whereby  come  Dissident 
ejected  rrier  ts  ;  unr  -nquerable  Martyrs  according  to  some,  in- 
curable chicaning  Traitors  according  to  others.  And  so  there  has 
arrived  what  we  once  foreshadowed  :  with  Religion,  or  with  the 
Cant  and  Echo  of  Religion,  all  France  is  rent  asunder  in  a  new 
rupture  of  continuity  ;  complicating,  embittering  all  the  older  ; — • 
to  be  cured  only,  by  stern  surgery,  in  '  l  Vendee  ! 

U::^iq:p';  Royalty,  unhappy  Majesty,  Hereditary  (Represen- 
tative), IZdp7'esc7itant  H c? editairc,  or  however  they  can  name  him; 
of  whom  much  is  expected,  to  whom  little  is  given  !  Blue  National^ 
Guards  encircle  that  Tuileries  ;  a  Lafayette,  thin  constitutional 
Pedant ;  clear,  thin,  inflexible,  as  water,  turned  to  thin  ice  ;  whom 
no  Queen's  heart  can  love.  National  Assembly,  its  pavilion  spread 
where  we  know,  sits  near  by,  keeping  continual  hubbub.  From 
without  nothing  but  Nanci  Revolts,  sack  of  Castries  Hotels,  riots 
and  seditions  ;  riots,  N:  rth  and  South,  at  Aix,  at  Douai,  at  Befort, 
Usez,  Perpignan,  at  Nismes,  and  that  incurable  Avignon  of  the 
Pope's  :  a  continual  crackling  and  sputtering  of  riots  from  the 
whole  face  of  France  ;— testifying  how  electric  it  grows.  Add 
only  the  hard  winter,  the  famished  strikes  of  operatives  ;  that  con- 
tinual running-bass  of  Scarcity,  ground-tone  and  basis  of  all  other 
Discords  ! 

The  plan  of  Royalty,  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  to  have  any  hxed 
plan,  is  still,  as  ever,  that  of  Hying  towards  the  frontiers.  In  very 
truth,  the  only  plan  of  the  smallest  promise  for  it !  Fly  to  Bouille; 
bristle  yourself  round  with  cannon,  served  by  your  *  forty-thousand 
'  undebauched  (Germans  :'  summon  the  National  Assembly  to 
follow  you,  summon  what  of  it  is  Royalist,  Constitutional,  gainable 
by  money  ;  dissolve  the  rest,  by  grapeshot  if  need  be.  Let 
Jacobinism  and  Revolt,  with  one  wild  wail,  fly  into  Infinite  Space  ; 
driven  by  grapeshot.  Thunder  over  France  with  the  cannon's 
mouth  ;  commanding,  not  entreating,  that  this  riot  cease.  And 
then  to  rule  afterwards  with  utmost  possible  Constitutionahty  : 
doing  justice,  ]o\ing  mercy  ;  bcmg  Shepherd  of  this  indigent  People, 


TO  FLY  OR  NOT  TO  FLY. 


87 


not  Shearer  merely,  and  Shepherd's-similitude  !  All  this,  if  ye 
dare.  If  ye  dare  not,  then  in  Heaven^s  name  go  to  sleep  :  other 
handsome  alternative  seems  none. 

Nay,  it  were  perhaps  possible  ;  with  a  man  to  do  it.  For  if  such 
inexpressible  whirlpool  of  Babylonish  confusions  (which  our  Era 
is)  cannot  be  stilled  by  man,  but  only  by  Time  and  men,  a  man 
may  moderate  its  paroxysyms,  may  balance  and  sway,  and  keep 
himself  unswallowed  on  the  top  of  it, — as  several  men  and  Kings 
in  these  days  do.  Much  is  possible  for  a  man  ;  men  will  obey  a 
man  that  kens  and  cans^  and  name  him  reverently  their  Ken-ning 
or  King.  Did  not  Charlemagne  rule  ?  Consider  too  whether  he 
had  smooth  times  of  it  ;  hanging  '  thirty-thousand  Saxons  over 
^the  Weser-Bridge,'  at  one  dread  swoop  !  So  likewise,  who  knows 
but,  in  this  same  distracted  fanatic  France,  the  right  man  may 
verily  exist  1  An  olive-complexioned  taciturn  man  ;  for  the  present. 
Lieutenant  in  the  Artillery-service,  who  once  sat  studying  Mathe- 
matics at  Brienne  The  same  who  walked  in  the  morning  to 
correct  proof-sheets  at  Dole,  and  enjoyed  a  frugal  breakfast  with 
M.  Joly  Such  a  one  is  gone,  whither  also  famed  General  Paoli 
his  friend  is  gone,  in  these  very  days,  to  see  old  scenes  in  native 
Corsica,  and  what  Democratic  good  can  be  done  there. 

Royalty  never  executes  the  evasion-plan,  yet  never  abandons  it ; 
living  in  variable  hope  ;  undecisive,  till  fortune  shall  decide.  In 
utmost  secresy,  a  brisk  Correspondence  goes  on  with  Bouille  ; 
there  is  also  a  plot,  which  emerges  more  than  once,  for  carrying 
the  King  to  Rouen  :^  plot  after  plot,  emerging  and  submerging, 
like  '  igites  fatui  in  foul  weather,  which  lead  no  whither.  About 
'ten  o'clock  at  night,' the  Hereditary  Representative,  m  par  tie 
quarreey  with  the  Queen,  with  Brother  Monsieur,  and  Madame, 
sits  playing  '  wisk^  or  whist.  Usher  Campan  enters  mysteriously, 
with  a  message  he  only  half  comprehends  :  How  a  certain  Compte 
d'Inisdal  waits  anxious  in  the  outer  antechamber  ;  National  Colonel, 
Captain  of  the  watch  for  this  night,  is  gained  over  ;  post-horses 
ready  all  the  way  ;  party  of  Noblesse  sitting  armed,  determined  ; 
will  His  Majesty,  before  midnight,  consent  to  go?  Profound 
silence  ;  Campan  waiting  with  upturned  ear.  "  Did  your  Majesty 
hear  v/hat  Campan  oaid  1 "  asks  the  Queen,  "  Yes,  I  heard," 
answers  Majesty,  and  plays  on.  "  'Twas  a  pretty  couplet,  that  of 
Campan's,"  hints  Monsieur,  who  at  times  showed  a  pleasant  wit  : 
Majesty,  still  unresponsive,  plays  wisk.  "  After  all,  one  must  say 
something  to  Campan,"  remarks  the  Queen.  "  Tell  M.  dTnisdal," 
said  the  King,  and  the  Queen  puts  an  emphasis  on  it,  "  that  the 
King  cannot  ^r^^^^i-^/^/ to  be  forced  away." — "  I  see  !  "  said  d'Inisdal, 
whisking  round,  peaking  himself  into  flame  of  irritancy  :  "  we 
have  the  risk ;  we  are  to  have  all  the  blame  if  it  fail,"t— and 
vanishes,  he  and  his  plot,  as  will~o'-wisps  do.  The  Queen  sat  till 
far  in  the  night,  packing  jewels  :  but  it  came  to  nothing  ;  in  that 
peaked  frame  of  irritancy  the  Will-o'-wisp  had  gone  out 

*       Hist.  Pari.  vii.  316;  Bertrand-Moleville»  &c. 
f  Campan,  ii.  105. 


88 


THE  TUILERIES, 


Little  hope  there  is  in  all  this.  Alas,  with  whom  to  fly  ?  Our 
loyal  Gardes-du-Corps ^  ever  since  the  Insurrection  of  Women,  are 
disbanded  ;  gone  to  their  homes  ;  gone,  many  of  them,  across  the 
Rhine  towards  Cobleniz  and  Exiled  Princes  :  brave  Miomandre 
and  brave  Tardivet,  these  faithful  Two,  have  received,  in  nocturnal , 
interview  with  both  Majesties,  their  viaticitm  of  gold  louis,  of;, 
heartfelt  thanks  from  a  Queen's  hps,  though  unluckily  'his; 
'Majesty  stood,  back  to  fire,  not  speaking  ; and  do  now  dine- 
through  the  Provinces  ;  recounting  hairsbreadth  escapes,  in-' 
surrectionary  horrors.  Great  borrows  ;  to  be  swallowed  yet  of 
greater.  But  on  the  whole  what  a  falling  off  from  the  old  splendour  ^ 
of  Versailles  !  Here  in  this  poor  Tuileries,  a  National  Brewer- 
Colonel,  sonorous  Santerre,  parades  officially  behind  her  Majesty's 
chair.  Our  high  dignitaries,  all  fled  over  the  Rhine  :  nothing  now 
to  be  gained  at  Court ;  but  hopes,  for  which  life  itself  must  be ' 
risked  !  Obscure  busy  men  frequent  the  back  stairs ;  with  hear- ' 
says,  wind  projects,  unfrnitful  fanfaronades.  Young  Royalists,  at ' 
the  Theatre  de  Vaudeville,  '  sing  couplets  ; '  if  that  could  do  anyj 
thing.  Royalists  enough.  Captains  on  furlough,  burnt-out  Seigneurs, , 
may  likewise  be  met  with, 'in  the  Cafe  de  Valois,  and  at  Meotj 
'  the  Restaurateur's.'  There  they  fan  one  another  into  high  loyal  | 
glow  ;  drink,  in  such  wine  as  can  be  procured,  confusion  to  Sans-^ 
culottism  ;  shew  purchased  dirks,  of  an  improved  structure,  made 
to  order ;  and,  greatly  daring,  dine.f  It  is  in  these  places,  in 
these  months,  that  the  epithet  Sansculotte  first  gets  applied  to 
indigent  Patriotism  ;  in  the  last  age  we  had  Gilbert  Sansculotte^ 
the  indigent  Poet.J  Destitute-of-Breeches  :  a  mournful  Destitu- 
tion ;  which  however,  if  Twenty  millions  share  it,  may  become 
more  effective  than  most  Possessions  ! 

Meanwhile,  amid  this  vague  dim  whirl  of  fanfaronades,  wind- 
projects,  poniards  made  to  order,  there  does  disclose  itself  one 
punctu7n-s aliens  of  life  and  feasibility  :  the  finger  of  Mirabeau  ! 
Mirabeau  and  the  Queen  of  France  have  met  ;  have  parted  with 
mutual  trust  !  It  is'' strange  ;  secret  as  the  Mysteries  ;  but  it  is  in- 
dubitable. Mirabeau  took  horse,  one  evening  ;  and  rode  west- 
ward, unattended,— to  see  Friend  Claviere  in  that  country  house 
of  his  ?  Before  getting  to  Claviere's,  the  much-musing  horseman 
struck  aside  to  a  back  gate  of  the  Garden  of  Saint- Cloud  :  some 
Duke  d'Aremberg.  or  the  like,  v/as  there  to  introduce  him  ;  the 
Queen  was  not  far  :  on  a  '  round  knoll,  rondpoiitt,  the  highest  of 
'the  Garden  of  Saint-Cloud,'  he  beheld  the  Queen's  face  ;  spake 
with  her,  alone,  under  the  void  canopy  of  Night.  What  an  inter- 
view ;  fateful  secret  for  us,  after  all  searching  ;  like  the  colloquies 
of  the  gods  !§  She  called  him  '  a  Mirabeau  :'  elsewhere  we  read 
that  she  '  was  charmed  with  him,'  the  wild  submitted  Titan  ;  as 
indeed  it  is  among  the  honorable  tokens  of  this  high  ill-fated 
heart  that  no  mind  of  any  endowment,  no  Mirabeau,  nay  no 
Barnave,  no  Dumouricz,  ever  came  face  to  face  with  her  but,  in 
siMtc  of  all  prepossessions,  she  was  forced  to  recognise  it,  to  dmW 
*  C'ampan,  ii.  109-11.  t  Dmnpmai^in,  ii  129. 

J  Mercicr^  Nouveuu  Paris,  iii.  204.  §  Campan,  ii.  q.  ly. 


TO  FLY  OR  NOT  TO  FLY. 


89 


nigh  to  it,  with  trust.  High  imperial  heart ;  with  the  instinctive 
attraction  towards  all  that  had  any  height  !  You  know  not  the 
^ueen,"  said  Mirabeau  once  in  confidence  ;  "her  force  ot  mind  is 
prodigious  ;  she  is  a  man  for  courage/^"^ — And  so,  under  the  void 
Night,  on  the  crown  of  that  knoll,  she  has  spoken  with  a  Mirabeau  : 
he  has  kissed  loyally  the  queenly  hand,  and  said  with  enthusiasm  : 
"  Madame,  the  Monarchy  is  saved  !  " — Possible  ?  The  Foreign 
Powers,  mysteriously  sounded,  gave  favourable  guarded  response  ;t 
Bouille  is  at  Metz,  and  could  find  forty-thousand  sure  Germans. 
With  a  Mirabeau  for  head,  and  a  Bouille  for  hand,  something 
verily  is  possible, — if  Fate  intervene  not. 

But  figure  under  what  thousandfold  wrappages,  and  cloaks  of 
darkness.  Royalty,  meditating  these  things,  must  involve  itself 
There  are  men  with  '  Tickets  of  Entrance  ; '  there  are  chivalrous 
consultings,  mysterious  plottings.  Consider  also  whether,  involve 
as  it  like,  plotting  Royalty  can  escape  the  glance  of  Patriotism  ; 
lynx-eyes,  by  the  ten  thousand  fixed  on  it,  which  see  in  the  dark  ! 
Patriotism  knows  much  :  know  the  dirks  made  to  order,  and  can 
specify  the  shops  ;  knows  Sieur  Motier's  legions  of  7noiichards j 
the  Tickets  of  Entree^  and  men  in  black  ;  and  how  plan  of  evasion 
succeeds  plan, — or  may  be  supposed  to  succeed  it.  Then  conceive 
the  couplets  chanted  at  the  Theatre  de  Vaudeville  j  or  Vv'orse,  the 
whispers,  significant  nods  of  traitors  in  moustaches.  Conceive,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  loud  cry  of  alarm  that  came  through  the 
Hundred-and-Thirty  Journals  ;  the  Dionysius'-Ear  of  each  of  the 
Forty-eight  Sections,  wakeful  night  and  day. 

Patriotism  is  patient  of  much  ;  not  patient  of  all.  The  Cafe  de 
Procope  has  sent,  visibly  along  the  streets,  a  Deputation  of 
Patriots,  '  to  expostulate  with  bad  Editors,'  by  trustful  word  of 
mouth  :  singular  to  see  and  hear.  The  bad  Editors  promise  to 
amend,  but  do  not.  Deputations  for  change  of  Ministry  were  many ; 
Mayor  Bailly  joining  even  with  Cordelier  Danton  in  such  :  and 
they  have  prevailed.  With  what  profit  Of  Quacks,  willing  or 
constrained  to  be  Quacks,  the  race  is  everlasting  :  Ministers 
Duportail  and  Dutertre  will  have  to  manage  much  as  Ministers 
Latour-du-Pin  and  Cice  did.    So  welters  the  confused  world. 

But  now,  beaten  on  for  ever  by  such  inextricable  contradictory 
influences  and  evidences,  what  is  the  indigent  French  Patriot,  in 
these  unhappy  days,  to  beheve,  and  walk  by  ?  Uncertainty  all  ; 
except  that  he  is  wretched,  indigent  ;  that  a  glorious  Revolution, 
the  wonder  of  the  Universe,  has  hitherto  brought  neither  Bread 
nor  Peace ;  being  marred  by  traitors,  difficult  to  discover. 
Traitors  that  dwell  in  the  dark,  invisible  there  ;— or  seen  for 
moments,  in  pallid  dubious  twilight,  stealthily  vanishing  thither  ! 
Preternatural  Suspicion  once  more  rules  the  minds  of  men. 

*  Nobody  here,'  writes  Carra  of  the  Amiales  Patriotiques,  so 
early  as  the  first  of  February,  ^  can  entertain  a  doubt  of  the  con- 
I  stant  obstinate  project  these  people  have  on  foot  to  get  the  Kin^ 
away  ;  or  of  the  perpetual  succession  of  manoeuvres  they  empLpj 
*  Dumont,  p.  2ci. 

t  Correspondance  Secreic  (in  Hist.  Pari.  viii.  169-73). 


go 


THE  TUILERIES. 


^  for  that.'  Nobody  :  the  watchful  Mother  of  Patriotism  depute? 
two  Members  to  her  Daughter  at  Versailles,  to  examine  how  tb 
matter  looked  there.    Well,  and  there  ?    Patriotic  Carra  continues 

*  The  Report  of  these  two  deputies  we  ah  heard  with  our  own  eai'i 
'  last  Saturday.  They  went  with  others  of  Versailles,  to  inspec 
*the  King's  Stables,  also  the  stables  of  the  whilom  Gardes  di 
'  Corfis  J  they  found  there  from  seven  to  eight  hundred  horse! 
^  standing  always  saddled  and  bridled,  ready  for  the  road  at  : 
'  moment's  notice.  The  same  deputies,  moreover,  saw  with  their  ow)' 
'  two  eyes  several  Royal  Carriages,  which  mien  were  even  then  bus} 
'  loading  with  large  well-stuffed  luggage-bags,'  leather  cows,  as  wi 
call  them,  '  7>aches  de  adr j  the  Royal  Arms  on  the  panels  almosi 
'  entirely  effaced.'  Momentous  enough  !  Also,  '  on  the  same  day  tht 
Svhole  Marechaiissee^  or  Cavalry  Police,  did  assemble  with  arms 
'horses  and' baggage,' — and  disperse  again.  They  want  the  Kin^ 
over  the  marches,  that  so  Emperor  Leopold  and  the  Germar 
Princes,  whose  troops  are  ready,  may  have  a  pretext  for  beginning 
'  this,'  adds  Carra,  '  is  the  word  of  the  riddle  :  this  ^  is  the  reasoi 
'  why  our  fugitive  Aristocrats  are  now  making  levies  of  men  on  th;;' 
^  frontiers  ;  expecting  that,  one  of  these  mornings,  the  Executive 
^  Chief  Magistrate  will  be  brought  over  to  them,  and  the  civil  wai 
^  commerce.'  \ 

If  indeed  the  Executive  Chief  Magistrate,  bagged,  say  in  one  oi 
these  leather  coivs,  were  once  brought  safe  over  to  them  !  But  the 
strangest  thing  of  all  is  that  Patriotism,  whether  barking  at  ? 
venture,  or  guided  by  some  instinct  of  preternatural  sagacity,  is 
actually  barking  aright  this  time  ;  at  something,  not  at  nothing. 
Bouille's  Secret  Correspondence,  since  made  public,  testifies  as 
much. 

Nay,  it  is  undeniable,  visible  to  all,  that  Mesdames  the  King*£ 
Aunts  are  taking  steps  for  departure  :  asking  passports  of  the 
Ministry,  safe-conducts  of  the  Municipality  ;  which  Marat  v/arns 
all  men  to  beware  of^    They  will  carry  gold  with  them,  '  these  old 

*  Beguines ;^  nay  they  will  carry  the  little  Dauphin,  '  having  nursed 
*a  changeling,  for  some  time,  to  leave  in  his  stead  !'  Besides, 
they  are  as  some  light  substance  flung  up,  to  shew  how  the  wind 
sits  ;  a  kind  of  proof-kite  you  fly  off  to  ascertain  whether  the  grandi 
paper-kite.  Evasion  of  the  King,  may  mount  !  j 

In  these  alarming  circumstances,  Patriotism  is  not  wanting  to| 
itself.    Municipality  deputes  to  the  King  ;  Sections  depute  to  t]  • 
Municipality  ;  a  National  Assembly  will  soon  stir.  Meanwb 
behold,  on  the  19th  of  February  1791,  Mesdames,  quitting  Belle \ 
and  Versailles  with  all  privacy,  are  off!    Towards  Rome,  sec 
ingly  ;  or  one  knows  not  whither.    They  are  not  without  Kin 
passports,  countersigned  ;  and  what  is  more  to  the  purpose, 
serviceable  l-'.scort.    The  f^ntriotic  A];iyor  or   Mayorlet  of  \ 
Village  of  Moret  tried  to  detain  them  ;  but  brisk  Louis  dc  N 
bonne,  of  the  Escort,  dashed  olV  at  hnnd-gallop  ;  returned  S( 
with  thirty  dragoons,  and  victoriou  ly  nit  tlicm  out.    And  so  1 
poor  ancient  women  go  their  way  ;  to  the  terror  of  F.rance 
*  Carra's  Newspaper,  ist  Pcb,  1791  [niHist.  Fart.  i.x.  39). 


TO  FLY  OR  NOT  TO  FLY. 


91 


Paris,  whose  nervous  excitability  is  become  extreme.  Who  qlse 
would  hinder  poor  Loque  and  Graillc,  now  grown  so  old,  and 
fallen  into  such  unexpected  circumstances,  when  gossip  itself 
turning  only  on  terrors  and  horrors  is  no  longer  pleasant  to  the 
mind,  and  you  cannot  get  so  much  as  an  orthodox  confessor  in 
peace, — from  going  what  way  soever  the  hope  of  any  solacement 
might  lead  them  ? 

They  go,  poor  ancient  dames, — w^hom  the  heart  were  hard  that 
does  not  pity  :  they  go  ;  with  palpitations,  with  unmelodious  sup- 
pressed screechings  ;  all  France,  screeching  and  cackling,  in  loud 
^^;2suppressed  terror,,  behind  and  on  both  hands  of  them  :  such 
mutual  suspicion  is  among  men.  At  Arnay  le  Due,  above  half- 
way to  the  frontiers,  a  Patriotic  Municipality  and  Populace  again 
takes  courage  to  stop  them  :  Louis  Narbonne  must  now  back  to 
Paris,  must  consult  the  National  Assembly.  National  Assembly 
answers,  not  without  an  effort,  that  Mesdames  may  go.  Where- 
upon Paris  rises  worse  than  ever,  screeching  half-distracted.  Tuil- 
eries  and  precincts  are  fdled  with  women  and  men,  while  the 
National  Assembly  debates  this  question  of  questions  ;  Lafayette 
is  needed  at  night  for  dispersing  them,  and  the  streets  are  to  be 
illuminated.  Commiandant  Berthier,  a  Berthier  before  whom  are 
great  things  unknown,  lies  for  the  present  under  blockade  at  Belle- 
vue  in  Versailles.  By  no  tactics  could  he  get  Mesdames'  Luggage 
stirred  from  the  Courts  there  ;  frantic  Versaillese  women  came 
screaming  about  him  ;  his  very  troops  cut  the  waggon-traces  ;  he 
retired  to  the  interior,  waiting  better  times. 

Nay,  in  these  same  hours,  while  Mesdames  hardly  cut  out  from 
Moret  by  the  sabre's  edge,  are  driving  rapidly,  to  foreign  parts, 
and  not  yet  stopped  at  Arnay,  their  august  Nephew  poor  Mon- 
sieur, at  Paris  has  dived  deep  into  his  cellars  of  the  Luxembourg 
for  shelter  ;  and  a^.cording  to  Montgaillard  can  hardly  be  per- 
suaded up  again.  Screeching  multitudes  environ  that  Luxembourg 
of  his  :  drawn  thither  by  report  of  his  departure  :  but,  at  sight 
and  sound  of  Monsieur,  they  become  crowing  multitudes  ;  and 
escort  Madame  and  him  to  the  Tuileries  with  vivats.f  It  is  a 
state  of  nervous  excitability  such  as  few  Nations  know. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  DAY  OF  PONIARDS. 

Or,  again,  what  means  this  visible  reparation  of  the  Castle  of 
|Vincennes?  Other  Jails  being  all  crowded  with  prisoners,  new 
j  space  is  wanted  here  :  that  is  the  Municipal  account.  For  in  such 
I  changing  of  Judicatures,  Parlements  being  abolished,  and  N««.' 
I  *  Campan,  ii.  132. 

I  t  Montgaillard.  H.  282;  D^tx  Amis,  vi.  c.  i. 


92 


THE  TUILltRIES, 


Courts  but  just  set  up,  prisoners  have  accumulated.    Not  to  say  ; 
that  in  these  times  of  discord  and  club-law,  offences  and  com-  ; 
mittals  are,  at  any  rate,  more  numerous.    Which  Municipal  ac»  | 
count,  does  it  not  sufficiently  explain  the  phenomenon  ?  Surely, 
to  repair  the  Castle  of  Vincennes  was  of  all  enterprises  than  an ' 
enlightened  Municipahty  could  undertake,  the  most  innocent.  . 

Not  so  however  does  neighbouring  Saint- Antoine  look  on  it:: 
Saint- Antoine  to  whom  these  peaked  turrets  and  grim  donjons,  ail- 
too  near  her  own  dark  dwelling,  are  of  themselves  an  offence.  Was 
not  Vincennes  a  kind  of  minor  Bastille.^  Great  Diderot  andi 
Philosophes  have  lain  in  durancQ  here  ;  great  Mirabeau,  in^ 
disastrous  echpse,  for  forty-two  months.  And  now  when  the  old 
Bastille  has  become  a  dancing-ground  (had  any  one  the  mirth  to 
dance),  and  its  stones  are  getting  built  into  the  Pont  Louis-Seize, 
does  this  minor,  comparative  insignificance  of  a  Bastille  flank 
itself  with  fresh-hewn  mullions,  spread  out  tyrannous  wings ; 
menacing  Patriotism?  New  space  for  prisoners:  and  what-' 
prisoners?  A  d'Orleans,  with  the  chief  Patriots  on  the  tip  of  the; 
Left  ?  It  is  said,  there  runs  '  a  subterranean  passage '  all  the  way; 
from  the  Tuileries  hither.  Who  knows?  Paris,  mined  with, 
quarries  and  catacombs,  does  hang  wondrous  over  the  abyss;; 
Paris  was  once  to  be  blown  up,— though  the  powder,  when  we  went  • 
to  look,  had  got  withdrawn.  A  Tuileries,  sold  to  Austria  and ; 
Coblentz,  should  have  no  subterranean  passage.  Out  of  which 
might  nor  Coblentz  or  Austria  issue,  some  morning  ;  and,  with 
cannon  o(  long  range,  '  foudroyer^  bethunder  a  patriotic  Saint- 
Antoine  into  smoulder  and  ruin  ! 

So  meditates  the  benighted  soul  of  Saint-Antoine,  as  it  sees  the 
aproned  workmen,  in  early  spring,  busy  on  these  towers.  An 
official-speaking  Municipahty,  a  Sieur  Motier  with  his  legions  of 
inouchards,  deserve  no  trust  at  all.  Were  Patriot  Santerre,  in- 
deed. Commander  !  But  the  sonorous  Brewer  commands  only 
our  own  Battalion  :  of  such  secrets  he  can  explain  nothing,  knows 
nothing,  perhaps  suspects  much.  And  so  the  work  goes  on  ;  and 
afflicted  benighted  Saint-Antoine  hears  rattle  of  hammers,  sees 
stones  suspended  in  air.* 

Saint-Antoine  prostrated  the  first  great  Bastille  :  will  it  falter 
over  this  comparative  insignificance  of  a  Bastille  ?  Friends,  what 
if  we  took  pikes,  firelocks,  sledgehammers;  and  helped  our- 
selves ! — Speedier  is  no  remedy  ;  nor  so  certain.  On  the  28ih 
day  of  February,  Saint-Antoine  turns  out,  as  it  has  now  often 
done  ;  and,  apparently  with  little  superfluous  tumuh,  moves  east- 
ward to  that  eye-sorrow  of  Vincennes.  With  grave  voice  of 
authority,  no  need  of  bullying  and  shouting,  Saint-Antoine  signi- 
fies to  parties  concerned  there  that  its  purpose  is.  To  have  this 
suspicious  Stronghold  razed  level  with  the  general  soil  of  the 
country.  Remonstrance  may  be  proffered,  with  zeal  :  but  it  avails 
not.  The  outer  gate  goes  up,  drawbridges  tumble  ;  iron  window- 
stanchions,  smitten  out  with  sledgehammers,  become  iron-crow- 
bars :  it  rains  furniture,  stone-masses,  slates  :  with  chaotic  clatter 
*  Montijuillard,  ii.  285.  j 


THE  DA  V  OF  PONIARDS. 


93 


and  rattle,  Demolition  clatters  down.  And  now  hasty  expresses 
rush  through  the  agitated  streets,  to  warn  Lafayette,  and  the 
Municipal  and  Departmental  Authorities ;  Rumour  warns  a 
National  Assembly,  a  Royal  Tuileries,  and  all  men  who  care  to 
hear  it  :  That  Saint- Antoine  is  up  ;  that  Vincennes,  and  pro- 
bably the  last  remaining  Institution  of  the  Country,  is  coming 
down."^ 

Quick,  then  !  Let  Lafayette  roll  his  drums  and  fly  eastward  ; 
for  to  all  Constitutional  Patriots  this  is  again  bad  news.  And 
you,  ye  Friends  of  Royalty,  snatch  your  poniards  of  improved 
structure,  made  to  order;  your  sword-canes,  secret  arms,  and 
tickets  of  entry  ;  quick,  by  backstairs  passages,  rally  round  the 
Son  of  Sixty  Kings.  An  effervescence  probably  got  up  by  d'Or- 
leans  and  Company,  for  the  overthrow  of  Throne  and  Altar  :  it  is 
said  her  Majesty  shall  be  put  in  prison,  put  out  of  the  way  ;  what 
then  will  his  Majesty  be  ?  Clay  for  the  Sansculottic  Potter  !  Or 
were  it  impossible  to"  fly  this  day  ;  a  brave  Noblesse  suddenly  all 
rahying?  Peril  threatens,  hope  invites  :  Dukes  de  Villequier,  de 
Duras,  Gentlemen  of  the  Chamber  give  tickets  and  admittance  ; 
a  brave  Noblesse  is  suddenly  all  rallying.    Now  were  the  time  to 

*  fall  sword  in  hand  on  those  gentry  there,'  cotild  it  be  done  with 
effect. 

The  Hero  of  two  Worlds  is  on  his  white  charger ;  blue 
Nationals,  horse  and  foot,  hurrying  eastward  :  Santerre,  with  the 
Saint-Antoine  Battalion,  is  already  there,— apparently  indisposed 
to  act.  Heavy-laden  Hero  of  two  Worlds,  what  tasks  are  these  ! 
The  jeerings,  provocative  gambolhngs  of  that  Patricvc  Suburb, 
which  is  all  out  on  the  streets  now,  are  hard  to  endure  ;  unwashed 
Patriots  jeering  in  sulky  sport ;  one  unwashed  Patriot  'seizing  the 

*  General  by  the  boot '  to  unhorse  him.  Santerre,  ordered  to  fire, 
makes  answer  obhquely,  "These  are  the  men  that  took  the 
Bastille  ;  "  and  not  a  trigger  stirs  !  Neither  dare  the  Vincennes 
Magistracy  give  warrant  of  arrestment,  or  the  smallest  counte- 
nance :  wherefore  the  General  '  will  take  it  on  himself  to  arrest. 
By  promptiude,  by  cheerful  adroitness,  patience  and  brisk  valour 

'  without  hmits,  the  riot  may  be  again  bloodlessly  appeased. 

Meanwhile,  the  rest  of  Paris,  with  more  or  less  unconcern,  may 

mind  the  rest  of  its  business  :  for  what  is  this  but  an  efferves- 
;  cence,  of  which  there  are  now  so  many  The  National  Assembly, 
;  in  one  of  its  stormiest  moods,  is  debating  a  Law  against  Emigra- 
I  tion  ;  Mirabeau  declaring  aloud,  "  I  swear  beforehand  that  I  ^vill 
i  not  obey  it."  Mirabeau  is  often  at  the  Tribune  this  day  ;  with 
!  endless  impediments  from  without ;  with  the  old  unabated  energy 

from  within.  What  can  murmurs  and  clamours,  from  Left  or 
:  from  Right,  do  to  this  man  ;  like  Teneriffe  or  Adas  unremoved  ? 

i  With  clear  thought  ;  with  strong  bass-voice,  though  at  first  low, 
:!  uncertain,  he  claims  audience,  sways  the  storm  of  men  :  anon  the 
;  sound  of  him  waxes,  softens  ;  he  rises  into  far-sounding  melody 

ii  of  strength,  triumphant,  v/hich  subdues  all  hearts  ;  his  rude- 
I  seamed  face,  desolate  fire-scathed,  becomes  fire-lit,  and  radiates  : 
I  *  Deux  Amis ^  vi.  11-15;  Newspapers  (in  HisL  Pari,  ix.  111-17). 


rilE  TUILERIES. 


once  again  men  feel,  in  these  beggarly  ages,  what  is  the  potency 
and  omnipotency  of  man's  word  on  the  souls  of  men.  "  I  wiU 
triumph  or  be  torn  in  fragments "  he  was  once  heard  to  say. 
"  Silence,"  he  cries  now,  in  strong  w^ord  of  command,  in  imperial 
consciousness  of  strength,  "  Silence,  the  thirty  voices.  Silence  aux 
trente  voix  I " — and  Robespierre  and  the  Thirty  Voices  die  into 
mutterings  ;  and  the  Law  is  once  more  as  Mirabeau  would  have  it 

How  different,  at  the  same  instant,  is  General  Lafayette's  street 
eloquence ;  wrangling  with  sonorous  Brewers,  with  an  urigram- 
matical  Saint- Antoine  \  Most  difterent,  again,  from  both  is  the , 
Cafe-de-Valois  eloquence,  and  suppressed  fanfaronade,  of  this ; 
multitude  of  men  with  Tickets  of  Entry  ;  who  are  are  now  inun- 
dating the  Corridors  of  the  'l  uileries.  Such  things  can  go  on 
simultaneously  in  one  City.  How  much  more  in  one  Country  ;  in 
one  Planet  with  its  discrepancies,  every  Day  a  mere  crackling  in- 
finitude of  discrepancies—which  nevertheless  do  yield  some 
coherent  net-product,  though  an  infinitesimally  small  one  !         ^  : 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Lafayette  has  saved  Vincennes  ;  and  is 
marching  homewards  with  some  dozen  of  arrested  demolitionists.  ^ 
Royalty  is  not  yet  saved  ;— nor  indeed  specially  endangered.  But 
to  the  King's  Constitutional  Guard,  to  these  old  Gardes  Frangaises, 
or  Centre  Grenadiers,  as  it  chanced  to  be,  this  affluence  of  men 
with  Tickets  of  Entry  is  becoming  more  and  more  unintelligible. 
Is  his  Majesty  verily  for  Metz,  then  ;  to  be  carried  off  by  these 
men,  on  the  spur  of  the  instant  ?  That  revolt  of  Saint- Antoine 
got  up  by  traitor  Royalists  for  a  stalking-horse  ?  Keep  a  sharp 
outlook,  ye  Centre  Grenadiers  on  duty  here  :  good  never  came 
from  the  '  men  in  black.'  Nay  they  have  cloaks,  redingotes ;  some 
of  them  leather-breeches,  boots,— as  if  for  instant  riding  !  Or 
what  is  this  that  sticks  visible  from  the  lapelle  of  Chevalier  de 
Court  t  ^  Too  like  the  handle  of  some  cutting  or  stabbing  instru- 
ment !  He  glides  and  goes  ;  and  still  the  dudgeon  sticks  from  his 
left  lapelle.  "  Hold,  Monsieur  !  "—a  Centre  Grenadier  clutches 
him  ;  clutches  the  protrusive  dudgeon,  whisks  it  out  in  the  face  of 
the  world  :  by  Heaven,  a  very  dagger  ;  hunting-knife,  or  whatso- 
ever you  call  it ;  fit  to  drink  the  life  of  Patriotism  ! 

So  fared  it  with  Chevalier  de  Court,  early  in  the  day  ;  not  with- 
out noise  ;  not  without  commentaries.  And  now  this  continually 
increasing  multitude  at  nightfall  ?  Have  they  daggers  too  ?  Alas, 
with  fhem  too,  after  angry  parleyings,  there  has  begun  a  gropmg 
and  a  rummaging  ;  all  men  in  black,  spite  of  their  Tickets  of 
Entry,  are  clutched  by  the  collar,  and  groped.  Scandalous  to 
think  of ;  for  always,  as  the  dirk,  sword-cane,  pistol,  or  were  it  but 
tailor's  bodkin,  is  found  on  him,  and  with  loud  scorn  drawn  forth 
from  him,  he,  the  hapless  man  in  black,  is  flung  all  too  rapidly 
down  stairs.  Flung  ;  and  ignominiously  descends,  head  foremost ; 
accelerated  by  ignominious  shovings  from  sentry  after  sentry  ;  nay, 
,s  is  written,  by  smitings,  twitchings,— spurnings,  a  posteriori, 
not  to  be  named.  In  this  accelerated  way,  emerges,  uncertain 
♦  Weber,  ii.  286. 


THE  DAY  OF  PONIARDS, 


95 


which  end  uppermost,  man  after  man  in  black,  through  all  issues, 
into  the  Tuileries  Garden.  Emerges,  alas,  into  the  arms  of  an  in- 
dignant multitude,  now  gathered  and  gathering  there,  in  the  hour 
of  dusk,  to  see  what  is  toward,  and  whether  the  Hereditary  Repre- 
sentative is  carried  oft'  or  not.  Hapless  men  in  black  ;  at  last 
convicted  of  poniards  made  to  order  ;  convicted  '  Chevaliers  of  the 
Poniard  ! '  Within  is  as  the  burning  ship  ;  without  is  ^s  the  deep 
sea.  Within  is  no  help  ;  his  Majesty,  looking  forth,  one  moment, 
from  his  interior  sanctuaries,  coldly  bids  all  visitors  '  give  up  their 
Sveapons  ; '  and  shuts  the  door  again.  The  weapons  given  up 
form  a  heap  :  the  convicted  Chevaliers  of  the  Poniard  1veep  de- 
scending pcllmell,  with  impetuous  velocit)-  ;  and  at  the  bottom  of 
all  staircases,  the  mixed  multitude  receives  them,  hustles,  buffets, 
chases  and  disperses  them.* 

Such  sight  meets  Lafayette,  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  as  he 
returns,  successful  with  difficulty  at  Vincennes  :  Sansculotte 
Scylia  hardly  weathered,  here  is  Aristocrat  Charybdis  gurgling 
under  his  lee  !  The  patient  Plero  of  two  Worlds  almost  loses 
temper.  He  accelerates,  does  not  retard,  the  flying  Chevaliers  ; 
delivers,  indeed,  this  or  the  other  hunted  Loyalist  of  quality,  but 
rates  him  in  bitter  words,  such  as  the  hour  suggested  ;  such  as  no 
saloon  could  pardon.  Hero  ill- basted  ;  hanging,  so  to  speak,  in 
mid-air;  hateful  to  Rich  divin.ities  above;  hateful  to  Indio^ent 
mortals  below  !  Duke  de  Villequier,  Gentleman  of  the  Cham'ber, 
gets  such  contumelious  rating,  in  presence  of  all  people  there,  that 
he  may  see  good  first  to  exculpate  himself  in  the  Nevv'spapers  ; 
then,  that  not  prospering,  to  retire  over  the  Frontiers,  and  begin 
plottmg  at  B/ussels.t  His  Apartment  will  stand  vacant  ;  usefuller, 
as  we  may  find,  than  when  it  stood  occupied. 

So  fly  the  Chevaliers  of  the  Poniard  ;  hunted  of  Patriotic  men 
shamefully  in  the  thickening  dusk.    A  dim  miserable  business  ; 
born  of  darkness  ;  dying  away  there  in  the  thickening  dusk  and 
dimness  !    In  the  midst  of  which,  however,  let  the  readei'  discern 
clearly  one  figure  running  for  its  life  :  Crispin- Cataliue  d'Espre- 
'menil,— for  the  last  time,  or  the  last  but  one.    It  is  not  yc'  three 
I  years  since  these  same  Centre   Grenadiers,  Gardes  Francaises 
I  then,  marched  him  towards  the  Calypso  Isles,  in  the  gray  of  the 
jMay  morning;  and  he  and  they  have  got •  thus  far  Bufteted, 
beaten  down,  delivered  by  popular  Petion,  he  might  well  answer 
bitterly  :  "  And  I  too.  Monsieur,  have  been  carried  on  the  People's 
shoulders.^J  A  fact  which  popular  Petion,  if  he  like,  can  meditate, 
But  happily,  one  way  and  another,  the  speedv  night  covers  up 
this  Ignominious  Day  of  Poniards  ;  and  the  Chevaliers  escape 
though  maltreated,  with  torn  coat-skirts  and  heaw  hearts,  to  their 
respective  dwelling-houses.    Riot  twofold  is  quelled  ;   and  httle 
blood  shed,  if  it  be  not  insignificant  blood  from  the  nose  :  Vin- 
cennes stands   undemolished,   reparable  :   and   the  Hereditary 
Kepresentative  has  not  been  stolen,  nor  the  Queen  smus^gled  into 
rnson.     A  Day  long  remembered  :  commented  on  with  loud 

i         I  ^39-48.  f  Mont£;aiUard,  ii.  286. 

I         J  See  Mercier,  li.  40,  203. 


96 


THE  TUILKRIES, 


hahas  and  deep  grumblings  ;  with  bitter  scornfiilness  of  triumph, 
bitter  rancour  of  defeat  Reyalism,  as  usual,  imputes  it  to 
d'Orleans  and  the  Anarchists  intent  on  insulting  Majesty: 
Patriotism,  as  usual,  to  Royahsts,  and  even  Constitutionalists, 
intent  on  stealing  Majesty  to  Metz  :  we,  also  as  usual  to  Preter- 
natural Suspicion,  and  Phcebus  Apollo  having  made  himself  hke 
the  Night. 

Thus  however  has  the  reader  seen,  in  an  unexpected  arena,  on 
this  last  day   of  February  the   Three  long-contending 

elements  of  French  Society,  dashed  forth  into  singular  comico- 
tragical  collision  ;  acting  and  reacting  openly  to  the  eye.  Con- 
stitutionahsm,  at  once  quelUng  Sansculottic  not  at  Vmcennes,  and 
Royahst  treachery  from  the  Tuileries,  is  great,  this  day,  and 
prevails  As  for  poor  Royalism,  tossed  to  and  fro  m  that  manner, 
its  dao-eers  all  left  in  a  heap,  what  can  one  think  of  it  ?  Every 
do^  the  Adage  says,  has  its  day  :  has  it  ;  has  had  it ;  or  will  have 
it  For  the  present,  the  day  is  Lafayette's  and  the  Constitution  s. 
Nevertheless  Hunger  and  Jacobinism,  fast  growing  fanatical,  still 
work  •  their-day,  were  they  once  fanatical,  will  come.  Hitherto, 
in  all  tempests,  Lafayette,  like  some  divine  Sea-ruler,  raises  his 
serene  head  :  the  upper  .^olus'  blasts  fly  back  to  their  caves,  like 
foolish  unbidden  winds  :  the  under  sea-billows  they  had  vexed  into 
froth  allay  themselves.  But  if,  as  we  often  write,  the  i-^/^marme 
Titanic  Fire-powers  came  into  play,  the  Ocean  bed  from  beneath 
beino-  burst  ^  If  they  hurled  Poseidon  Lafayette  and  his  Constitu- 
tion "out  of  Space  ;  and,  in  the  Titanic  melee,  sea  were  mixed  with 
sky  ? 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MIRABEAU. 


The  smrit  of  France  waxes  ever  more  acrid,  fever- sick:  towards 
the  final  outburst  of  dissolution  and  delirium.  Suspicion  rules  ah 
minds  :  contending  parties  cannot  now  commingle  ;  stand  sepa- 
rated sheer  asunder,  eying  one  another,  in  most  agmsh  mood,  ot 
cold  terror  or  hot  rage.  Counter-Revolution,  Days  of  Poniards, 
Castries  Duels;  Flight  of  Mesdames,  of  Monsieqr  and  Koya  ty  ! 
Tonrnalism  shrills  ever  louder  its  cry  of  alarm  The  sleepless 
Dionysius's  Ear  of  the  Forty-eight  Sections,  how  feverishly  quick 
has  it  grown  ;  convulsing  with  strange  pangs  the  who  e  sick  body, 
as  in  such  sleeplessness  and  sickness,  the  ear  will  do  ! 

Since  Royalists  get  J^oniards  made  to  order,  and  a  Sieur  Motiei 
is  no  better  than  he  should  be,  shall  not  Patriotism  too,  even  of 
the  indigent  sort,  have  I >ikcs,  secondhand  Firelocks,  in  readiness 
for  the  worst?    The  anvils  ring,  during  this  March  —^^^^^^^^ 
hammering  of  Pikes.   A  Constitutional  Municipality  promulgateKJ 


MIRABEAV, 


93r 


its  Placard,  that  no  citizen  except  the  'active  or  cash-citizen  '  was 
entitled  to  have  arms  ;  but  there  rose,  instantly  responsive,  such  a 
tempest  of  astonishment  from  Club  and  Section,  that  the  Constitu- 
tional Placard,  almost  next  morning,  had  to  cover  itself  up,  and 
die  away  into  inanity,  in  a  second  improved  edition.-^  So  the 
hammering  continues';  as  all  that  it  betokens  does.  ^ 

Mark,  again,  how  the  extreme  tip  of  the  Left  is  mounting  in 
favour,  if  not  in  its  own  National  Hall,  yet  with  the  Nation,  espe- 
cially with  Paris.  For  in  such  universal  panic  of  doubt,  the  opinion 
that  is  sure  of  itself,  as  the  meagrest  opinion  may  the  soonest  be, 
is  the  one  to  which  all  n>en  will  rally.  Great  is  Belief,  were  it 
never  so  meagre  ;  and  leads  captive  the  doubting  heart !  Incor- 
ruptible Robespierre  has  been  elected  Public  Accuser  in  our  new 
Courts  of  Judicature  ;  virtuous  Petion,  it  is  thought,  may  rise  to 
be  Mayor.  Cordelier  Danton,  called  also  by  triumphant  nriajori- 
ties,  sits  at  the  Departmental  Council-table  ;  colleague  there  of 
Mirabeau.  Of  incorruptible  Robespierre  it  was  long  ago  predicted 
that  he  might  go  far,'  mean  meagre  mortal  though  he  was  ;  for 
Doubt  dwelt  not  in  him. 

Under  which  circumstances  ought  not  Royalty  likewise  to  cease 
doubting,  and  begin  deciding  and  acting  ?  Royalty  has  always 
that  sure  trump-card  in  its  hand  :  Flight  out  of  Paris.  Which  sure 
trump-card.  Royalty,  as  we  see,  keeps  ever  and  anon  clutching  at, 
grasping  ;  and  swashes  it  forth  tentatively  ;  yet  never  tables  it, 
still  puts  it  back  again.  Play  it,  O  Royalty  !  If  there  be  a  chance 
left,  this  seems  it,  and  verily  the  last  chance  ;  and  now  every  hour 
is  rendering  this  a  doubtfuller.  Alas,  one  would  so  fain  both  fly 
and  not  fly  ;  plav  one's  card  and  have  it  to  play.  Royalty,  in  all 
human  likehhood,  will  not  play  its  trump-card  till  the  honours,  one 
after  one,  be  mainly  lost ;  and  such  trumping  of  it  prove  to  be  the 
sudden  finish  of  the  game  ! 

Here  accordingly  a  question  always  arises  ;  of  the  prophetic 
sort  ;  which  cannot  now  be  answered.  Suppose  Mirabeau,  with 
whom  Royalty  takes  deep  counsel,  as  with  a  Prime  Minister  that 
cannot  yet  legally  avow  himself  as  such*,  had  got  his  arrangements 
completed?  Arrangements  he  has  ;  far-stretching  plans  that  dawn 
fitfully  on  us,  by  fragments,  in  the  confused  darkness.  Thirty  De- 
partments ready  to  sign  loyal  Addresses,  of  prescribed  tenor:  King 
carried  out  of  Paris,  but  only  to  Compiegne  and  Rouen,  hardly  to 
Metz,  since,  once  for  all,  no  Emigrant  rabble  shall  take  the  lead  in 
it :  National  Assembly  consenting,  by  dint  of  loyal  Addresses,  by 
management,  by  force  of  Bouille,  to  hear  reason,  and  follow 
thither  !t  Was  it  so,  on  these  terms,  that  Jacobinism  and  Mira- 
beau were  then  to  grapple,  in  their  Hercules- and-Typhon  duel  ; 
death  inevitable  for  the  one  or  the  other  ?  The  duel  itself  is  deter- 
mined on,  and  sure  :  but  on  what  terms  ;  much  more,  with  what 
issue,  we  in  vain  guess.  It  is  vague  darkness  all  :  unknown  what 
is  to  be  ;  unknown  even  what  has  already  been.    The  giant  Mira- 

*  Ordonnance  du  17  Mars  179T  {Hist.  Pari,  ix.  257). 
t  See  Fih  Ad  opt  if,  vii.  I.  6 ;  Dumont,  c.  11, 12,  14, 
VOL.  11.  B 


98 


THE  TUILERIES. 


beau  walks  in  darkness,  as  we  said  ;  companionless,  on  wild  ways: 
what  his  jthoughts  during  these  months  were,  no  record  of  Biogra- 
pher, no)(  vague  Fils  Adopt  if,  will  now  ever  disclose. 

To  us/  endeavouring  to  cast  his  horoscope,  it  of  course  remains 
doubly  vague.  There-  is  one  Herculean  man  ;  in  internecine  duel 
with  him,  there  is  Monster  after  Monster.  Emigrant  Noblesse 
return,  sword  on  thigh,  vaunting  of  their  Loyalty  never  sullied  ; 
desicending  from  the  air,  like  Harpy- swarms  with  ferocity,  with 
obscene  greed.  Earthward  there  is  the  Typhon  of  Anarchy, 
Political,  Religious  ;  sprawling  hundred-headed,  say  with  Twenty- 
five  million  heads  ;  wide  as  the  area  of  France  ;  fierce  as  Frenzy  ; 
strong  in  very  Hunger.  With  these  shall  the  Serpent  queller  do 
battle  continually,  and  expect  no  rest. 

As  for  the  King,  he  as  usual  will  go  wavering  chameleonlike  ; 
changing  colour  and  purpose  with  the  colour  of  his  environment  ; 
— good  for  no  Kingly  use.  On  one  royal  person,  on  the  Queen 
only,  can  Mirabeau  perhaps  place  dependance.  It  is  possible,  the 
greatness  of  this  man,  not  unskilled  too  in  blandishments,  cour- 
tiership,  and  graceful  adroitness,  might,  with  most  legitimate  sor- 
cery, fascinate  the  volatile  Queen,  and  fix  her  to  him.  She  has 
courage  for  all  noble  daring  ;  an  eye  and  a  heart  :  the  soul  of 
Theresa's  Daughter.  '  Faut-il-donc^  Is  it  fated  then,'  she  passiorn- 
ately  writes  to  her  Brother,  '  that  I  with  the  blood  1  am  come  of, 
'  with  the  sentiments  I  have,  must  live  and  die  among  such  mor- 
*tals.^'^  Alas,  poor  Princess,  Yes.  'She  is  the  only  as 
Mirabeau  observes,  '  whom  his  Majesty  has  about  him.'  Of  one 
other  man  Mirabeau  is  still  surer  :  of  himself.  There  lies  his  re- 
sources ;  sufficient  or  insufficient. 

Dim  and  great  to  the  eye  of  Prophecy  looks  that  future  !  A 
perpetual  life-and-death  battle  ;  contusion  from  above  and  from 
below  ; — mere  confused  darkness  for  us  ;  with  here  and  there  some 
streak  of  faint  lurid  hght.  We  see  King  perhaps  laid  aside  ;  not 
tonsured,  tonsuring  is  out  of  fashion  now  ;  but  say,  sent  away  any 
whither,  with  handsome  annual  allowance,  and  stock  of  smith- 
tools.  We  see  a  Queen  and  Dauphin,  Regent  and  Minor;  a  Queen 
'  mounted  on  horseback,'  in  the  din  of  battles,  with  Mo7iainur pro 
rege  nostro  !    *  Such  a  day,'  Mirabeau  writes,  ^  may  come.' 

Din  of  battles,  wars  more  than  civil,  confusion  frOm  above  and 
from  below  :  in  such  environment  the  eye  of  Prophecy  sees  Comte 
de  Mirabeau,  like  some  Cardinal  de  Retz,  stormfully  maintain  him- 
self ;  with  head  all-devising,  heart  all-daring,  if  not  victorious,  yet 
unvanquished,  while  life  is  left  him.  The  specialties  and  issues  of 
it,  no  eye  of  Prophecy  can  guess  at  :  it  is  clouds,  we  repeat,  and 
tempestuous  night  ;  and  jn  the  middle  of  it,  now  visible,  far  dart- 
ing, now  labouring  in  eclipse,  is  Mirabeau  indomitably  struggling 
to  be  Cloud- Com  poller  ! — One  can  say  that,  had  Mirabeau  lived, 
the  History  of  France  and  of  the  World  had  been  different. 
Further,  that  the  man  would  have  needed,  as  few  men  ever  didj 
the  whole  compass  of  that  same  'Art  of  Daring,  /^'C^j-^r,' which 
he  so  prized ;  and  likewise  that  he,  above  all  men  then  living, 
*  FiU  Adopif^  ubi  supr^. 


DEATH  OF  MIRABEAU,  99 


would  have  practised  and  manifested  it.  Finally,  thr.t  some  sub- 
stantiality, and  no  empty  simulacrum  of  a  formula  would  have 
been  the  result  realised  by  him  :  a  result  you  could  have  loved  a 
result  you  could  have  hated  ;  by  no  likelihood,  a  result  you  could 
only  have  rejected  with  closed  lips,  and  swept  into  quick  forgettul- 
ness  for  ever.    Had  Mirabeau  Uved  one  other  year  ! 


•  CHAPTER  Vn. 

DEATH  OF  MIRABEAU. 

But  Mirabeau  could  not  live  another  year,  any  more  than  he 
could  live  another  thousand  years.  Men's  years  are  numbered, 
and  the  tale  of  Mirabeau's  was  now  complete.  Important,  or  un- 
important ;  to  be  mentioned  in  World- History  for  some  centuries, 
or  not  to  be  mentioned  there  beyond  a  day  or  two,— it  matters  not 
to  peremptory  Fate.  From  amid  the  press  of  ruddy  busy  Life,  the 
Pale  Messenger  beckons  silently  :  wide-spreading  interests,  pro- 
jects, salvation  of  French  Monarchies,  what  thing  soever  man  has 
on  hand,  he  must  suddenly  quit  it  all,  and  go.  Wert  thou  saving 
French  Monarchies  ;  wert  thou  blacking  shoes  on  the  Pont  Neuf  1 
The  most  important  of  men  cannot  stay  ;  did  the  World's  History 
depend  on  an  hour,  that  hour  is  not  to  be  given.  Whereby,  indeed, 
it  comes  that  these  same  woicld-havc-beens  are  mostly  a  vanity  ; 
and  the  World's  History  could  never  in  the  least  be  what  it  would, 
or  might,  or  should,  by  any  manner  of  potentiality,  but  simply  and 
altogether  what  it  is. 

The  fierce  wear  and  tear  of  such  an  existence  has  wasted  out 
the  giant  oaken  strength  of  Mirabeau.  A  fret  and  fever  that  keeps 
heart  and  brain  on  tire  :  excess  of  effort,  of  excitement  ;  excess  of 
all  kinds  :  labour  incessant,  almost  beyond  credibility  !  •  If  I  had 
'not  hved  with  him,'  says  Dumont,  '  I  should  never  have  known 
'  what  a  man  can  make  of  one  day  ;  what  things  may  be  placed 
'within  the  interval  of  twelve  hours.  A  day  for  this  man  was 
'more  than  a  week  or  a  month  is  for  others  :  the  mass  ot  things 
'he  guided  on  together  was  prodigious  ;  from  the  scheming  to  the 
*  executing  not  a  moment  lost.'  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  his 
Secretary  to  him  once,  "  what  you  require  is  impossible."—"  Im- 
possible ! "  answered  he  starting  from  his  chair,  J\e  me  dites 
mmais  ce  bete  de  mot,  Never  name  to  me  that  blockhead  of  a 
word.''-^  And  then  the  social  repasts  ;  the  dinner  v/hich  he  gives 
as  Commandant  of  National  Guards,  which  '  costs  five  hundred 
'pounds;'  alas,  and  'the  Syrens  of  the  Opera;'  and  ail  the 
ginger  that  is  hot  in  the  mouth  :— down  what  a  course  is  this  man 
'  hurled  !  Cannot  Mirabeau  stop  ;  cannot  he  fly,  and  save  himself 
alive  ?    No  i    There  is  a  Nessus'  Shirt  on  this  iiercules  ;  he  must 


*  Dumont,  p.  311. 


E  2 


loo 


THE  TUILERIES, 


storm  and  bum  there,  without  rest,  till  he  be  consumed.  Human 
strength,  never  so  Herculean,  has  its  measure.  .  Herald  shadows 
flit  pale  across  the  fire-brain  of  Mirabeau  ;  heralds  of  the  pale 
repose.  While  he  tosses  and  storms,  straining  every  nerve,  in  that 
sea  of  ambition  and  confusion,  there  comes,  sombre  and  still,  a 
monition  that  for  him  the  issue  of  it  will  be  swift  deatli. 

In  January  last,  you  might  see  him  as  President  of  the  Assembly  ; 
*  his  neck  wrapt  in  linen  cloths,  at  the  evening  session  : '  there  was 
sick  heat  of  the  blood,  alternate  darkening  and  flashing  in  the  eye- 
sight ;  he  had  to  apply  leeches,  after  the  morning  labour,  and 
preside  bandaged.  '  At  parting  he  embraced  me/  says  Dumont, 
'  with  an  emotion  I  had  never  seen  in  him  :  "  I  am  dying,  my 
'  friend  ;  dying  as  by  slow  flre ;  we  shall  perhaps  not  meet  again. 
^  When  I  am  gone,  they  will  know  what  the  value  of  me  was.  The 
'  miseries  I  have  held  back  will  burst  from  all  sides  on  France."  '"^ 
Sickness  gives  louder  warning  ;  but  cannot  be  listened  to.  On  the 
27th  day  of  March,  proceeding  towards  the  Assembly,  he  had  to 
seek  rest  and  help  in  Friend  de  Lamarck's,  by  the  road  ;  and  lay 
there,  for  an  hour,  half-fainted,  stretched  on  a  sofa.  To  the 
Assembly  nevertheless  he  went,  as  if  in  spite  of  Destiny  itself*, 
spoke,  loud  and  eager,  five  several  times  ;  then  quitted  the  Tribune 
—for  ever.  He  steps  out,  utterly  exhausted,  into  the  Tuileries 
Gardens  ;  many  people  press  round  him,  as  usual,  with  apphca- 
tions,  memorials  ;  he  says  to  the  Friend  who  was  with  him  :  Take . 
me  out  of  this  ! 

And  so,  on  the  last  day  of  March  1791,  endless  anxious  multi- 
tudes beset  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee  d'Antin  ;  incessantly  inquiring  : 
within  doors  there,  in  that  House  numbered  in  our  time  '42/  the 
over  wearied  giant  has  fallen  down,  to  die.f  Crowds,  of  all  parties 
and  kinds  ;  of  all  ranks  from  the  King  to  the  meanest  man  !  The 
King  sends  publicly  twice  a-day  to  inquire  ;  privately  besides  : 
from  the  world  at  large  there  is  no  end  of  inquiring.  '  A  written 
'  bulletin  is  handed  out  every  three  hours,'  is  copied  and  circulated  ; 
in  the  end,  it  is  printed.  The  People  spontaneously  keep  silence  ; 
no  carriage  shall  enter  with  its  noise  :  there  is  crowding  pressure  ; 
but  the  Sister  of  Mirabeau  is  reverently  recognised,  and  has  free 
way  made  for  her.  The  People  stand  mute,  heart-stricken  ;  to  all 
it  seems  as  if  a  great  calamity  were  nigh  :  as  if  the  last  man  of 
France,  who  could  have  swayed  these  coming  troubles,  lay  there 
at  hand-grips  with  the  unearthly  Power. 

The  silence  of  a  whole  People,  the  wakeful  toil  of  Cabanis, 
Friend  and  Physician,  skiUs  not  :  on  Saturday,  the  second  day  of 
April,  Mirabeau  feels  that  the  last  of  the  Days  has  risen  for  him  ; 
that,  on  this  day,  he  has  to  depart  and  be  no  more.  His  death  is 
Titanic,  as  his  life  has  been.  Lit  up,  for  the  last  time,  in  the  glare 
of  coming  dissolution,  the  mind  of  the  man  is  all  glowing  and 
burning  ;  utters  itself  in  sayings,  such  as  men  long  remember.  Pie 
longs  to  live,  yet  acquiesces  in  death,  argues  not  with  the  inexor- 
able. His  speech  is  wild  and  wondrous  :  unearthly  Phantasms 
dancing  now  their  torch-dance  round  his  soul  ;  the  soul  itself 
*  Dumont.  p.  267.  f  I' Us  Adoptif,  viii.  420-79. 


DEATH  OF'  MIRABEAU. 


lOI 


Dr.  Petit,  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  bea,  says  ^ 

Of  such  dancins-parties  apparently  but  two  came  to  light  ana 

say  with  ittle  exaigeration,  all  the  People  mourns  for  him 

three  days?|ere  is  low  wide  ^^^-^^l^^:  ^JZA 

Se^rS-  wJh'la^  e  silent  auknce,  P-Mn^  ^^^^^^^^^^ 
)  coachman  whip  fast,  distracmeiy 

*  Fils  Adoptif.  vhi.  450;  7—'^  -^-'^^'^  '''''' 

htau,  par  P.  J.  G.  Cabanis  (Pans.  i8oq^. 


m  THE  TUILERIES. 


mg  No-thmg.  In  the  Restaurateur's  of  the  Palais  Royal,  th<^ 
waiter  remarks,  "  Fine  weather.  Monsieur  Yes,  my  friend 

answers  the  ancient  Man  of  Letters,  "very  fine  :  but  Mirabeau  is 
c^   \^  /hoarse  rhythmic  threnodies  comes  also  from  the  throats 
of  balladsmgers  ;  are  sold  on  gray-white  paper  at  a  sou  each  * 
But   of  Portraits,   engraved,  painted,  *  hewn,   and  written;  of 
Biographies,  nay  Vaudevilles,  Dramas 
and  Melodramas,  m  all  Provinces  of  France,  there  will,  throucdi 
these  coming  months,  be  the  due  immeasurable  crop  ;  thick  as  the 
leaves  of  Sprmg.^  Nor,  that  a  tincture  of  burlesque  might  be  in 
K,  IS  Gobel  s  Episcopal  Mandeme7it  wanting  ;  goose  Gobel,  who 
has  just  been  made  Constitutional  Bishop  of  Paris.    A  Mandement 
wherein  ca  ira^  alternates  very  strangely  with  Nomine  Domini, 
and  you  are  with  a  grave  countenance,  inx'ited  to  '  rejoice  at  pos- 
sessing m  the  midst  of  you  a  bodv  of  Prelates  created  by  Mira- 
^  bean,  zealous  followers  of  his  doctrine,  faithful  imitators  of  hii 
virtues.f  ^  So  speaks,  and  cackles  manifold,  the  SorroNV  of  France^ 
waihng  articulately,  inarticulatelv,  as  it  can,  that  a  Sovereio-n  M?^ 
IS  snatclied  away.    In  the  National  Assembly,  when  difficult  que-> 
tions  are  astir  all  eyes  will  '  turn  mechanically  to  the  place  whe^'- 
Mirabeau  sat,'— and  Mirabeau  is  absent  now. 

On  the  third  evening  of  the  lamentation,  the  fourth  of  y\priL 
there  is  solemn  Public  Funeral  ;  such  as  deceased  mortal  seldom 
had.    Procession  of  a  league  in  length  ;  of  mourners  reckoned 
loosely  at  a  hundred  thousand  !    All  roofs  are  thronged  with  on- 
lookers,  all  windows,  lamp-irons,  branches  of  trees.     '  Sadnr^ss 
is  painted    on    every   countenance  ;    manv  persons  weep.' 
There  is  double  hedge  of  National  Guards  ;' there  is  National 
Assembly  m  a  body ;  Jacobin  Society,  and  Societies ;  Kim^'s 
Ministers,  Municipals,  and  all  Notabilities,  Patriot  or  Aristocrat 
Bouille  is  noticeable  there,  'with  his  hat  on  ; '  sav,  hai  drawn  over 
his  brow,  hiding  many  thoughts  !    Slow-wendirg,  in  religious 
silence,  the  Procession  of  a  league  in  length,  under  the  level  sun- 
rays,  tor  it  is  five  o'clock,  moves  and  marches    with  its  sable 
plumes  ;  Itself  in  a  religious  silence  ;  but,  by  fits,  with  the  muffled 
roil  ot  drums,  by  fi^ ;  with  some  long-drawn  wail  of  music,  and 
strange  new  clangour  of  trombones,  and  metallic  dirge-voice  ; 
amid  the  infinite  hum  of  men.    In  the  Church  of  Saint-Eustache, 
tnere  IS  funeral  oration  by  Cerutti  ;  and  discharge  of  fire-arms' 
wnich  brings  down  pieces  of  the  plaster.'    Thence,  forward  again 
to  the  Church  of  Sainte-Genevicve  ;  which  has  been  consecrated,  ; 
by  supreme  decree,  on  the  spur  of  this  time,  into  a  Pantheon  for  ^ 
the  (,reat  Men  of  the  Fatherland,  Aux  Grands  ITommcs  la  Palric 
7rconnatssanie,    Hardly  at  midnight  is  the  business  done  ;  and 


.Viirabeau  left  in  his  dark  dwelling  :  first  tenant  of  that  Father- 
land's Pntheon 


Tenant,  alas,  who  inhabits  but  at  will,  and  shall  be  cast  out ! 
i'or,  m  these  days  of  convulsion  and  disjection,  not  even  the  dust 

*  Flh  Adopt!/,  viii. 
[66-402). 
t  HisL  Pari.  ix.  405. 


^66-^2)  ^^''*  ^'        ^'^^^■sP''^pcrs  and  K.xccrpts  (in  Hist.  ParL  ix. 


DEATH  OF  MIR  ABE  All.  103 


of  the  dead  is  permitted  to  rest.  Voltaire's  bones  are,  by  ancl 
bv  to  be  carried  from  their  stolen  grave  in  the  Abbey  of  ocei- 
liires,  to  an  eager  stealing  grave,  in  Paris  his  birth-city  :  all  mortals 
processioning  and  perorating  there  ;  cars  drawn  by  eight  white 
horses,  croadsters  in  classical  costume,  with  hllets  and  wheat-ears 
enough  t-though  the  weather  is  of  the  wettest.^  Evangehst  Jean 
Jacques,  too,  as  is  most  proper,  must  be  dug  up  from  Ermenonville 
and  processioned,  with  pomp,  with  sensibility,  to  the  Pantheon  ot 
the  Fatherland.t  He  and  others  :  while  again  Mirabeau,  we  say, 
is  cast  forth  from  it,  happily  incapable  of  being  r^p  aced  ;  and  rests 
now,  irrecognisable,reburied  hastily  at  dead  of  night,  m  the  central 

*  part  of  the  Churchyard  Sainte- Catherine,  in  the  Suburb  bamt- 

*  Marceau,'  to  be  disturbed  no  further.  ,  ,  t 

So  blazes  out,  farseen,  a  Man's  Life,  and  becomes  ashes  and  a 
caput  mortuum,  in  this  World-Pyre,  which  we  name  French  Revo- 
lution :  not  the  first  that  consumed  itself  there  ;  nor,  by  thousands 
and  many  millions,  the  last  !  A  man  who  ^had  swallowed  all 
'  formulas  who,  in  these  strange  times  and  circumstances,  telt 
called  to  live  Titanically,  and  alsa  to  die  so.  As  he,  for  his  part 
had  swallowed  all  formulas,  what  Formula  is  there,  never  so  com- 
prehensive, that  will  express  truly  the  plus  and  the  mi7i2is,  give  us 
the  accurate  net-result  of  him?  There  is  hitherto  none  such. 
Moralities  not  a  few  must  shriek  condemnatory  over  this  Mirabeau  ; 
the  Morality  by  which  he  could  be  judged  has  not  yet  got  uttered 
in  the  speech  of  men.  We  will  say  this  of  him,  again  ;  That  he  is 
a  Reality,  and  no  Simulacrum  :  a  living  son  of  Nature  our  general 
Mother  ;  not  a  hollow  Artfice,  and  mechanism  of  Conventionalities, 
son  of  nothing,  brother  to  nothing.  In  which  little  word,  let  tne 
earnest  man,  walking  sorrowful  in  a  world  mostly  of  ^  Stuhed 

*  Clothes-suits,'  that  chatter  and  grin  meaningless  on  him,  quite 
ghastly  to  the  earnest  soul,— think  what  significance  there  is  1 

Of  men  who,  in  such  sense,  are  alive,  and  see  with  eyes,  the 
number  is  now  not  great  :  it  may  be  well,  if  in  this  huge  French 
Revolution  itself,  with  its  all-developing  fury,  we  find  some  fhree. 
Mortals  driven  rabid  we  find  ;  sputtering  the  acridest  logic  ;  baring 
.  their  breast  to  the  batde-hail,  their  neck  to  the  guillotine  ;  of  whom 
it  is  so  painful  to  say  that  they  too  are  still,  in  good  part,  manu- 
factured Formahties,  not  Facts  but  Hearsays  ! 

rHonour  to  the  strong  man,  in  these  ages,  who  has  shaken  him- 
feelf  loose  of  shams,  and  is  something.  For  in  the  way  of  being 
{worthy,  the  first  condition  surely  is  that  one  be.  Let  Cant  cease, 
fat  all  risks  and  at  all  costs  :  till  Cant  cease,  nothing  else  can 

begin.  Of  human  Criminals,  in  these  centuries,  writes  the  Moralist, 

1  find  but  one  unforgivable  :  the  Quack.    '  Hateful  to  dod,  as 

divine  Dante  sings,  '  and  to  the  Enemies  of  God, 
'  A  Dio  spiacente  ed  a  nemici  sui  /' 

But  whoever  will,  with  sympathy,  which  is  the  first  essential  to- 
wards insight,  look  at  this  questionable  Mirabeau,  may  find  that 

*  MoniUur,  du  13  Juillet  1791. 

t  ibid,  du"  18  Septembre,  1794.    See  also  du  go  Aout,  &c.  1791. 


I04 


THE  TUILERIES. 


there  lay  verily  in  him,  as  the  basis  of  all,  a  Sincerity,  a  great  free 
Earnestness  ;  nay  call  it  Honesty,  for  the  man  did  before  all  things 
see,  with  that  clear  flashing  vision,  into  what  was,  into  what  ex-  - 
isted  as  fact ;  and  did,  with  his  wild  heart,  follow  that  and  no  ; 
other.    Whereby  on  what  ways  soever  he  travels  and  struggles^ 
often  enough  falling,  he  is  still  a  brother  man.    Hate  him  not;' 
thou  canst  not  hate  him  !    Shining  through  such  soil  and  tarnish,: 
and  now  victorious  effulgent,  and  oftenest  struggling  echpsed,  the: 
light  of  genius  itself  is  in  this  man  ;  which  was  never  yet  Ijase  and 
hateful  :  but  at  worst  was  lamentable,  loveable  with  pity.  They 
say  that  he  was  ambitious,  that  he  wanted  to  be  Minister.    It  is! 
most  true  ;  and  was  he  not  simply  Jthe  one  man  in  France  who  ■ 
could  have  done  any  good  as  Minister  ?    Not  vanity  alone,  not 
pride  alone  ;  far  from  that  !    Wild  burstings  of  affection  were  in  . 
this  great  heart;  of  fierce  lightning,  and  soft  dew  of  pity.  So. 
sunk,  bemired  in  wretchedest  defacements,  it  may  be  said  of 
him,  like  the  Magdalen  of  old,  that  he  loved  muchj:  his  Father 
the  harshest  of  old  crabbed  men  he  loved  witKuarmth,  with! 
veneration.  •: 

Be  it  that  his  falls  and  follies  are  manifold,— as  himself  often  \ 
lamented  even  with  tears."^    Alas,  is  not  the  Life  of  every  such  <! 
y   man  already  a  poetic  Tragedy  ;  made  up  '  of  Fate  and  of  one's  own  'j 
Deservings,'  of  Schicksal  unci  eigene  Schuldy  full  of  the  elements 
of  Pity  and  Fear?  This  brother  man,  if  not  Epic  for  us,  is  Tragic; 
if  not  great,  is  large  ;  large  ia  his  qualities,  world-large  in  his  des- 
tinies.   Whom  other  men,  recognising  him  as  such,  may,  through 
long  times,  remember,  and  draw  nigh  to  examine  and  consider  : 
these,  in  their  several  dialects,  will  say  of  him  and  sing  of  him,— 
till  the  right  thing  be  said  ;  and  so  the  Formula  that  can  judge  him 
be  no  longer  an  undiscovered  one. 

Here  then  the  wild  Gabriel  Honore  drops  from  the  tissue  of  our 
History  ;  not  without  a  tragic  farewell.  He  is  gone  :  the  flower  of 
the  wild  Riquetti  or  Arrighetti  kindred  which  seems  as  if  in  him, 
with  one  last  effort,  it  had  done  its  best,  and  then  expired,  or  sunk 
down  to  the  undistinguished  level.  Crabbed  old  Marquis  Mirabeau, 
the  Friend  of  Men,  sleeps  sound.  The  Bailli  Mirabeau,  worthy 
uncle,  will  soon  dio  forlorn,  alone.  Barrel-Mirabeau,  alreftly 
gone  across  the  Rhine,  his  Regiment  of  Emigrants  will  drive  nigh 
desperate.  *  Barrel-Mirabeau,'  says  a  biographer  of  his,  *  went  in- 
'  dignantly  across  the  Rhine,  and  drilled  Emigrant  Regiments. ' 

*  But  as  he  sat  one  morning  in  his  tent,  sour  of  stomach  doubtless 

*  and  of  heart,  meditating  in  l\'irtarean  humour  on  the  turn  things 

*  took,  a  certain  Captain  or  Subaltern  demanded  admittance  on 

*  business.  Such  Captain  is  refused  ;  he  again  demands,  with  re- 
'  fusal ;  and  then  again,  till  Colonel  Viscount  Barrel-Mirabeau, 

*  blazing  up  into  a  mere  burning  brandy  barrel,  clutches  his  sword, 

*  and  tumbles  out  on  this  ca7iaille,  of  an  intruder, — alas,  on  the 
'  canaille  of  an  intruder's  sword's  point,  who  had  drawn  with  swift 
'  dexterity  ;  and  dies,  and  the  Newspapers  name  it  apoplexy  and 
'  alarming  accident.^    So  die  the  Mirabeaus. 

Dijymoiit,  p.  287. 


DEATH  OF  M IRA  BEAU. 


10? 


New  Mirabeaus  one  hears  not  of:  the  wild  kindred,  as  we  said, 
is  gone  out  with  this  its  greatest.  As  famihes  and  kindreds  sometimes 
do  ;  producing,  after  long  ages  of  unnoted  notability,  some  living 
quintescence  of  all  the  quahties  they  had,  to  flame  forth  as  a  man 
world -noted  ;  after  whom  they  rest  as  if  exhausted;  the  sceptre 
passing  to  others,  ff he  chosen  Last  of  the  Mirabeaus  is  gone  ; 
the  chosen  man  of^France  is  gone.  It  was  he  who  shook  old 
France  from  its  basis  ;  and,  as  if  with  his  single  hand,  has  held 
it  toppling  there,  still  unfallen.  What  things  depended  on  that 
one  man  !  He  is  as  a  ship  suddenly  shivered  on  sunk  rocks  l 
much  swims  on  the  waste  waters,  far  from  help«^ 


io6 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

VARENNES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EASTER  AT  SAINT-CLOUD. 

The  French  Monarchy  may  now  therefore  be  considered  as,  in 
all  human  probability,  lost  ;  as  struggling  henceforth  in  blindness 
as  well  as  weakness,  the  last  light  of  reasonable  guidance  having 
gone  out.  What  remains  of  resources  their  poor  Majesties  will 
waste  still  further,  in  uncertain  loitering  and  wavering.  Mirabeau 
himself  had  to  complain  that  they  only  gave  him  half  confidence, 
and  always  had  some  plan  within  his  plan.  Had  they  fled  frankly 
with  him,  to  Rouen  or  anywhither,  long  ago  !  They  may  fly  now 
with  chance  immeasurably  lessened  ;  which  will  go  on  lessening 
towards  absolute  zero.  Decide,  O  Queen  ;  poor  Louis  can  decide 
nothing  :  execute  this  Flight-project,  or  at  least  abandon  it. 
Correspondence  with  Bouille  there  has  been  enough  ;  what  profits 
consulting,  and  hypotheisis,  while  all  around  is  in  fierce  activity  of 
practice.?  The  Rustic  sits  waiting  till  the  river  run  dry  :  alas  with 
you  it  is  not  a  common  river,  but  a  Nile  Inundation  ;  snow  melting 
in  the  unseen  mountains  ;  till  all,  and  you  where  you  sit,  be  sub- 
merged. 

Many  things  invite  to  flight.  The  voice  of  Journals  invites  ; 
Royalist  Journals  proudly  hinting  it  as  a  threat^.  Patriot  Journals 
rabidly  denouncing  it  as  a  terror.  Mother  Society,  waxing  more 
and  more  emphatic,  invites  ;— so  emphatic  that,  as  was  prophesied, 
Lafayette  and  your  limited  Patriots  have  ere  long  to  branch  off 
from  her,  and  form  themselves  into  Feuillans  ;  with  infinite  pubHc 
controversy  ;  the  victory  in  which,  doubtful  though  it  look,  will 
remam  with  the  ////limited  Mother.  Moreover,  ever  since  the  Day 
of  Poniards,  we  have  seen  unlimited  Patriotism  openly  equipping 
itself  with  arms.  Citizens  denied  '  activity,' which  is  facetiously 
made  to  signify  a  certain  weight  of  purse,' cannot  buy  blue  uni- 
forms, and  be  Guardsmen  ;  but  man  is  greater  than  blue  cloth  ; 
man  can  fight,  if  need  be,  in  multiform  cloth,  or  even  almost 
without  cloth— as  Sansculotte.  So  Pikes  continued  to  be  hammered, 
whether  those  Dirks  of  improved  structure  with  barbs  be  *  meant 
*for  the  West-India,  market/  or  not  meant.    Men  beat,  the  wrong 


EASTER  AT  ST  CLOUD.  my 


Vaty,  their  ploughshares  into  swords.  Is  there  not  what  we  may- 
call  an  '  Austrian  Committee/  Comitc  Aiitrichien^  sitting  daily  and 
nightly  in  the  Tuileries  ?  Patriotism,  by  vision  and  suspicion, 
knows  it  too  well  !•  If  the  King  fly,  will  there  not  be  Aristocrat- 
Austrian  Invasion  ;  butchery, replacement  of  Feudalism  ;  wars  more 
than  civil  ?    The  heaTts  of  men  are  saddened  and  maddened. 

Dissident  Priests  hkewise  give  trouble  enough.  Expelled  from 
their  Parish  Churches,  where  Constitutional  Priests,  elected  by 
the  Public,  have  replaced  them,  these  unha];^py  persons  icsort  to  ^ 
Convents  of  Nuns,  or  other  such  receptacles  ;  and  there,  on  Sab- 
bath, collecting  assemblages  of  Anti-Constitutional  individuals, 
who  have  grown  devout  all  on  a  sudden,^  they  worship  or  pretend 
to  worship  in  their  strait-laced  contumacious  manner  ;  to  the 
scandal  of  Patriotism.  Dissident  Priests,  passing  along  with  their 
sacred  wafer  for  the  dying,  seem  wishful  to  be  massacred  in  the 
streets  ;  wherein  Patriotism  will  not  gratify  them.  Slighter  palm 
of  martyrdom,  however,  shall  not  be  denied  :  martyrdom  not  of 
massacre,  yet  of  fustigation.  At  the  refractory  places  of  worship, 
Patriot  men  appear  ;  Patriot  woman  with  strong  hazel  wands, 
which  they  apply.  Shut  thy  eyes,  O  Reader  ;  see  not  this  misery, 
peculiar  to  these  later  times. — of  martyrdom  without  sincerity, 
with  only  cant  and  contumacy  !  A  dead  Catholic  Church  is  not 
allowed  to  lie  dead  ;  no,  it  is  galvanised  into  the  detestablest 
death-life  ;  whereat  Humanity,  we  say,  shuts  its  eyes.  For  the 
Patriot  women  take  their  ha;.el  wands,  and  fustigate,  amid  laughter 
of  bystanders,  with  alacrity  :  broad  bottom  of  Priests  ;  alas.  Nuns 
too  reversed,  cotillons  retroiLsses  I  The  National  Guard  does 
what  it  can  :  Municipality  'invokes  the  Principles  cf  Toleration  ;' 
grants  Dissident  worshippers  the  Church  of  the  Thcatins  j  .^ro- 
mising  protection.  But  it  is  to  no  purpose  :  at  the  door  of  that 
Theatins  Church,  appears  a  Placard,  and  suspended  atop,  Hke 
Plebeian  Consular  fasces^ — a  Bundle  of  Rods  !  The  Principles 
of  Toleration  must  do  the  best  they  may.  :  but  no  Dissident  m.an  . 
shall  worship  contumaciously  ;  there  is  a  Plcbiscitnm  to  that 
effect  ;  which,  though  unspoken,  is  like  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians.  Dissident  contumacious  Priests  ought  not  to  be  har- 
boured, even  in  private,  by  any  man  :  the  Club  of  the  Cordeliers 
openly  denounces  Majesty  himself  as  doing  it.+ 

Many  things  invite  to  flight  :  but  probably  this  thing  above  all 
others,  thac  it  has  l^ccome  impossible  !    On  the  15th  of  April, 
ce  is  given  that  his  Majesty,  who  has  suffered  much  from 
irrh  Lately,  will  enjoy  the  Spring  ^^  eather,  for  a  few  days,  at 
n-Cloud.    Out  at  Saint-Cloud?    Wishing  to  celebrate  his 
ter,  his  Pag  lies,  or  Pasch,  there  ;  with  refractory  Anti-Consti- 
tutional Dissidents  ?— Wishing  rather  to  make  off  for  Compiegne, 
and  thence  to  the  Frontiers  ?    As  were,  in  good  sooth,  perhaps 
sible,  or  would  once  have  been  ;  nothing  but  some  two  chasseurs 
ading  you  ;  chasseurs  easily  corrupted  !    It  is  a  pleasant  pos- 
•^iuility,  execute  it  or  not.    Men  say  there  are  thirty  thousand 

-  *  Toulon geon,  i.  262. 
t  Newspapers  of  April  and  June,  1791  (in  Hist,  Pari,  ix.  449 ;  x,  217). 


VARENNES, 


Chevaliers  of  the  Poniard  lurking  in  the  woods  there  :  lurking  in 
the  woods,  and  thirty  thousand,—  for  the  human  Imagination  is 
not  fettered.  But  now,  how  easily  might  these,  dashing  out  on 
Lafayette,  snatch  off  the  Hereditary  Representative  ;  and  roll 
away  with  him,  after  the  manner  of  a  whirlblast,  whither  they . 
listed  ! — Enough,  it  were  well  the  King  did  not  go.  Lafayette  is 
forewarned  and  fofearmed  :  but,  indeed,  is  the  risk  his  only ;  or 
his  and  all  France's  ? 

Monday  the  eighteenth  of  April  is  come  ;  the  Easter  Journey  to 
Saint-Cloud  shall  take  effect.    National  Guard  has  got  its  orders  ; 
a  First  Division,  as  Advanced  Guard,  has  even  marched,  and 
probably  arrived.    His  Majesty's  Maison-bouche,  they  say,  is  all  , 
bury  stewing  and  frying  at  Saint- Cloud  ;  the  King's  Dmner  not  ? 
far  from  ready  there.    About  one  o'clock,  the  Royal  Carriage,  with  i 
its  eight  royal  blacks,  shoots  stately  into  the  Place  du  Carrousel ; 
draws  up  to  receive  its  royal  burden.    But  hark  !    From  the  i 
neighbouring  Church  of  Saint-Roch,  the  tocsin  begins  ding-dong-  ^ 
ing.    Is  the  King  stolen  then  ;  he  is  going  ;  gone  ?    Multitudes  . 
of  persons  crowd  the  Carrousel  :  the  Royal  Carriage  still  stands 
there  ; — and,  by  Heaven's  strength,  shall  stand  !  ■ 
Lafayette  comes  up,  with  aide-de- camps  and  oratory  ;  pervading  | 
the  groups  :  "  Taisez  vous^'  answer  the  groups,  "  the  King  shall ; 
not  go."    Monsieur  appears,  at  an  upper  window  :  ten  thousand  i 
voices  bray  and  shriek,  "  Nous  7te  voulons  pas  que  le  Roi  parted  ' 
Their  Majesties  have  mounted.    Crack  go  the  whips  ;  but  twenty  ' 
Patriot  arms  have  seized  each  of  the  eight  bridles  :  there  is  rear- 
ing, rocking,  vociferation  ;  not  the  smallest  headway.    In  vain 
does  Lafayette  fret,  indignant  ;  and  perorate  and  strive  :  Patriots 
in  the  passion  of  terror,  bellow  round  the  Royal  Carriage  ;  it  is 
one  bellowing  sea  of  Patriot  terror  run  frantic.    Will  Royalty  fly 
off  towards  Austria  ;  like  a  lit  rocket,  towards  endless  Conflagra- 
tion of  Civil  War  ?    Stop  it,  ye  Patriots,  in  the  name  of  Fleaven  ! 
Rude  voices  passionately  apostrophise  Royalty  itself.  Usher 
Campan,  and  other  the  like  official  persons,  pressing  forward  with 
help  or  advice,  are  clutched  by  the  sashes,  and  hurled  and  whirled, 
in  a  confused  perilous  manner  ;  so  that  her  Majesty  has  to  plead 
passionately  from  the  carriage-window. 

Order  cannot  be  heard,  cannot  be  followed ;  National  Guards 
know  not  how  to  act.  Centre  Grenadiers,  of  the  Observatoire 
Battalion,  are  there  ;  not  on  duty  ;  alas,  in  quasi-mutiny  ;  speak- 
ing rude  disobedient  words  ;  threatening  the  mounted  Guards  with 
sharp  shot  if  they  hurt  the  people.  Lafayette  mounts  and  dis- 
mounts ;  runs  haranguing,  panting  ;  on  the  verge  of  despair.  For 
an  hour  and  three-quarters  ;  '  seven  quarters  of  an  hour,'  by  the 
Tuilerics  Clock  !  Desperate  Lafayette  will  open  a  passage,  were 
it  by  the  cannon's  mouth,  if  his  Majesty  will  order.  Their  Majes- 
ties, counselled  to  it  by  Royalist  friends,  by  Patriot  foes,  dismount; 
and  retire  in,  with  heavy  indignant  heart  ;  giving  up  the  enter- 
prise, Maison-bouche  may  eat  that  cooked  dinner  themselves; 
his  Majesty  shall  not  see  Saint-Cloud  this  day,— or  any  day."*' 
*  Deux  Amis,  vi.  c.  i ;  Hist,  ParL  ix.  407-14, 


EASTER  AT  PARIS. 


The  pathetic  fable  of  imprisonment  in  one's  own  Palace  has 
become  a  sad  fact,  then  ?  Majesty  complains  to  Assembly  ;  Mu- 
nicipality deliberates,  proposes  to  petition  or  address  ;  Sections 
respond  with  sullen  brevity  of  negation.  Lafayette  flings  down 
his  Commission  ;  appears  in  civic  pepper-and-salt  frock  ;  and 
cannot  be  flattered  back  again  ;— not  in  less  than  three  days  ;  and 
by  unheard-of  entreaty  ;  National  Guards  kneeling  to  him,  and 
declaring  that  it  is  not  sycophancy,  that  they  are  free  men  kneel- 
ing here  to  the  Statue  of  Liberty.  For  the  rest,  those  Centre 
Grenadiers  of  the  Observatoire  are  disbanded,— yet  indeed  are 
reinlisted,  all  but  fourteen,  under  a  new  name,  and  with  new  quar- 
ters. The  King  must  keep  his  Easter  in  Paris  :  meditating  much 
on  this  singular  posture  of  things :  but  as  good  as  determined  now 
to  fly  from  it,  desire  being  whetted  by  difficulty. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EASTER    AT  PARIS. 

For  above  a  year,  ever  since  March  1790,  it  would  seem,  there 
has  hovered  a  project  of  Flight  before  the  royal  mind  ;  and  ever 
and  anon  has  been  condensing  itself  into  something  hke  a  pur- 
pose ;  but  this  or  the  other  difficulty  always  vaporised  it  again.  It 
seems  so  full  of  risks,  perhaps  of  civil  war  itself ;  above  all,  it 
cannot  be  done  without  effort.  Somnolent  laziness  will  not  serve  : 
to  fly,  if  not  in  a  leather  vache,  one  must  verily  stir  himself.  Better 
to  adopt  that  Constitution  of  theirs  ;  execute  it  so  as  to  shew  all 
men  that  it  is  /;^executable  ?  Better  or  not  so  good  ;  surely  it  is 
easier.  To  all  difficulties  you  need  only  say,  There  is  a  lion  in 
the  path,  behold  your  Constitution  will  not  act  !  For  a  somno- 
lent person  it  requires  no  effort  to  counterfeit  death,— as  Dame 
de  Stael  and  Friends  of  Liberty  can  see  the  King's  Government 
long  Aowi^^faisant  le  mort. 

Nay  now,  when  desire  whetted  by  difficuUy  has  brought  the 
matter  to  a  head,  and  the  royal  mind  no  longer  halts  between 
two,  vv'hat  can  come  of  it  1  Grant  that  poor  Louis  were  safe  with 
Bouille,  what  on  the  whole  could  he  look  for  there  ?  Exasperated 
Tickets  of  Entry  answer,  Much,  all.  But  cold  Reason  answers, 
Litde  almost  nothing.  Is  not  loyalty  a  law  of  Nature?  ask  the 
Tickets  of  Entry.  Is  not  love  of  your  King,  and  even  death  for 
him,  the  glory  of  all  Frenchmen,— except  these  few  Democrats  ? 
Let  Democrat  Constitution-builders  see  what  they  will  do  without 
their  Keystone  ;  and  France  rend  its  hair,  having  lost  the  Here- 
ditary Representative  ! 

Thus  will  King  Louis  fly  ;  one  sees  not  reasonably  toward.s 
what.  As  a  -na'treated  Boy,  shall  vve  say,  wlio,  having  a  Step- 
mother, rushes  sulky  into  the  wide  world  ;  and  will  wring  the 
paternal  heart  ?— Poor  Louis  escapes  from  known  unsupportable 


VARENNES. 


evils,  to  an  unknown  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  coloured  by  Hope. 
He  goes,  as  Rabelais  did  when  dying,  to  seek  a  great  May-be  :  je 
vais  chercher  nn  grand  Peut-e ire  /  As  not  only  the  sulky  Boy 
but  the  wise  grown  Man  is  obliged  to  do,  so  often,  in  emer- 
gencies. 

For  the  rest,  there  is  still  no  lack  of  stimulants,  and  stepdame 
maltreatments,  to  keep  one's  resolution  at  the  due  pitch  Factious 
disturbance  ceases  not  :  as  indeed  how  can  they,  unless  authori- 
tatively conju7'ed^  in  a  Revolt  which  is  by  nature  bottomless  ?  If 
the  ceasing  of  faction  be  the  price  of  the  King's  somnolence,  he 
may  awake  when  he  will,  and  take  wing. 

Remark,  in  any  case,  what  somersets  and  contortions  a  dead 
Catholicism  is  making,— skilfully  galvanised  :  hideous,  and  even 
piteous,  to  behold  !  Jurant  and  Dissident,  with  their  shaved 
crowns,  argue  frothing  everywhere  ;  or  are  ceasing  to  argue,  and 
stripping  for  battle.  In  Paris  was  .scourging  while  need  con- 
tinued :  contrariwise,  in  the  Morbihan  of  Brittany,  without 
scourging,  armed  Peasants  are  up,  roused  by  pulpit-drum,  they 
know  not  why.  General  Dumouriez,  v^/ho  has  got  missioned 
thitherward,  finds  all  in  sour  heat  of  darkness  ;  finds  also  that 
explanation  and  conciliation  will  still  do  much."^ 

But  again,  consider  this :  that  his  Holiness,  Pius  Sixth,  has  seen 
good  to  excommunicate  Bisphop  Talleyrand  !  Surely,  we  will  say 
then,  considering  it,  there  is  no  living  or  dead  Church  in  the  Earth 
that  has  not  the  indubitablest  right  t6  excommunicate  Talleyrand. 
Pope  Pius  has  right  and  might,  in  his  way.  But  truly  so  likewise 
has  Father  Adam,  ci-devant  Marquis  Saint- Huruge,  in  his  way. 
Behold,  therefore,  on  the  Fourth  of  May,  in  the  Palais-Royal,  a 
mixed  loud-sounding  multitude  ;  in  the  middle  of  whom,  Father 
Adam,  bull-voiced  Saint-Huruge,  in  white  hat,  towers  visible  and 
audible.  With  him,  it  is  said,  walks  Journalist  Gorsas,  walk  many 
others  of  the  washed  sort ;  for  no  authority  will  interfere.  Pius 
Sixth,  with  his  plush  and  tiara,  and  power  of  the  Keys,  they  bear 
aloft :  of  natural  size, — made  of  lath  and  combustible  gum. 
Royou,  the  King's  Friend,  is  borne  too  in  effigy  ;  with  a  pile  of 
Newspaper  Kzng^s-Eriends,  condemned  numbers  of  the  Avii-du- 
Roi ;  fit  fuel  of  "the  sacrifice.  Speeches  are  spoken  ;  a  judgment 
is  held,  a  doom  proclaimed,  audible  in  bull-voice,  towards  the  four 
winds.  And  thus,  amid  great  shouting,  the  holocaust  is  consum- 
mated, under  the  summer  sky  ;'and  our  lath-and-gum  Holiness, 
with,  the  attendant  victims,  mounts  up  in  flame,  and  sinks  down 
in  ashes  ;  a  decomposed  l^ope  :  and  right  or  might,  among  all  the 
parties,  has  better  or  worse  accomplished  itself,  as  it  could. f 
But,  on  the  whole,  reckoning  from  Martin  Luther  in  the  Market- 
place of  Wittenberg  to  Marquis  Saint-Huruge  in  this  Palais-Royal 
of  Paris,  what  a  journey  have  we  gone  ;  into  what  strange  terri- 
tories has  it  carried  us  !  No  Authority  can  now  interfere.  Nay 
Religion  herself,  mourning  for  such  thmgs,  may  after  all  ask,  What 
have  I  to  do  with  ihem? 

In  such  extraordinary  manner  does  dead  Catholicism  somerset 
*  Deux  Amis,  v.  410-21;  Bumouriez,  ii.  c.  5.       f  His!.  Pari.  \.  ^9-102. 


COUNT  FERSEN. 


Hi 


and  caper,  skilfully  galvanised.  For,  does  the  reader  inquire  into 
the  subject-matter  of  controversy  in  this  case  ;  what  tiie  difference 
between  Orthodoxy  or  My-doxy  and  Heterodoxy  or  llty-doxy 
might  here  be  ?  My-doxy  is  that  an  august  National  Assembly 
can  equalize  the  extent  of  Bishopricks  ;  that  an  equalized  Bishop, 
his  Creed  and  Formularies  being  left  quite  as  they  were,  can  swear 
Fidehty  to  King,  Law  and  Nation,  and  so  become  a  Constitutional 
Bishop.  Thy-doxy,  if  thou  be  Dissident,  is  that  he  cannot  ;  but 
that  he  must  become  an  accursed  thing.  Human  ill-nature  needs 
but  some  Homoiousian  iota^  or  even  the  pretence  of  one  ;  and 
will  flow  copiously  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  :  thus  always  must 
mortals  go  jargoning  and  fuming, 

And,  like  the  ancient  Stoics  in  their  porches. 
With  fierce  dispute  maintain  their  churches. 

This  Auto-da-fe  of  Saint-Huruge's  was  on  the  Fourth  of  May, 
179 1.    Royalty  sees  it  ;  but  says  nothing. 


CHAPTER  HL 

COUNT  FERSEN. 


Royalty,  in  fact,  should,  by  this  time,  be  far  on  with  its  prepa- 
rations. Unhappily  much  preparation  is  needful  :  could  a  Here- 
ditary Representative  be  carried  in  leather  vacJie^  how  easy  were 
it !    But  it  is  not  so. 

New  clothes  are  needed  ;  as  usual,  in  all  Epic  transactions, 
were  it  in  the  grimmest  iron  ages  ;  consider  *  Queen  Chrimhilde, 
*with  her  sixty  semstresses,'  in  that  iron  Nibehtnge-n  Son^  I  No 
Queen  can  stir  without  new  clothes.  Therefore,  now,  Dame 
Campan  whisks  assiduous  to  this  mantua-maker  and  to  that  :  and 
there  is  clipping  of  trocks  and  gowns,  upper  clothes  and  under, 
great  and  small ;  such  a  clipping  and  sewing,  as  might  have  been 
dispensed  with.  Moreover,  her  Majesty  cannot  go  a  step  any- 
whither  without  her  Necesscm^e ;  dear  Nccessaite^  of  inlaid  ivory 
and  rosewood  ;  cunningly  devised  ;  which  holds  perfumes,  toilet- 
implements,  infinite  small  queenlike  furnitures  :  Necessary  to  ter- 
restrial life  Not  without  a  cost  of  some  five  hundred  louis,  of 
much  precious  time,  and  difficult  hoodwinking  which  does  not 
blind,  can  this  same  Necessary  of  life  be  forwarded  by  the 
Flanders  Carriers, — never  to  get  to  hand.*  All  which,  you  would 
say,  augurs  ill  for  the  prospering  of  the  enterprise.  But  the 
whims  of  women  and  queens  must  be  humoured. 

Bouill^,  on  his  side,  is  making  a  fortified  Camp  at  Montmedi ; 
gathering  Royal- Allemand,  and  all  manner  of  other  German  and 
true  French  Troops  thither,  '  to  watch  the  Austrians.'  His 
Majesty  will  not  cross  the  Frontiers,  unless  on  compulsion. 

*  Campan,  li,  c.  18. 


VARENNES. 


Neither  shall  the  Emigrants  be  much  employed,  hateful  as  they 
are  to  all  people."^    Nor  shall  ©Id  war-god  Broglie  have  any  hand 
in  the  business  ;  but  solely  our  brave  Bouille  ;  to  whom,  on  the 
day  of  meeting,  a  Marshal's  Baton  shall  be  dehvered,  by  a, 
rescued  King,  amid  the  shouting  of  all  the  troops.    In  the  mean- 
while, Paris  being  so  suspicious,  were  it  not  perhaps  good  to 
write  your  Foreign  Ambassadors  an  ostensible  Constitutional; 
Letter  ;  desiring  all  Kings  and  men  to  take  heed  that  King  Louis,; 
loves  the  Constitution,  that  he  has  voluntarily  sworn,  and  does 
again  swear,  to  maintain  the  same,  and  will  reckon  those  his  ene- , 
mies  who  affect  to  say  otherwise?    Such  a  Constitutional  Circular, 
is  despatched  by  Couriers,  is  communicated  confidentially  to  ther 
Assembly,   and  printed  in  all   Newspapers ;   with  the  finest 
effect.f  Simulation  and  dissimulation  mingle  extensively  in  human :; 
affairs. 

We  observe,  however,  that  Count  Fersen  is  often  using  his' 
Ticket  of  Entry  ;  which  surely  he  has  clear  right  to  do.  ^  A  gallantf 
Soldier  and  Swede,  devoted  to  this  fair  Queen  ;— as  indeed  the  [ 
Highest  Swede  now  is.  Has  not  King  Gustav,  famed  fiery  Cheva-l 
Her  du  Nord,  sworn  himself,  by  the  old  laws  of  chivalry,  her: 
Knight?  He  will  descend  on  fire-wings,  of  Swedish  musketrjr;; 
and  deliver  her  from  these  foul  dragons, — if,  alas,  the  assassin  s  1 
pistol  intervene  not  ! 

But,  in  fact,  Count  Fersen  does  seem  a  likely  young  soldier,  of 
alert  decisive  ways  :  he  circulates  widely,  seen,  unseen  ;  and  has 
business  on  hand.  Also  Colonel  the  Duke  de  Choiseul,  nephew  of 
Choiseul  the  great,  of  Choiseul  the  now  deceased  ;  he  and  Engineer 
Goguelat  are  passing  and  repassing  between  Metz  and  the 
Tuileries  ;  and  Letters  go  in  cipher, — one  of  them,  a  most 
important  one,  hard  to  ^<?cipher  ;  Fersen  having  ciphered  it  in 
haste.l  As  for  Duke  de  Villequier,  he  i-.  gone  ever  since  the  Day 
of  Poniards  ;  but  his  Apartment  is  useful  for  her  Majesty. 

On  the  other  side,  poor  Commandant  Gouv^on,  watching  at  the 
Tuileries,  second  in  National  Command,  sees  several  things  hard 
to  interpret.  It  is  the  same  Gouvion  who  sat,  long  months  ago, 
at  the  Townhall,  gazing  helpless  int  that  Insurrection  of  Women; 
motionless,  as  the  brave  stabled  steed  when  conflagration  rises, 
till  Usher  Maillard  snatched  his  drum.  Sincerer  Patriot  there  is 
not  ;  but  many  a  shiftier.  He,  if  Dame  Campan  gossip  credibly, 
is  paying  some  similitude  of  love-court  to  a  certain  false  Chamber- 
maid of  the  Palace,  who  betrays  much  to  him  :  the  N^cessaire,  the 
clothes,  the  packing  of  jewels,§— could  he  understand  it  when 
betrayed.  Helpless  Gouvion  gazes  with  sincere  glassy  eyes  into 
it ;  stirs  up  his  sentries  to  vigilance ;  walks  restless  to  and  fro ; 
and  hopes  the  best. 

But,  on  the  whole,  one  fmds  that,  in  the  second  week  of  JunCi 

*  Bouill6,  M^moires,  ii.  c.  lo. 

t  Moniieur,  Stance  du  23  Avril,  1791. 

X  CJhoiseul,  Relation  du  Ddparl  d     ouis  XVL  (Paris,  1822),  p.  39. 
§  Campan,  ii.  141. 


COUNT  FERSEN. 


113 


Coif  >nel  de  Choiseul  is  privately  in  Paris  ;  having  come  '  to  see  his 
'  children.'  Also  that  Fersen  has  got  a  stupendous  new  Coach 
built,  of  the  kind  named  Berline  ;  done  by  the  first  artists  ;  accord- 
ing to  a  model  :  they  bring  it  home  to  him,  in  ChoiseuFs  presence; 
the  two  friends  take  a  proof-drive  in  it,  along  the  streets  ;  in 
meditative  mood  ;  then  send  it  up  to  '  Madame  Sullivan's,  in  the 
*  Rue  de  Clichy,'  far  North,  to  wait  there  till  wanted.  Apparently 
a  certain  Russian  Baroness  de  Korff,  with  Waiting-woman,  Valet, 
and  two  Children,  will  travel  homewards  with  some  state  :  in 
whom  these  young  military  gentlemen  take  interest  ?  A  Passport 
has  been  procured  for  her  ;  and  much  assistance  shewn,  with 
Coach-builders  and  such  like ; — so  helpful  polite  are  young  military- 
men.  Fersen  has  likewise  purchased  a  Chaise  fit  for  two,  at  least 
for  two  waiting-maids  ;  further,  certain  necessary  horses  :  one 
would  say,  he  is  himself  quitting  France,  not  without  outlay  ?  We 
observe  finally  that  their  Majesties,  Heaven  willing,  will  assist  at 
Corpiis-Christi  Day,  this  blessed  Summer  Solstice,  in  Assumption 
Church,  here  at  Paris,  to  the  joy  of  all  the  world.  For  which  same 
day,  moreover,  brave  Bouille,  at  Metz,  as  we  find,  has  invited  a 
party  of  friends  to  dinner  ;  but  indeed  is  gone  from  home,  in  the 
interim,  over  to  Montmedi. 

These  are  of  the  Phenomena,  or  visual  Appearances,  of  this 
wide-working  terrestrial  world  :  which  truly  is  all  phenomenal, 
what  they  call  spectral ;  and  never  rests  at  any  moment ;  one 
never  at  any  moment  can  know  why. 

On  Monday  night,  the  Twentieth  of  June  1791,  about  eleven 
o'clock,  there  is  many  a  hackney-coach,  and  glass-coach  {carrosse 
de  remise),  still  rumbling,  or  at  rest,  on  the  streets  of  Paris.  But 
of  all  Glass-coaches,  we  recommend  this  to  thee,  O  Reader,  which 
stands  drawn  up,  in  the  Rue  de  FEchelle,  hard  by  the  Carrousel 
and  outgate  of  the  Tuileries  ;  in  the  Rue  de  TEchelle  that  then 
was  ;  '  opposite  Ronsin  the  saddler's  door,'  as  if  waiting  for  a  fare 
there  !  Not  long  does  it  wait :  a  hooded  Dame,  with  two  hooded 
Children  has  issued  from  Villequier's  door,  where  no  sentry  walks, 
into  the  Tuileries  Court-of-Princes  ;  into  the  Carrousel ;  into  the 
Rue  de  I'Echelle  ;  where  the  Glass-coachman  readily  admits  them; 
and  again  waits.  Not  long  ;  another  Dame,  likewise  hooded  or 
shrouded,  leaning  on  a  servant,  issues  in  the  same  manner  ;  bids 
the  servant  good  night ;  and  is,  in  the  same  manner,  by  the  Glass- 
coachman,  cheerfully  admitted.  Whither  go,  so  many  Dames? 
'Tis  His  Majesty's  Couchee,  Majesty  just  gone  to  bed,  and  all  the 
Palace-world  is  retiring  home.  But  the  (jlass-coachman  still  waits; 
his  fare  seemingly  incomplete. 

By  and  by,  we  note  a  thickset  Individual,  in  round  hat  and 
peruke,  arm-and-arm  with  some  servant,  seemingly  of  the  Runner 
or  Courier  sort  ;  he  also  issues  through  Villequier's  door  ;  starts  a 
shoebuckle  as  he  passes  one  of  the  sentries,  stoops  down  to  clasp 
it  again  ;  is  however,  by  the  Glass-coachman,  still  more  clieerfully 
admitted.  And //^w,  is  his  fare  complete  ?  Not  yet;  the  Glass- 
coachman  still  waits.— Alas  !   and  the  false  Chambermaid  has 


114 


VARENNES. 


warned  Gouvion  that  she  thinks  the  Royal  Family  will  fly  this  very 
night ;  and  Gouvion  distrusting  his  own  glazed  eyes,  has  sent 
express  for  Lafayette  ;  and  Lafayette's  Carriage,  flaring  with  lights, 
l"olls  this  moment  through  the  inner  Arch  of  the  Carrousel,— where 
a  Lady  shaded  in  broad  gypsy-hat,  and  leaning  on  the  arm  of  a 
servant,  also  of  the  Runner  or  Courier  sort,  stands  aside  to  let  it 
pass,  and  has  even  the  whim  to  touch  a  spoke  of  it  with  her  badhie^ ; 
— light  little  magic  rod  which  she  calls  badi7te^  such  as  the  Beauti- 
ful then  wore.  The  flare  of  Lafayette's  Carriage,  rolls  past  :  all  is  \ 
found  quiet  in  the  Court-of-Princes  ;  sentries  at  their  post ; 
Majesties'  Apartments  closed  in  smooth  rest.  Your  false  Cham- 
bermaid must  have  been  mistaken  Watch  thou,  Gouvion,  with  \ 
Argus'  vigilance  ;  for,  of  a  truth,  treachery  is  within  these  walls. 

But  where  is  the  Lady  that  stood  aside  in  gypsy  hat,  and  touched 
the  wheel-spoke  with  her  badine  f  O  Reader,  that  Lady  that 
touched  the  wheel-spoke  was  the  Queen  of  France  1  She  has 
issued  safe  through  that  inner  Arch,  into  the  Carrousel  itself ;  but 
not  into  the  Rue  de  I'Echelle.  Flurried  by  the  rattle  and  ren- 
counter, she  took  the  right  hand  not  the  left  ;  neither  she  nor  her 
Courier  knows  Paris  ;  he  indeed  is  no  Courier,  but  a  loyal  stupid 
cz-devanl  Bodyguard  disguised  as  one.  They  are  off,  quite  wrong, 
over  the  Pont  Royal  and  River ;  roaming  disconsolate  in  the  Rue 
du  Bac  ;  far  from  the  Glass-coachman,  who  still  waits.  Waits, 
with  flutter  of  heart ;  with  thoughts — which  he  must  button  close 
up,  under  his  jarvie  surtout  ! 

Midnight  clangs  from  all  the  City  -  steeples  ;  one  precious 
hour  has  been  spent  so  ;  most  mortals  are  asleep.  The  Glass- 
coachman  waifs  ;  and  what  mood  !  A  brother  jarvie  drives 
up,  enters  into  conversation ;  is  answered  cheerfully  in  jarvie 
dialect  :  the  brothers  of  the  whip  exchange  a  pinch  of  snuff 
decline  drinking  together ;  and  part  with  good  night.  Be  the 
Heavens  blest  !  here  at  length  is  the  Oueen-lady,  in  gypsy-hat  ; 
safe  after  perils  ;  who  has  had  to  inquire  her  way.  She  too  is 
admitted  ;  her  Courier  jumps  aloft,  as  the  other,  who  is  also  a 
disguised  Bodyguard,  has  done  :  and  now,  O  Glass-coachman  of 
a  thousand, — Count  Fersen,  for  the  Reader  sees  it  is  thou, — 
drive  ! 

Dust  shall  not  stick  to  the  hoofs  of  Fersen  :  crack  !  crack  !  the 
Glass-coach  rattles,  and  every  soul  breathes  lighter.  But  is 
Fersen  on  the  right  road  ?  Northeastward,  to  the  Barrier  of 
Saint-Martin  and  Metz  Highway,  thither  were  we  bound  :  and  lo, 
he  drives  right  Northward  !  The  royal  Individual,  in  round  hat 
and  peruke,  sits  astonished  ;  but  right  or  wrong,  there  is  no 
remedy.  Crack,  crack,  we  go  incessant,  through  the  slumbering 
City.  Seldom,  since  J^aris  rose  out  of  mud,  or  the  Longhaired 
Kings  went  in  Bullock-carts,  was  there  such  a  drive.  Mortals  on 
each  hand  of  you,  close  by,  stretched  out  horizontal,  donrmnt; 
and  we  alive  and  quaking  !  Crack,  crack,  through  the  Rue  de 
(jrammont ;  across  the  Boulevard  ;  up  the  Rue  de  la  Chauss(fe 
d'Antin, — these  windows,  all  silent,  of  Number  42,  were  Mira- 
*  Weber,  ii.  340-2 ;  Choiseul,  p.  44-56. 


COUNT  fersen: 


115 


beau's.  Towards  the  Barrier  not  of  Saint- Martin,  but  of  Clichy 
on  the  utmost  North  !  Patience,  ye  royal  Individuals  ;  Fersen 
understands  what  he  is  about.  Passing  up  the  Rue  de  CHchy, 
he  alights  for  one  moment  at  Madame  Sullivan's  :  "  Did  Count 
Fersen's  Coachman  get  the  Baroness  de  Korff's  new  Bcrline?" — 
*^  Gone  wqth  it  an  hour-and-half  ago,"  grumbles  responsive  the 
drowsy  Porter.—"  Cest  bienP  Yes,  it  is  well  ;— though  had  not 
such  hour-and  half  been  lost,  it  were  still  better.  Forth  therefore, 
O  Fersen,  fast,  by  the  Barrier  de  Clichy  ;  then  Eastward  along 
the  Outward  Boulevard,  what  horses  and  whipcord  can  do  ! 

Thus  Fersen  drives,  through  the  ambrosial  night.  Sleeping  Paris 
is  now  all  on  the  right  hand  of  him  ;  silent  except  for  some  snoring 
hum ;  and  now  he  is  Eastward  as  far  as  the  Carrier  de  Saint- 
Martin  ;  looking  earnestly  for  Baroness  de  Korff's  Berhne.  ^  This 
Heaven's  Berline  he  at  length  does  descry,  drawn  up  with  its  six 
horses,  his  own  German  Coachman  waiting  on  the  box.  Right, 
thou  good  German  :  now  haste,  whither  thou  knowest  !— And  as 
for  us  of  the  Glass-coach,  haste  too,  O  haste;  much  time  is 
already  lost  !  The  august  Glass-coach  fare,  six  Insides,  hastily 
packs  itself  into  the  new  Berline ;  two  Bodyguard  Couriers 
behind.  The  Glass-coach  itself  is  turned  adrift,  its  head  towards 
the  City  ;  to  wander  whither  it  lists,— and  be  found  next  morning 
tumbled  in  a  ditch,  But  Fersen  is  on  the  new  box,  with  its  brave 
new  hammer-cloths  ;  flourishing  his  whip  ;  he  bolts  forward 
towards  Bondy.  There  a  third  and  final  Bodyguard  Courier  of 
ours  ought  surely  to  be,  with  post-horses  ready-ordered.  There 
likewise  ought  that  purchased  Chaise,  with  the  two  Waiting-maids 
and  their  bandboxes  to  be  ;  whom  also  her  Majesty  could  not 
travel  without.  Swift,  thou  deft  Fersen,  and  may  the  Heavens 
turn  it  well ! 

Once  more,  by  Heaven's  blessing,  it  is  all  well.  Here  is  the 
sleeping  Hamlet  of  Bondy  ;  Chaise  with  Waiting-women  ;  horses 
all  ready,  and  postillions  with  their  churn  boots,  impatient  in  the 
dewy  dawn.  Brief  harnessing  done,  the  postillions  with  their 
churn-boots  vault  into  the  saddles  ;  brandish  circularly  their  little 
noisy  whips.  Fersen,  under  his  jarvie-surtout,  bends  in  lowly 
silent  reverence  of  adieu  ;  royal  hands  wave  speechless  inexpres- 
sible response  ;  Baroness  de  Korff's  Berhne,  with  the  Royalty  of 
France,  bounds  off :  for  ever,  as  it  proved.  Deft  Fersen  dashes 
obliquely  Northward,  through  the  country,  to^vards  Bougret  ; 
gains  Bougret,  finds  his  German  Coachman  and  chariot  waiting 
there  ;  cracks  off,  and  drives  undiscovered  into  unknown  space. 
A  deft  active  man,  we  say  ;  what  he  undertook  to  do  is  nimbly 
and  successfully  done.  * 

And  so  the  Royalty  of  France  is  actually  fledj^  This  precious 
night,  the  shortest  of  the  year,  it  flies  and  drives  !  Baroness  de 
Korff  is,  at  bottom,  Dame  de  Tourzel,  Governess  of  the  Royal 
Children  :  she  who  came  hooded  with  the  two  hooded  little  ones  ; 
little  Dauphin  ;  little  Madame  Royale,  known  long  afterwards  as 
Duchess  d'AngoLileme.    Baroness  de  KorfPs  IVaithi^-maiU  <-s  the 


ii6 


VARENNES, 


Oueen  in  gypsy-hat.  The  royal  Individual  in  round  hat  and 
peruke,  he  is  Valet,  for  the  time  being.  That  other  hooded  Dame, 
styled  Travellmg-companion,  is  kind  Sister  Elizabeth  ;  she  had 
sworn,  long  since,  when  the  Insurrection  of  Women  was,  that  only 
death  should  part  her  and  them.  And  so  they  rush  there,  not  too 
impetuously,  through  the  Wood  of  Bondy  :— over  a  Rubicon  in  ; 
their  own  and  France's  History.  ^  ■ 

Great  ;  though  the  future  is  all  vague  !  If  we  reach  Bouille?  , 
If  we  do  not  reach  him?  O  Louis  !  and  this  all  round  thee  is 
the  great  slumbering  Earth  (and  overhead,  the  great  watchful 
Heaven)  ;  the  slumbering  Wood  of  Bondy,— where  Longhaired 
Childeric  Donothing  was  struck  through  with  iron  not  un- 
reasonably. These  peaked  stone-towers  are  Raincy  ;  towers  of 
wicked  d'Orleans.  All  slumbers  save  the  multiplex  rustle  of  our 
new  Berhne.  Loose-skirted  scarecrow  of  an  Herb-merchant, 
with  his  ass  and  early  greens,  toilsomely  plodding,  seems  the  only 
creature  we  meet.  But  right  ahead  the  great  North-East  sends 
up  evermore  his  gray  brindled  dawn  :  from  dewy  branch,  birds 
here*  and  there,  with 'short  deep  warble,  salute  the  coming  Sun. 
Stars  fade  out,  and  Galaxies  ;  Street-lamps  of  the  City  of  God. 
The  Universe,  O  my  brothers,  is  flinging  wide  its  portals  for  the 
Levee  of  the  Great  High  King.  Thou,  poor  King  Louis,  farest 
nevertheless,  as  mortals  do,  towards  Orient  lands  of  Hope  ;  and 
the  Tuileries  with  its  Levees,  and  France  and  the  Earth  itself,  is 
but  a  larger  kind  of  doghutch, — occasionally  going  rabid. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ATTITUDE. 

But  in  Paris,  at  six  in  the  morning  ;  when  some  Patriot  Deputy, 
warned  by  a  billet,  awoke  Lafayette,  and  they  went  to  the  Tuil- 
eries ? — Imagination  may  paint,  but  words  cannot,  the  surprise  of 
Lafayette  ;  or  with  what  bewilderment  Helpless  Gouvion  rolled 
glassy  Argus^  eyes,  discerning  now  that  his  false  Chambermaid 
had  told  true  ! 

However,  it  is  to  be  recorded  that  Paris,  thanks  to  an  august 
National  Assembly,  did,  on  this  seeming  doomsday,  surpass  itself. 
Never,  according  to  Historian  eye-witnesses,  was  there  seen  such 
an  'imposing  attitude.'f  Sections  all  '  in  permanence  ; '  our 
Townhalf,  too,  having  first,  about  ten  o'clock,  tired  three  solemn 
alarm-canncns  :  above  all,  our  I^ational  Assembly  !  National 
Assembly,  hkewise  permanent,  decides  what  is  needful  ;  with 
unanimous  consent,  for  the  Cote  J)roit  sits  dumb,  afraid  of  the 
Lanterne.    Decides  with  a  calm  promptitude,  which  rises  towards 

*  Hdnault,  Ahrdi^d  Chroiwlogiqne,  p.  36.  -  • 

f  Deux  Amis,  vi.  67-178;  I'oulongeon,  ii.  1-38;  Caniille,  Prudhomme  and 
Bkiitors  /;n  Hist.  Fart.  x.  240-4). 


ATTITUDE.  "7 


S^3lime.  One  must  needs  vote,  for  the  thing  .s  self-ev  den^ 
hat  Maiesty  has  been  abducted,  or  spirited  away,  .«/^.  '^,  by 
some  person  or  persons  unknown  :  in  which  case,  what  will  the 
Constimdon  have^us  do  ?  Let  us  return  to  first  principles,  as  we 
plwavs  sav  ;  "  revenons  a2ix  principes.  •  i  ^  . 

By  firs  or  bv  second  pnnciples,  much  is  promptly  decided 
Mi^  sters  are  sent  for,  instructed  how  to  continue  their  functions  , 
Lafovet  e  fs  examined  ;  and  Gouvion,  who  gives  a  most  helpless 
t-^o  mt  the  best  he  can.  Letters  are  found  written  :  one  Lettei, 
immense  mSi'tude  ;  all  m  his  Majesty's  hand  and  evident ly 
of  his  Maiesty's  own  composition  ;  addressed  to  the  ^atlon.^l 
AssSb  y  -^  It  details,  with  earnestness,  with  a  childlike  simplicity, 
whatToeshis  Majes  yhas  suffered.  Woes  great  and  small  :  A 
Seeker  seen  applauded,  a  Maje  then  insurrection;  want 

of  due  cash  in  Civil  List  ;  general  want  of  cash,  iurniture  and 
o  d.r-  anarchy  everywhere  f  Deficit  never  yet  m  the  smallest 
^^Slk  or  .--wherefore  in  brief  His  Ma;,estyhas  retired 

towards  a  Race  of  Liberty  ;  and,  leaving  Sanctions,  Federation, 
and  what  Oaths  there  ma^  be,  to  shift  for  themse^^^^^^^^ 
refer-to  what,  thinks  an  august  Assembly?  Jl  o  tMt  Dec.ara 
'  t  on  of  the  Twenty-third  of  June,'  with  ^X.^  '  Seul  il  fera, 
alone  w  U  make  his  People  happy."    As  if        were  not  buried, 
deep  enough,  under  two  irrevocable  Twelvemonths,  and  the  wrecj^ 
and'^ruSbish  of  a  whole  Feud-  World  !    This  strange  autograp^ 
Letter  the  National  Assembly  decides  on  printing  ;  on  transmit- 
ting to  the  Eighty-three  Departments,  with  exegetic  commentary, 
short  but  pithy.    Commissioners  ,  so  shall  go  forth  on  all  sides  ; 
the  People  be  exhorted  ;  the  Armies  be  increased  ;  care  takeii 
that  the  Commonweal  suffer  no  damage.-And  now,  with  a  sub- 
lime air  o_f^ calmness,  nay  of  indifference,  we  'pass  to  the  order, of 

'^By'^such  sublime  calmness,  the  terror  of  the  People  is  calmed. 
Thele  gleaming  Pike  forests  which  bristled  fateful  m  the  early 
sun,  disappear  again;  the  far-sounding  Street-orators  cease  o. 
spout  milder.    We  are  to  have  a  civil  war  ;  let  us  have  it  then 
The  King  is  gone  ;  but  National  Assembly,  but  France  and  we 
remahi    The  People  also  takes  a  great  attitude  ;  the  People  also 
I";  motionless  as  acouchant  lion    With  but  a  fevv 
some  waggings  of  the  tail ;  to  shew  what  it  will  do  !    Cazaks,  lor 
instance,  was  beset  by  street- groups,  and  cries  ^\^f}''V!ii.^^l 
National  Patrols  easily  delivered  him.    Likewise  all  King  s  eftigies 
and  statues,  at  least  stucco  ones,  get  abolished.    Even  Km  s 
names  ;  the  word  Roi  fades  suddenly  out  of  all  shop- signs  the 
Royal  Bengal  Tiger  itself,  on  the  Boulevards,  becomes  the  National 
Bengal  one,  Tigre  National* 

How  great  is  a  calm  couchant  People  !  On  the  morrow,  men 
will  say  to  one  another  :  "  We  have  no  King  yet  we  slept  sound 
enough."  On  the  morrow,  fervent  Achille  de  Chatelet,  and  Thomas 
Paine  the  rebellious  Needleman,  shall  have  the  walls  of  Pans  pro- 
fasely  plastered  with  their  Placard  ;  announcing  that  there  must 
*  Waljioliana, 


ii8  ^  VARENNES. 


be  a  Republic  /'^—IsQ.^di  we  add  that  Lafayette  too,  though  at  first 
menaced  by  Pikes,  has  taken  a  great  attitude,  or  indeed  the 
greatest  of  all  ?  Scouts  and  Aides-de-camp  fly  forth,  vague,  in 
quest  and  pursuit ;  young  Romoeuf  towards  Valenciennes,  though 
with  small  hope. 

Thus  Paris  ;  subhmely  cahned,  in  its  bereavement.  But  from 
the  Messageries  Roy  ales  ^'m  aU  Mail-bags,  radiates  forth  far-darting 
the  electric  news  :  Our  Hereditary  Representative  is  flown. 
Laugh,  black  Royalists  :  yet  be  it  in  your  sleeve  only  ;  lest 
Patriotism  notice,  and  waxing  frantic,  lower  the  Lanterne  !  In 
Paris  alone  is  a  sublime  National  Assembly  with  its  calmness  ; 
truly,  other  places  must  take  it  as  they  can  :  with  open  mouth  and 
eyes  ;  with  panic  cackling,  with  wrath,  with  conjecture.  How 
each  one  of  those  dull  leathern  Diligences,  with  its  leathern  bag 
and  '  The  King  is  fled/  furrows  up  smooth  France  as  it  goes  ; 
through  town  and  hamlet,  ruffles  the  smooth  public  mind  into 
quivering  agitation  of  death -terror  ;  then  lumbers  on,  as  if  nothing 
•had  happened  !  Along  all  highways  ;  towards  the  utmost  borders  ; 
till  all  France  is  ruffled,— roughened  up  (metaphorically  speaking) 
into  one  enormous^  desperate-minded,  red- guggling  Turkey  Cock  1 

For  example,  it  is  under  cloud  of  night  that  the  leathern  Monster 
reaches  Nantes  ;  deep  sunk  in  sleep.  The  word  spoken  rouses  all 
Patriot  men  :  General  Dumouriez,  enveloped  in  roquelaures,  has  to 
descend  from  his  bedroom  ;  flnds  the  street  covered  with  '  four  or 
'  five  thousand  citizens  in  their  shirts.'t  Here  and  there  a  faint 
farthing  rushlight,  hastily  kindled  ;  and  so  many'  swart-featured 
haggard  faces,  with  nightcaps  pushed  back  ;  and  the  more  or  less 
flowing  drapery  of  night-shirt  :  open-mouthed  till  the  General  say 
his  word  !  And  overhead,  as  always,  the  Great  Bear  is  turning  so 
quiet  round  Bootes  ;  steady,  indifl"erent  as  the  leathern  Diligence 
itself.  Take  comfort,  ye  men  of  Nantes  :  Bootes  a'nd  the  steady 
Bear  are  turning  ;  ancient  Atlantic  still  sends  his  brine,  loud- 
billowing,  up  your  Loire-stream  ;  brandy  shall  be  hot  in  the 
stomach  :  this  is  not  the  Last  of  the  Days,  but  one  before  the  Last. 
—The  fools  !  If  they  knew  what  was  doing,  in  these  very  instants, 
also  by  candle-light,  in  the  far  North-East  ! 

Perhaps  we  may  say  the  most  terrified  man  in  Paris  or  France 
is— who  thinks  the  Reader  ?-  seagreen  Robespierre.  Double  pale- 
ness, with  the  shadow  of  gibbets  and  halters,  overcasts  the  sea- 
green  features  :  it  is  too  clear  to  him  that  there  is  to  be  *a  Saint- 
'  Bartholomew  of  Patriots,'  that  in  four-and-twenty  hours  he  will 
not  be  in  life.  These  horrid  anticipations  of  the  soul  he  is  heard 
uttering  at  Pdtion's  ;  by  a  notable  witness.  By  Madame  Roland, 
namely  ;  her  whom  we  saw,  last  year,  radiant  at  the  Lyons  Fede- 
ration !  These  four  months,  the  Rolands  have  been  in  Pans  ; 
arranging  with  Assembly  Committees  the  Municip.d  affau's  of 
Lyons,  affairs  all  sunk  in  debt  --  communing,  the  while,  as  was 
most  natural,  with  the  best  Patriots  to  be  found  here,  with  our 
Brissots,  Pdtions,  Buzots,  Robespierres  ;  who  were  wont  to  come 
to  us,  says  the  fair  Hostess,  four  evenings  in  the  week.  Ihej^^ 
*  Dumont,  c.  i6.  t  Dumouriez,  Mimoires,  ii.  109. 


THE  NEW  BEREINE. 


running  about,  bus-ier  than  ever  tM^day,  would  fain  have  comforted 
the  seagreen  man  :  spake  of_AchilIe  du  Chatelet's  Placard  ;  of  a 
Journal  to  be  called  The  Republican ;  of  preparing  men's  minds 
for  a  Republic.  A  Republic  ? "  said  the  Seagreen,  with  one  of 
his  dry  husky  ///^sportful  laughs,  "  What  is  that  ?  "  ^  O  seagreen 
Incorruptible,  thou  shalt  see  ! 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  NEW  BERLINE. 

But  scouts  all  this  while  and  aide-de-camps,  have  flown  forth 
faster  than  the  leathern  Diligences.  Young  Romoeuf,  as  we  said^ 
was  off  early  towards  Valenciennes  :  distracted  Villagers  seize 
him,  as  a  traitor  with  a  finger  of  his  own  in  the  plot  ;  drag  him 
back  to  the  Townhall ;  to  the  National  Assembly,  which  speedily 
grants  a  new  passport.  Nay  now,  that  same  scarecrow  of  an 
Herb-merchant  with  his  ass  has  bethought  him  of  the  grand  new 
Berline  seen  in  the  Wood  of  Bondy ;  and  dehvered  evidence  of 
it  :t  Romoeuf,  furnished  with  new  passport,  is  sent  forth  with 
double  speed  on  a  hopefuller  track  ;  by  Bondy,  Claye,  and  Cha- 
lons, towards  Metz^  to  track  the  new  Berline  ;  and  gallops  a  franc 
etrier. 

Miserable  new  Berline  I  V/hy  could  not  Royalty  go  in  some 
old  Berline  similar  to  that  of  other  men  ?  Flying  for  life,  one 
does  not  stickle  about  his  vehicle.  Monsieur,  in  a  commonplace 
travelhng-carriage  is  off  Northwards  ;  Madame,  his  Princess,  in 
another,  with  variation  of  route  :  they  cross  one  another  while 
changing  horses,  without  look  of  recognition  ;  and  reach  Flanders, 
no  man  questioning  them.  Precisely  in  the  same  manner,  beauti- 
ful Princess  de  Lamballe  set  off,  about  the  same  hour  ;  and  will 
reach  England  safe  :— would  she  had  continued  there  !  The 
beautiful,  the  good,  but  the  unfortunate ;  reserved  for  a  frightful 
end  ! 

All  runs  along,  unmolested,  speedy,  except  only  the  new  Ber- 
line. Huge  leathern  vehicle  ;— huge  Argosy,  let  us  say,  or  Aca- 
pulco-ship  ;  with  its  heavy  stern-boat  of  Chaise-and-pair  ;  with  its 
three  yellow  Pilot-boats  of  mounted  Bodyguard  Couriers,  rockin,e 
aimless  round  it  and  ahead  of  it,  to  bewilder,  not  to  guide  Ii 
lumbers  along,  lurchin  ^ly  with  stress,  at  a  snail's  pace';  noted  oi 
all  the  world.  The  Bodyguard  Couriers,  in  their  yellow  liveries, 
go  prancing  and  clattering  ;  loyal  but  stupid  ;  unacquainted  with 
all  things.  Stoppages  occur  ;  and  breakages  to  be  repaired  at 
Etoges.  King  Louis  too  will  dismount,  will  walk  up  hills,  and 
enjoy  the  blessed  sunshine  :— with  eleven  horses  and  double  dnnlc 
money,  and  all  furtherances  of  Nature  and  Art,  it  will  be  found 

*  Madame  Roland,  ii.  70. 

t  MonUcur,  &c.  (in  Hist.  Pari.  x.  244-313). 


I20 


VARENNES, 


that  Royalty,  flying  for  life,  accomplishes  Sixty-nine  miles  in 
Twenty-two  incessant  hours.*  Slow  Royalty  !  And  yet  not  a 
minute  of  these  hours  but  is  precious  :  on  minutes  hang  the 
destinies  of  Royalty  now. 

Readers,  therefore,  can  judge  in  what  humour  Duke  de  Choiseul 
might  stan'd  waiting,  in  the  Village  of  Pont-de-Sommevelle,  some 
leagues  beyond  Chalons,  hour  after  hour,  now  when  the  day  bends 
visibly  westward.  Choiseul  drove  out  of  Paris,  in  all  privity,  ten 
hours  before  their  Majesties'  fixed  time  ;  his  Hussars,  led  by 
Engineer  Goguelat,  are  here  duly,  come  '  to  escort  a  Treasure 
'  that  is  expected  : '  but,  hour  after  hour,  is  no  Baroness  de  Korff's 
Berline.  Indeed,  over  all  that  North-east  Region,  on  the  skirts  of 
Chompagne  and  of  Lorraine,  where  the  Great  Road  runs,  the 
agitation  is  considerable.  For  all  along,  from  this  Pont-de- 
Sommevelle  Northeastward  as  far  as  Montmedi,  at  Post-villages 
and  Towns,  escorts  of  Hussars  and  Dragoons  do  lounge  waiting  : 
a  train  or  chain  of  Military  Escorts  ;  at  the  Montmedi  end  of  it 
our  brave  Bouille  :  an  electric  thunder-chain  ;  which  the  invisible 
Bouille,  like  a  Father  Jove,  holds  in  his  hand — for  wise  pur- 
poses !  Brave  Bouille  has  done  what  man  could  ;  has  spread  out 
his  electric  thunder-chain  of  Military  Escorts,  onwards  to  the 
threshold  of  Chalons  :  it  waits  but  for  the  new  Korff  Berline  ;  to 
receive  it,  escort  it,  and,  if  need  be,  bear  it  off  in  whirlwind  of 
military  fire.  They  lie  and  lounge  there,  we  say,  these  fierce 
Troopers  ;  from  Montmedi  and  Stenai,  through  Clermont,  Sainte- 
Menehould  to  utmost  Pont-de-Sommevelle,  in  all  Post-villages  ;  for 
the  route  shall  avoid  Verdun  and  great  Towns  :  they  loiter  im- 
patient ^  till  the  Treasure  arrive.' 

Judge  what  a  day  this  is  for  brave  Bouille  :  perhaps  the  first 
day  of  a  new  glorious  life  ;  surely  the  last  day  of  the  old  !  Also, 
and  indeed  still  more,  what  a  day,  beautiful  and  terrible,  for  your 
young  full-blooded  Captains :  your  Dandoins,  Comte  de  Damas, 
Duke  de  Choiseul,  Engineer  Goguelat,  and  the  like  ;  entrusted 
with  the  secret  ! — Alas,  the  day  bends  ever  more  westward  ;  and 
no  Korff  Berline  comes  to  sight.  It  is  four  hours  beyond  the 
time,  and  still  no  Berline.  In  all  Village-streets,  Royalist  Captains 
go  lounging,  looking  ofton  Paris-ward  ;  with  face  of  unconcern, 
with  heart  full  of  black  care  :  rigorous  Quartermasters  can  hardly 
keep  the  private  dragoons  from  cafrs  and  dramshops."^  Dawn  on 
our  bewilderment,  thou  new  I:>erlinc ;  dawn  on  us,  thou  Sun- 
chariot  of  a  new  I>crhnc,  with  the  destinies  of  France  ! 

It  was  of  His  Majesty's  ordering,  this  nfihtary  array  of  Escorts  ; 
a  thing  solacing  the  Royal  imagination  willi  a  look  of  security  and 
rescue  ;  yet,  in  reality,  creating  only  and  where  there  was 

otherwise  no  danger,  danger  without  end.  For  each  Patriot,  in 
these  Post-villages,  asks  naturally  :  Tliis  c  latter  of  cavalry,  and 
marching  and  lounging  of  troops,  what  means  it  ?  To  escort  a 
Treasure  ?  Why  escort,  when  no  Patriot  will  steal  from  the 
Dddaration  du  Sietir  La  Cache  du  Rdgimcnt  Royal-Dragoons -{^m  Choi- 
seul, pp.  125-39). 


THE  NEW  BERLINE. 


121 


Nation  ;  or  wh^re  is  your  Treasure  ? — There  has  been  such 
marching  and  counter-marching  :  for  it  is  another  fataUty,  tliat 
certain  of  these  Mihtary  Escorts  came  out  so  early  as  yesterday  ; 
the  Nineteenth  not  the  Twentieth  of  the  month  being  the  day 
^rst  appointed,  which  her  Majesty,  for  some  necessity  or  other, 
saw  good  to  alter.  And  now  consider  the  suspicious  nature  of 
Patriotism  ;  suspicious,  above  all.  of  Boiiille  the  Aristocrat  ;  and 
how  the  sour  doubting  humour  has  had  leave  to  accumulate  and 
exacerbate  for  four-and-twenty  hours  ! 

At  Pont-de-Sommevelle,  these  Forty  foreign  Hussars  of  Goguelat 
and  Duke  Choiseul  are  becoming  an  unspeakable  mystery  to  all 
men.  They  lounged  long  enough,  already,  at  Sainte-Menehould  ; 
lounged  and  loitered  till  our  National  Volunteers  there,  all  risen 
into  hot  wrath  of  doubt,  ^  demanded  three  hundred  fusils  of  their 
*Townhall,'  and  got  them  At  which  same  moment  too,  as  it 
chanced,  our  Captain  Dandoins  Was  just  coming  in,  from  Clermont 
with  his  troop,  at  the  other  end  of  the  Village.  A  fresh  troop  ; 
alarming  enough  ;  though  happily  they  are  only  Dragoons  and 
French  !  So  that  Goguelat  with  his  Hussars  had  to  ride,  and  even 
to  do  it  fast  ;  till  here  at  Pont-de-Sommevelle,  where  Choiseul  lay 
waiting,  he  found  resting-place.  Resting-place,  as  on  burning 
marie.  For  the  rumour  of  him  flies  abroad  ;  and  men  run  to  and 
fro  in  fright  and  anger  :  Chalons  sends  forth  exploratory  pickets 
of  National  Volunteers  towards  this  hand  ;  which  meet  exploratory 
pickets,  coming  from  Sainte-M'enehold,  on  that.  What  is  it,  ye 
whiskered  Hussars,  men  of  foreign  guttural  speech  ;  in  the  name 
of  Heaven,  what  is  it  that  brings  you  A  Treasure  ? — exploratory 
pickets  shake  their  heads.  The  hungry  Peasants,  however,  know 
too  well  v/hat  Treasu  e  it  is  :  Military  seizure  for  rents,  feudalities ; 
which  no  Baihff  could  make  us  pay  !  This  they  knovv  ; — and  set 
to  jinghng  their  Parish-bell  by  way  of  tocsin  ;  with  rapid  effect ! 
Choiseul  and  Goguelat,  if  the  whole  country  is  not  to  take  fire, 
must  needs,  be  there  Berline,  be  there  no  Berline,  saddle  and 
ride. 

They  mount;  and  this  Parish  tocsin  happily  ceases.  They 
ride  slowly  Eastward,  towards  Sainte-Menehould;  still  hoping 
the  Sun-Chariot  of  a  Berline  may  overtake  them.  Ah  me,  no 
Berline  !  And  near  now  is  that  Sainte-Menehould,  which  expelled 
us  in  the  morning,  with  its  '  three  hundred  National  fusils  ; ' 
which  looks,  belike,  not  too  lovingly  on  Captain  Dandoins  and  his 
fresh  Dragoons,  though  only  French  ;  — which,  in  a  word,  one  dare 
not  enter  the  second  time,  under  pain  of  explosion  !  With  rather 
heavy  heart,  our  Hussar  Party  strikes-  off  to  the  left  ;  through  by- 
ways, through  pathless  hills  and  woods,  they,  avoiding  Sainte- 
Menehould  and  all  places  which  have  seen  them  heretofore,  will 
make  direct  for  the  distant  Village  of  Varennes.  It  is  probable 
they  will  have  a  rough  evening-ride. 

This  first  military  post,  therefore,  in  the  long  thunder-chain, 
has  gone  off  with  no  effect  ;    or  with  worse,  and  your  chain 
threatens  to  entangle  itself! — The  Great  Road,  however,  is  gort 
I  hushed  again  into  a  kind  of  ciuietude,  though  one  of  the  wake- 


122 


VARENNES. 


fullest.      Indolent  Dragoons  cannot,  by  any  Quartermaster,  be 
kept  altogether  from  the  dramshop  ;  \vhere  Patriots  drink,  and 
will  even  treat,  eager  enough  for  news.    Captains,  in  a  state  near  < 
distraction,  beat  the  dusky  highway,  with  a  face  of  indifference ;  i 
and  no  Sun-Chariot  appears.    Why  lingers  it  ?    Incredible,  that 
with  eleven  horsey,  and  such  yellow  Couriers  and  furtherances,  : 
its  rate  should  be  under  the  weightiest  dray-rate,  some  three  miles  ■ 
an  hour  !   Alas,  one  knows  not  whether  it  ever  even  got  out  of 
Paris  ;— and  yet  also  one  knows  not  whether,  this  very  moment, 
it  is  not  at  the  Village-end  1    One's  heart  flutters  on  the  verge  of 
iinutterabilities. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OLD  DRAGOON  DROUET. 

In  this  manner,  however,  has  the  Day  bent  downwards. 
Wearied  mortals  are  creeping  home  from  their  field-labour  ;  the 
village-artisan  eats  with  relish  his  supper  of  herbs,  or  has  strolled 
forth  to  the  village-street  for  a  sweet  mouthful  of  air  and  human 
news.  Still  summer-eventide  everywhere  !  The  great  Sun  hangs 
flaming  on  the  utmost  North- West ;  for  it  is  his  longest  day  this 
year.  The  hill-tops  rejoicing  will  ere  long  be  at  their  ruddiestj 
and  blush  Good-night.  The  thrush,  in  green  dells,  on  long- 
shadow^ed  leafy  spray,  pours  gushing  "his  glad  serenade,  to  the 
babble  of  brooks  grown  audibler ;  silence  is  stealing  over  the 
Earth.  Your  dusty  Mill  of  Valmy,  as  all  other  mills  and 
drudgeries,  may  furl  its  canvass,  and  cease  sv/ashing  and  circling. 
The  swenkt  grinders  in  this  Treadmill  of  an  Earth  have  ground 
out  another  Day  ;  and  lounge  there,  as  we  say,  in  village-groups  ; 
movable,  or  ranked  on  social  stone-seats  \  ^  their  children, 
mischievous  imps,  sporting  about  their  feet.  Unnotable  hum  of 
sweet  human  gossip  rises  from  this  Village  of  Sainte-Menehould, 
as  from  all  other  villages.  Gossip  mostly  sweet,  unnotable  ;  for 
the  very  Dragoons  are  French  and  gallant  ;  nor  as  yet  has  the 
Paris-and-Verdun  Diligence,  with  its  leathern  bag,  rumbled  in,  to 
terrify  the  minds  of  men. 

One  figure  nevertheless  we  do  note  at  the  last  door  of  the* 
Village  :  that  figure  in  loose-flowing  nightgown,  of  Jean  Baptiste 
Drouct,  Master  of  the  Post  here.  An  acrid  choleric  man,  rather 
dangerous-looking  ;  stil]  in  the  prime  of  life,  though  he  has  served, 
in  his  time  as  a  Condc  Dragoon.  This  day  from  an  early  hour, 
Drouet  got  his  cholcr  stirrecl,  and  has  been  kept  fretting.  Hussar 
Goguelat  in  the  morning  saw  good,  by  way  of  thrift,  to  bargain 
with  liis  own  Innkeeper,  not  witli  Drouel  regular  Maitre  de  Poste^ 
about  some  gig-l)()rs(^  for  tlie  sending  back  of  his  gig  ;  which 
thing  Drouet  perccivini';  raine  over  in  red  ire,  menacing  the  Inn- 
keeper, and  would  not  be  appeased.  Wholly  an  unsatisfactory 
*  Ratpori  dc  A/.  K6my  (in  Choiseul,  p.  143), 


OLD  DRAGOON  DROUET.  1^3 


day.  For  Drouet  is  an  acrid  Patriot  too,  was  at  llie  :ib'L 
of  Pikes  :  and  what  do  these  Bouille  Soldiers  iiir;i,i.  i  liibsars, 
with  their  gig,  and  a  vengeance  to  it  ! — have  h,i]  criy  ])ecn  thrust 
out,  when  Dandoins  and  his  fresh  Dragoons  cirrivc  from 
Clermont,  and  stroll.  For  what  purpose  ?  Choleric  Drouet 
steps  out  and  steps  in,  with  long-flowing  nightgown  ;  looking 
abroad,  with  that  sharpness  of  facalty  which  stirred  clioler  gives 
to  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  mark  Captain  Dandoins  on  the  street  of 
that  same  Village  ;  sauntering  with  a  face  of  indiiTerence,  a  hearty 
eaten  of  black  care  !  For  no  Korff  Rerline  makes  its  appearance.* 
The  great  Sun  flames  broader  towards  setting :  one's  heart 
flutters  on  the  verge  of  dread  unutterabilities. 

By  Heaven  !  Here  is  the  yellow  Bodyguard  Courier  ;  spurring 
fast,  in  the  ruddy  evening  light  !  Steady,  O  Dandoins,  stand  v/itli 
inscrutable  indifferent  face  ;  though  the  yellow  blockhead  spurs 
past  the  Post-house  1;  inquires  to  find  it;  and  stirs  the  Village, 
all  delighted  with  his  fine  livery. — Lumbering  along  with  its 
mountains  of  bandboxes,  and  Chaise  behind,  the  Korff  Berline 
rolls  in  ;  huge  Acapulco-ship  witli  its  Cockboat,  having  got  thus 
far.  The  eyes  of  the  Villagers  look  enlightened,  as  such  eyes  do 
when  a  coach-transit,  which  is  an  event,  occurs  for  them.  Stroll- 
ing Dragoons  respectfully,  so  fine  are  the  yellow  liveries,  bring 
hand  to  helmet ;  and  a  lady  in  gipsy-hat  responds  with  a  grace 
peculiar  to  her.^  Dandoins  stands  with  folded  arms,  and  what 
look  of  indifference  and  disdainful  garrison-air  a  man  can,  while 
the  heart  is  like  leaping  out  of  him.  Curled  disdainful  mous- 
tachio  ;  careless  glance, — which  however  surveys  the  Village - 
groups,  and  does  not  hke  them.  With  his  eye  he  bespeaks  the 
yellow  Courier.  Be  quick,  be  quick  !  Thick-headed  Yellow 
cannot  understand  the  eye  ;  comes  up  mumbling,  to  ask  in  words  : 
seen  of  the  Village  ! 

Nor  is  Post-master  Drouet  unobservant,  all  this  while  ;  but 
steps  out  and  steps  in,  with  his  long-flowing  nightgown,  in  the 
level  sunlight  ;  prying  into  several  things.  When  a  man's  facul- 
ties, at  the  right  time,  are  sharpened  by  choler,  it  may  lead  to 
much.  That  Lady  in  slouched  gypsy-hat,  though  sitting  back  in 
the  Carriage,  does  she  not  resemble  some  one  we  have  seen,  some 
time  ;— at  the  Feast  of  Pikes,  or  elsewhere  And  this  Grosse-Tete 
in  round  hat  and  peruke,  which,  looking  rearward,  pokes  itself 

out  from  time  to  time,  methinks  there  are  features  in  it  ? 

Quick,  Sieur  Guillaume,  Clerk  of  the  Directoire,  bring  me  a  new 
Assignat  !  Drouet  scans  the  new  Assignat ;  compares  the  Paper- 
money  Picture  with  the  Gross- Head  in  round  hat  there  :  by  Day 
and  Night  !  you  might  say  the  one  was  an  attempted  Engraving 
of  the  other.  And  this  mar.ch  of  Troops  ;  this  sauntering  and 
whispering, — I  see  it  ! 

Drouet  Post-master  of  this  Village,  hot  Patriot,  Old  Dragoon 
of  Conde,  consider,  therefc«e,  what  thou  wilt  do.    And  fast  :  for 
behold  the  new  Berli|^,«^xpeditiously  yoked,  cracks  whipcord, 
*■  Ddclaration  dc  la  Gache  (in  C'hoiseul  uhi  supra). 


124 


VARENNES. 


and  rolls  away  !— Drouet  dare  not,  on  the  spur  of  the  instant, 
clutch  the  bridles  in  his  own  two  hands  ;  Dandoins,  with  broad- 
sword, might  hew  you  off.  Our  poor  Nationals,  not  one  of  them 
here,  have  three  hundred  fusils  but  then  no  powder ;  besides  one 
is  not  sure,  only  morally-certain.  Drouet,  as  an  adroit  Old- 
Dragoon  of  Conde  does  what  is  advisablest :  privily  bespeaks 
Clerk  Guillaume,  Old- Dragoon  of  Conde  he  too  ;  privily,  while 
Clerk  Guillaume  is  saddhng  two  of  the  fleetest  horses,  slips  over 
to  the  Townhall  to  whisper  a  word  ;  then  mounts  with  Clerk 
Guillaume  ;  and  the  two  bound  eastward  in  pursuit,  to  see  what 
can  be  done. 

They  bound  eastward,  in  sharp  trot ;  their  moral-certainty 
permeating  the  Village,  from  the  Townhall  outwards,  m  busy 
whispers.  Alas  !  Captain  Dandoins  orders  his  Dragoons  to 
mount ;  but  they,  complaining  of  long  fast,  demand  bread-and- 
cheese  first  ;— before  which  brief  repast  can  be  eaten,  the  w^ole 
Village  is  permeated  ;  not  whispering  now,  but  blustermg  and 
shrieking  !  ^  National  Volunteers,  in  hurried  m.uster,  shriek  for 
gunpowder ;  Dragoons  halt  between  Patriotism  and  Rule  of  the 
Service,  between  bread  and  cheese  and  fixed  bayonets  :  Dandoms 
hands  secretly  his  Pocket-book,  with  its  secret  despatches,  to  the 
rigorous  Quartermaster  :  the  very  Ostlers  have  stable-forks  and 
flails.  The  rigorous  Quartermaster,  half-saddled,  cuts  out  his 
way  with  the  sword's  edge,  amid  levelled  bayonets,  amid  Patriot 
vociferations,  adjurations,  flail-strokes;  and  rides  frantic  few 
or  even  none  following  him  ;  the  rest,  so  sweetly  constrained  con- 
senting to  stay  there. 

And  thus  the  new  Berline  rolls  ;  and  Drouet  and  Guillaume 
gallop  after  it,  and  Dandoins's  Troopers  or  Trooper  gallops  after 
them  ;  and  Sainte-Menehould,  with  some  leagues  of  the  King  s 
Highway,  is  in  explosion  ;— and  your  Military  thunder.cham  has 
gone  off  in  a  self-destructive  manner  ;  one  may  fear  with  the 
frightfullest  issues  ! 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  NIGHT  OF  SPURS. 

This  comes  of  mysterious  Escorts,  and  a  new  Berline  with 
eleven  horses  :  '  he  that  has  a  secret  should  not  only  hide  it,  but 
hide  that  he  has  it  to  hide.*  Your  first  Military  Escort  has  ex- 
ploded self-destructive  ;  and  all  Military  Escorts,  and  a  suspicious 
Country  will  now  be  up,  explosive  ;  comparable  not  to  victorious 
thunder.  Comparable,  say  rather,  to  the  first  stirring  of  an  Alpine 
Avalanche  ;  which,  once  stir  it,  as  here  at  Sainte-Menehould,  will 
spread,— all  round,  and  on  and  on,  as  far  as  Stenai ;  thundering 
*  D^laration  dc  I  .a  Cache  (in  Clioiscnil),  p.  134. 


THE  NIGHT  OF  SPURS. 


125 


with  wild  ruin,  till  Patriot  Villagers,  Peasantry,  Military 
Escorts,  new  Berline  and  Royalty  are  down,— jumbling  in  the 
Abyss!  . 

The  thick  shades  of  Night  are  falling.  Postillions  crack  and 
whip  :  the  Royal  Berline  is  through  Clermont,  where  Colonel 
Comte  de  Damas  got  a  word  whispered  to  it ;  is  safe  through,  to- 
wards Varennes  ;  rushing  at  the  rate  ^f  double  drink-money  :  an 
Unknown  '  hiconiiu  on  horseback'  shrieks  earnestly  some  hoarse 
whisper,  not  audible,  into  the  rushing  Carriage-window,  and 
vanishes,  left  in  the  night."^  August  Travellers  palpitate  ;  never- 
theless overwearied  Nature  sinks  every  one  of  them,  into  a  kind  of 
sleep.  Alas,  and  Drouet  and  Clerk  Guillaume  spur  ;  taking  side- 
roads,  for  shortness,  for  safety  ;  scattering  abroad  that  moral- 
certainty  of  theirs  ;  which  flies,  a  bird  of  the  air  carrying  it ! 

And  your  rigorous  Quartermaster  spurs ;  awakening  hoarse 
trumpet-tone,  as  here  at^Clermont,  calling  out  Dragoons  gone  to 
bed.  Brave  Colonel  de  Damas  has  them  mounted,  in  part,  these 
Clermont  men  ;  young  Cornet  Remy  dashes  off  with  a  few.  But 
the  Patriot  Magistracy  is  out  here  at  Clermont  too  ;  National 
Guards  shrieking  for  ball-cartridges  ;  and  the  Village  '  illuminates 
itself ;  —deft  Patriots  springing  out  of  bed  ;  alertly,  in  shirt  or 
shift,  striking  a  light ;  sticking  up  each  his  farthing  candle,  or 
penurious  oil-cruise,  till  all  ghtters  and  ghmmxers  ;  so  deft  are  they! 
A  camisado,  or  shirt-tumult,  every  where  :  storm-bell  set  a-ringing ; 
village-drum  beating  furious  gmerale^  as  here  at  Clermont,  under 
illumination  ;  distracted  Patriots  pleading  and  menacing  !  Brave 
young  Colonel  de  Dumas,  in  that  uproar  of  distracted  Patriotism, 
speaks  some  fire-sentences  to  what  Troopers  he  has  :  "  Comrades 
insulted  at  Sainte-Menehould ;  King  and  Country  caUing  on  the 
brave  then  gives  the  fire-word.  Draw  swords.  Whereupon, 
alas,  the  Troopers  only  S7nite  their  sword-handles,  driving  them 
further  home  !  "  To  me,  whoever  is  for  the  King  I  "  cries  Damas 
in  despair  ;  and  gallops,  he  with  some  poor  loyal  Two,  of  the  sub- 
altern sort,  into  the  bosom  of  the  Night. f 

Night  unexampled  in  the  Clermontais  ;  shortest  of  the  year  , 
remarkablest  of  the  century  :  Night  deserving  to  be  named  of 
Spurs  !  Cornet  Remy,  and  those  Few  he  dashed  off  with,  has 
missed  his  road  ;  is  galloping  for  hours  towards  Verdun  ;  then,  for 
hours,  across  hedged  country,  through  roused  hamlets,  towards 
Varennes.  Unlucky  Cornet  Remy ;  unluckier  Colonel  Damas, 
with  whom  there  ride  desperate  only  some  loyal  Two  1  More  ride 
not  of  that  Clermont  Escort  :  of  other  Escorts,  in  other  Villages, 
not  even  Two  may  ride  ;  but  only  all  curvet  and  prance, — impeded 
by  storm-bell  and  your. Village  illuminating  itself. 

And  Drouet  rides  and  Clerk  Guillaume  ;  and  the  Country  runs. 
— Goguelat  and  Duke  Choiseul  are  plunging  through  morasses, 
.  over  cliffs,  over  stock  and  stone,  in  the  shaggy  woods  of  the  Cler- 
montais ;  by  tracks  ;  or  trackless,  with  guides  ;  Hussars  tumbling 
into  pitfalls,  and  lying  '  swooned  three  quarters  of  an  hour/  the 

*  Campan,  ii.  159. 

t  ProUs-verbal  du  Directoire  de  Clermont  (in  Choiseul,  p,  189-95). 


126 


VARENNES, 


rest  refusing  to  march  without  them.  What  an  t\eniri^  i  ide  Troni 
Pont-de-Sommerviiie  ;  what  a  thirty  hours,  since"  Choiseul  quitted 
Paris,  with  Oueen's-valet  Leonard  in  the  chaise  by  him  !  Black 
Care  sits  behind  the  rider.  Thus  go  they  plunging  ;  rustle  the 
owlet  from  his  branchy  nest ;  champ,  the  sweet-scented  forest- 
herb,  queen- of -the-meadows  spilling  her  spikenard  ;  and  frighten 
the  ear  of  Night.  But  hark  !  towards  twelve  o'clock,  as  one 
guesses,  for  the  very  stars  are  gone  out  :  sound  of  the  tocsin  from 
Varennes.f^  Checking  bridle,  the  Hussar  Officer  listens:  "Some 
fire  undoubtedly  ! " — yet  rides  on,  with  double  breathlessness,  to 
verify. 

Yes,  gallant  friends  that  do  your  utmost,  it  is  a  certain  sort  of 
fire  :  difficult  to  quench. — The  Korff  Beriine,  fairly  ahead  of  all  this 
riding  Avalanche,  reached  the  littly  paltry  \  illage  of  Varennes 
about  eleven  o'clock  ;  hopeful,  in  spite  of  that  hoarse-whispering 
Unknown.  Do  not  all  towns  now  lie  -behind  us  ;  Verdun  avoided, 
on  our  right Within  wind  of  Bouille  himself,  in  a  manner  ;  and 
the  darkest  of  midsummer  nights  favouring  us  !  And  so  we  halt 
on  the  hill-top  at  the  South  end  of  the  Village ;  expecting  our 
relay  ;  which  young  Bouille,  Bouille's  own  son,  with  his  Escort  of 
Hussars,  was  to  have  ready  ;  for  in  this  Village  is  no  Post.  Dis- 
tracting to  think  of  :  neither  horse  nor  Hussar  is  here  !  Ah,  and 
stout  horses,  a  proper  relay  belongipg  to  Duke  Choiseul,  do  stand 
at  hay,  but  in  the  Upper  Village  over  the  Bridge  ;  and  we  know 
not  of  them.  Plussars  likewise  do  wait,  but  drinking  in  the 
taverns.  For  indeed  it  is  six  hours  beyond  the  time  ;  young 
Bouille,  silly  striphng,  thinking  the  matter  over  for  this  night,  has 
retu-ed  to  bed.  And  so  our  yellow  Couriers,  inexperienced,  must 
rove,  groping,  bungling,  through  a  Village  mostly  asleep  :  Postil- 
lions will  not,  for  any  money,  go  on  widi  the  tired  horses  ;  not  c^t 
least  without  refreshment  ;  not  they,  let  the  Valet  in  round  hat 
argue  as  he  likes. 

Miserable  !  '  For  five-and- thirty  minutes '  by  the  King's  watch, 
the  lierline  is  at  a  dead  stand;  Round-hat  arguing  with  Churnboots; 
tired  horses  sloblDcring  their  meal-and-water  ;  yeUow  Couriers  gro- 
ping, ()ungling  ;— young  Bouille  asleep,  all  the  while,  in  the  Upper 
Viilage,  and  Choiseul's  fine  team  standing  there  at  hay.  No  help  for 
it;  not  witha King's  ransom  :  the  horses  deliberately  slobber, Round- 
li.it  argues,  Bouille  sleeps.  And  mark  now,  in  the  thick  night,  do 
not  two  Horsemen,  with  jaded  trot,  come  clank-clanking;  and 
start  with  half-pause,  if  one  noticed  them,  at  sight  of  this  dim  mass 
uf  a  Beriine,  and  its  dull  slobbering  and  arguing ;  then  prick  off 
faster,  into  the  Village  .^^  It  is  Drouet,  he  and  Clerk  Guillaumel 
Still  ahcaii,  they  two,  of  the  whole  riding  hurlyburly ;  unshot, 
though  some  brag  of  having  chased  them.  Perilous  is  Drouet's 
errand  also  ;  but  he  is  an  Old-Dragoon,  with  his  wits  shaken 
thoroughly  awake. 

The  Village  of  Varennes  lies  dark  and  slumberous  ;  a  most  un- 
ievel  Village,  of  inverse  saddle-shape,  as  men  write.  It  sleeps; 
the  rushing  of  the  River  Aire  singing  lullably  to  it.  Neverthe- 
less from  the  Golden  Arms,  lh  as  cfOr  Tavern,  across  that  sloping 


THE  NIGHT  OF  SPURS. 


127 


marketplace,  there  still  comes  shine  of  sociaUight ;  comes  voice 
of  rude  drovers,  or  the  like,  who  have  not  yet  taken  the  stirrup- 
cup  ;  Boniface  Le  Blanc,  in  white  apron,  serving  them  :  cheerful  to 
behold.  To  this  Bras  cfOr,  Drouet  enters,  alacrity  looking  through 
his  eyes  :he  nudges  Boniface,  in  all  privacy,  "  Cama^-ade,  es-tu  ban 
Patriote,  Art  thou  a  good  Patriot  5/  je  suisT'  answers 
Boniface— "In  that  case,"  eagerly  whispers  Drouet—what 
whisper  is  needful,  heard  of  Boniface  alone  * 

And  now  see  Boniface  Le  Blanc  bustling,  as  he  never  did  for  the 
joihest  toper.  See  Drouet  and  Guiilaume,  dexterous  Old-Dragoons, 
instantly  down  blocking  the  Bridge,  with  a  '  furniture  waggon  they 
'  find  there,'  with  whatever  waggons,  tumbrils,  barrels,  barrows 
their  hands  can  lay  hold  of ; — till  no  carriage  can  pass.  Then 
swiftly,  the  Bridge  once  blocked,  see  them  take  station  hard  by, 
under  Varennes  Archway  :  joined  by  Le  Blanc,  Le  Blanc's 
Brother,  and  one  or  two  alert  Patriots  he  has  roused.  Some  half- 
dozen  in  all,  with  National  Muskets,  they  stand  close,  waiting 
under  the  Archway,  till  that  same  Korff  Berline  rumble  up. 

It  rumbles  up:  Alte  la  I  lanterns  flash  out  from  undercoat- 
skirts,  bridles  chuck  in  strong  fists,  two  National  Muskets  level 
themselves  fore  and  aft  through  the  two  Coach-doors  :  "  Mesdames, 
your  Passports  ? " — Alas  !  Alas  !  Sieur  Sausse,  Procureur  of  the 
Township,  Tallow-chandler  also  and  Grocer  is  there,  with  official 
grocer-pohteness  ;  Drouet  with  fierce  logic  and  ready  wit : — The 
respected  Travelling  Party,  be  it  Baroness  de  Korff's,  or  persons  of 
still  higher  consequence,  will  perhaps  please  to  rest  itself  in  M. 
Sausse's  till  the  dawn  strike  up ! 

O  Louis  ;  O  hapless  Marie- Antoinette^  fated  to  pass  thy  fife 
with  such  men  !  Phlegmatic  Louis,  art  thou  but  lazy  semi-animate 
phlegm  then,  to  the  centre  of  thee?  King,  Captain- General, 
Sovereign  Frank  !  if  thy  heart  ever  formed,  since  it  began  beating 
under  the  name  of  heart,  any  resolution  at  all,  be  it  now  then,  or 
never  in  this  world  :  "Violent  nocturnal  individuals,  and  if  it  were 
persons  of  high  consequence.^  And  if  it  were  the  King  himself? 
Has  the  King  not  the  power,  which  all  beggars  have,  of  travelling 
unmolested  on  his  own  Highway  ?  Yes  :  it  is  the  King  ;  and 
tremble  ye  to  know  it !  The  King  has  said,  in  this  one  small 
matter  ;  and  in  France,  or  under  God's  Throne,  is  no  power  that 
shall  gainsay.  Not  the  King  shall  ye  stop  here  under  this  your  miser- 
able Archway ;  but  his  dead  body  only,  and  answer  it  to  Heaven  and 
Earth.  To  me.  Bodyguards  :  PostiUions,  en  avant  J^^—One  fancies 
in  tlmt  case  the  pale  paralysis  of  these  two  Le  Blanc  musketeers  ;  the 
drooping  of  Drouet's  under-jaw  ;  and  how  Procureur  Sausse  had 
melted  like  tallow  in  furnace-heat  :  Louis  faring  on  ;  in  some  few 
steps  awakening  Young  Bouille,  awakening  relays  and  hussars: 
triumphant  entry,  with  cavalcading  high-brandishing  Escort,  and 
Escorts,  into  Montmedi  ;  and  the  whole  course  of  French  History 
different ! 

Alas,  it  was  not  in  the  poor  phlegmatic  man.    Had  it  been  in 
him,  French  History  had  never  come  under  this  Varennes  Arch- 
*  Deux  Amis,  vi.  139-78. 


J28     '  VARENNES.   

way  to  decide  itself.— He  steps  out;  all  stejD  out.  Procureur 
Sausse  gives  his  grocer-arms  to  the  Queen  and  Sister  Elizabeth  ; 
Majesty  taking  the  two  children  by  the  hand.  And  thus  they  walk, 
coolly  back,  over  the  Marketplace,  to  Procureur  Sausse's  ;  mount 
into  his  small  upper  story;  where  straightway  his  Majesty 
*  demands  refreshments.'  Demands  refreshments,  as  is  written  ; 
gets  bread-and- cheese  with  a  bottle  of  Burgundy  ;  and  remarks, 
that  it  is  the  best  Burgundy  he  ever  drank  ! 

Meanwhile,  the  Varennes  Notables,  and  all  men,  ofhcial,  and 
non-official,  are  hastily  drawing  on  their  breeches  ;  getting  their 
fighting-gear.  Mortals  half-dressed  tumble  out  barrels,  lay  felled 
trees  ;  scouts  dart  off  to  all  the  four  winds,— the  tocsin  begins 
clanging,  'the  Village  illuminates  itself  Very  singular:  how 
these  little  Villages  do  manage,  so  adroit  are  they,  when  startled 
in  midnight  alarm  of  war.  Like  little  adroit  municipal  rattle- 
snakes, suddenly  awakened  :  for  their  storm-beil  rattles  and  rings  ; 
their  eyes  glisten  luminous  (with  tallow-light),  as  m  rattle-snake 
ire;  and  the  Village  will  sting/  Old-Dragoon  Drouet  is  our 
engineer  and  generahssimo  ;  vaUant  as  a  Ruy  Diaz  :— Now  or 
never,  ye  Patriots,  for  the  Soldiery  is  coming;  massacre  by 
Austrians,  by  Aristocrats,  wars  more  than  civil,  it  all  depends  on 
you  and  the  hour  !— National  Guards  rank  themselves,  halt- 
buttoned  :  mortals,  we  say,  still  only  in  breeches,  in  under-petti- 
coat, tumble  out  barrels  and  lumber,  lay  felled  trees  for  barricades  : 
the  Village  will  sting.  Rabid  Democracy,  it  would  seem,  is  7iot 
confined  to  Paris,  then?  Ah  no,  whatsoever  Courtiers  might 
talk  ;  too  clearly  no.  This  of  dying  for  one's  King  is  grcwn  into 
a  dying  for  one's  self,  against  the  King,  if  need  be. 

And  so  our  riding  and  running  Avalanche  and  Hurlyburly  has 
reached  \hQ  Ahyss,  Korff  Berline  foremost;  and  may  pour  itseit 
thither,  and  jumble  :  endless  !  For  the  next  six  hours  need  we 
ask  if  there  was  a  clattering  far  and  wide  ?  Clattermg-^and  tocsining 
and  hot  tumult,  over  all  the  Clermontais,  spreading  through 
the  Three  Bishopricks  :  Dragoon  and  Hussar  Iroops  galloping  on 
roads  and  no-roads  ;  National  Guards  arming  and  starting  m  t  ie 
dead  of  night;  tocsin  after  tocsin  transmitting  the  alarm.  In 
some  forty  miautes,  Goguelat  and  Choiscul,  with  their  wearied 
Hussars,  reach  Varennes,  Ah,  it  is  no  fire  then;  or  a  l.rc 
difficuU  to  quench!  They  leap  the  trec-barncades,  m  spite  of 
National  serjeant ;  they  enlcr  the  village,  Choiseul  instructing  his 
Troopers  how  the  matter  really  is  ;  who  respond  mteiyectionally, 
in  their  guttural  dialect,  "  JJcr  Komg;  die  Kbniginn  :  and  seem 
stanch.  These  now,  in  their  stanch  humour,  will,  for  one  thing, 
beset  Procureur  Sausse's  house.  Most  benchcial  :  had  not  Drouet 
stormfuily  ordered  otherwise  ;  and  even  bellowed,  m  his  extremitv 

Cannoneers  to  your  guns  !    -two  old  honey-combed  iMcld-picr 
empty  of  all  but  cobwebs  ;  the  rattle  whereof,  as  the  Cannoncc  s 
with  assured  countenance,  trundled  them  up,  did  neverHi^lc. 
abate  the  Hussar  ardour,  and  produce  a  respectful  er  ranking 
iurther  back.    Jur^s  of  wine,  handed  over   the  rankS;  for  th$ 


THE  NIGHT  OF  SPURS. 


129 


German  throat  too  has  sensibility,  will  complete  the  business. 
When  Engineer  Goguelat,  some  hour  or  so  afterwards,  steps  forth, 
the  response  to  him  is— a  hiccupping  Vive  la  Nation  ! 

What  boots  it  ?  Goguelat,  Choiseul,  now  also  Count  Damas, 
and  all  the  Varennes  Officiality  are  with  the,  King  ;  and  the  King 
can  give  no  order,  form  no  opinion  ;  but  sits  there,  as  he  has  ever 
dene,  like  clay  on  pottei-'s  wheel ;  perhaps  the  absurdest  of  all 
pitiable  and  pardonable  clay-figures  that  now  circle  under  the 
Moon.  He  will  go  on,  next  morning,  and  take  the  National 
Guard  with  him  ;  Sausse  permitting  !  Hapless  Queen  :  with  her 
two  children  laid  there  on  the  mean  bed,  old  Mother  Sausse 
kneeling  to  Heaven,  with  tears  and  an  audible  prayer,  to  bless 
them  ;  imperial  Marie- Antoinette  near  kneeling  to  Son  Sausse  and 
Wife  Sausse,  amid  candle-boxes  and  treacle-barrels,— in  vain  ! 
There  are  Three-thousand  National  Guards  got  in  ;  before  long 
they  will  count  Ten-thousand ;  tocsins  spreading  like  fire  on  dry 
heath,  or  far  faster. 

Young  Bouille,  roused  by  this  Varennes  tocsin,  has  taken  horse, 
and— fled  towards  his  Father.  Jhitherward  also  rides,  in  an 
almost  hysterically  desperate  manner,  a  certain  Sieur  Aubriot^ 
ChoiseuFs  Orderly ;  swimming  dark  rivers,  our  Bridge  being 
blocked ;  spurring  as  if  the  Hell-hunt  were  at  his  heels.*  Through 
the  village  of  Dun,  he,  galloping  still  on,  scatters  the  alarm  ;  at 
Dun,  brave  Captain  Deslons  and  his  Escort  of  a  Hundred,  saddle 
and  ride.  Deslons  too  gets  into  Varennes  ;  leaving  his  Hundred 
outside,  at  the  tree-barricade  ;  offers  to  cut  King  Louis  out,  if  he 
will  order  it  :  but  unfortunately  the  work  will  prove  hot  ;  '* 
whereupon  King  Louis  has  "  no  orders  to  give.^f 

And  so  the  tocsin  clangs,  and  Dragoons  gallop  ;  and  can  do 
nothing,  having  gallopped  :  National  Guards  stream  in  hke  the 
gathering  of  ravens  :  your  exploding  Thunder-chain,  falling 
Avalanche,  or  what  else  we  liken  it  to,  does  play,  with  a  vengeance, 
—up  now  as  far  as  Stenai  and  Bouille  himself.J  Brave  Bouille, 
son  of  the  whirlwind,  he  saddles  Royal  Allemand  ;  speaks  fire- 
words,  kindling  heart  and  eyes  ;  distributes  twenty-five  gold-louis  a 
company: — Ride,  Royal- Allemand.  long-famed:  no  Tuileries 
Charge  and  Necker-Orleans  Bust-Procession  ;  a  very  King  made 
captive,  and  world  all  to  win  !— Such  is  the  Night  deserving  to  be 
named  of  Spurs. 

At  six  o^cIock  two  things  have  happened.  Lafayette's  Aide-de- 
camp, Romoeuf,  riding  a  fra?ic  ctricr,  on  that  old  Herb-merchant's 
route,  quickened  during  the  last  stages,  has  got  to  Varennes; 
where  the  Ten  thousand  now  furiously  demand,  with  fury  of  panic 
terror,  that  Royalty  shall  forthwith  return  Paris-ward,  that  there 
be  not  infmite  bloodshed.  Also,  on  the  other  side, '  English  Tom,' 
ChoiseuFs  jokei,  flying  with  that  Choiseul  relay,  has  met  Bouille 
on  the  heights  of  Dun  ;  the  adamantine  brow  flushed  with  dark 

*  Rapport  de  M.  Aubriot  p.  150-7). 

t  Rxtrait  d U7i  Rapport  de  M.  Deslons  (Choiseul,  p.  164-7). 

j  Bouill6,  ii.  74-6. 

vol/ II.  * 


,3o  VARENNES. 


thunder ;  thunderous  rattle  of  Royal  Allemand  at  his  heelr.. 
English  Tom  answers  as  he  can  the  brief  question,  How  it  is  .u 
Vafennes?— then  asks  in  turn  what  he,  English  Fom,  vyith  M  de 
Choiseul's  horses,  is  -to  do,  and  whither  to  ride  ?-To  the  Bottomless 
Pool '  answers  a  thunder- voice  ;  then  again  speaking  and  spurring, 
orders  Royal  Allemand  to  the  gallop;  and  vanishes,  swearing- 
hirant)*  'Tis  the  last  of  our  brave  Bouille.  Within  sight  ot 
Varennes,  he  having  drawn  bridle,  calls  a  council  of  officers  ;  finds 
that  it  is  in  vain.  King  Louis  has  departed,  consentu  :  am,d 
the  clangour  of  universal  storm-bell;  amid  the  tramp  of  Ten 
thousand  armed  men,  already  arrived  ;  and  say  of  Sixty  thousand 
flocking  thither.  Brave  Deslons,  even  without  '  orders,'  darted  at 
the  River  Aire  with  his  Hundred  !t  swam  one  branch  of  it,  could 
not  the  other  ;  and  stood  there,  dripping  and  panting,  with  mflatea 
nostril  •  the  Ten  thousand  answering  him  with  a  shout  of  mockery, 
the  new  Berline  lumbering  Paris-ward  its  weary  inevitable  ^^■ay. 
No  help,  then  in  Earth  ;  nor  in  an  age,  not  of  miracles,  m 

^That"nio-ht  '  Marquis  de  Bouille  and  twenty-one  more  of  us  rode 
'  over  the  Frontiers  ;  the  Bernartline  monks  at  Orval  in  Lnxemburg 
'gave  us  supper  and  lodging.'!  With  little  ^P^^P^^'  Bo^^  f 
rides;  with  thoughts  that  do  not  brook  speech.  ^orth^^^xA 
towards  uncertainty,  and  the  Cimmerian  Night  :  towar(^^3  Wes  - 
Indian  Isles,  for  with  thin  Emigrant  delirium  tne  son  ot  the  whirl- 
wind cannot  act  ;  towards  England,  towards  premature  S  oica 
death  -  not  towards  France  any  more.  Honour  to  the  Brave, 
who,  be  it  in  this  quarrel  or  in  that,  is  a  substance  and  articulate- 
soeakinF  piece  of  Human  Valour,  not  a  fanfaronadmg  hollow 
Spectrum  and  squeaking  and  gibbering  Shadow  !  One  of  the  few 
Royalist  Chief-actors  this  Bouille,  of  whom  so  much  can  be  said. 

The  brave  Bouille  too,  then,  vanishes  from  the  tissue  of  our 
Story  Story  and  tissue,  faint  ineffectual  Emblem  of  that  grand 
Miraculous  Tissue,  and  Living  Tapestry  named  French  Revoluhon, 
which  did  weave  itself  then  in  very  f^ict,  'on  the  loud-soundmg 
'Loom  of  Time!'  The  old  Brave  drop  out  from  it,  with  hen 
strivings  ;  and  new  acrid  Drouets,  of  new  strivings  and  colour, 
come  in  :— as  is  the  manner  of  that  weaving. 


CHAPTER  VHL 

THE  RETURN. 


So  then  our  grand  Royalist  Plot,  of  Flight  to  Metz,  has  ^;r«.«/^^^ 
itself.  Long  hovering  in  the  background,  as  a  dread  royal  nltima- 
tnm,  it  has  nished  forward  in  its  terrors  :  verily  to. some  purpose. 
How  many  Royalist  Plots  and  Projects,  one  after  another,  cun- 

*  Dielaratioii  du  Sieur  Thomas  (m  Choiseul,  p.  i88). 

t  Weber,  ii.  386.  X  Aubriot,  nt  supra,  p.  i.=;8. 


THE  RETURN. 


ningly-devised,  that  were  to  explode  like  powder-mines  and  thun- 
derclaps ;  not  one  solitary  Plot  of  which  has  issued  otherwise  ! 
Powder-mine  of  a  SeaJtce  Royale  on  the  Twenty-third  of  June 
1789,  which  exploded  as  we  then  said/ through  the  touchhole;' 
which  next,  your  wargod  Broglie  having  ;^6'loaded  it,  brought  a 
BastiUe  about  your  ears.  Then  came  fervent  Opera-Repas%  with 
flourishing  of  sabres,  and  O  Richard,  O  my  King;  which,  aided 
by  Hunger,  produces  Insurrection  of  Women,  and  Pallas  A.hene 
in  the  shape  of  Demoiselle  Theroigne.  Valour  profits  not ;  neither 
has  fortune  smiled  on  Fanfaronade.  The  Bouille  Armament  ends 
as  the  Broglie  one  had  done.  Man  after  man  spends  himself  in 
this  cause,  only  to  work  it  quicker  ruin  ;  it  seems  a  cause  doomed, 
forsaken  of  Earth  and  Heaven. 

On  the  Sixth  of  October  gone  a  year.  King  Louis,  escorted  by 
Demoiselle  Theroigne  and  some  two  hundred  thousand,  made  a 
Royal  Progress  and  Entrance  into  Paris,  such  as  man  had  never 
witnessed  :  we  prophesied  him  Two  more  such  ;  and  accordingly 
another  of  them,  after  this  Flight  to  Metz,  is  now  coming  to  pass. 
Theroigne  will  not  escort  here  ;  neither  does  Mirabeau  now  'sit 
'  in  one  of  the  accompanying  carriages.'  Mirabeau  lies  dead,  in 
thb  Pantheon  of  Great  Men.  Theroigne  lies  living,  in  dark 
Austrian  Prison  ;  having  gone  to  Liege,  professionally,  and  been 
seized  there.  Bemurmured  now  by  the  hoarse-flowing  Danube  ; 
the  light  of  her  Patriot  Supper-Parties  gone  quite  out ;  so  hes 
Theroigne  :  she  shall  speak  with  the  Kaiser  face  to  face,  and  re- 
turn. And  France  lies  how  !  Fleeting  Time  shears  down  thf 
great  and  the  little  ;  and  in  two  yeats  akers  many  things. 

But  at  all  events,  here,  we  say,  is  a  second  Ignominious  Roya\ 
Procession,  though  much  altered  ;  to  be  witnessed  also  by  its  hun- 
dreds of  thousands.  Patience,  ye  Paris  Patriots  ;  the  Royal  Ber- 
line  is  returning.  Not  till  Saturday  :  for  the  Royal  Berhne  travels 
by  slow  stages  ;  amid  such  loud-voiced  confluent  sea  of  National 
Guards,  sixty  thousand  as  they  count ;  amid  such  tumult  of  all 
people.  Three  National-Assembly  Commissioners,  famed  Bar- 
nave,  famed  Petion,  generally-respectable  Latour-Maubourg,  have 
gone  to  meet  it  ;  of  whom  the  two  former  ride  in  the  Berline  it- 
self beside  Majesty,  day  after  day.  Latour,  as  a  mere  respecta- 
bility, and  man  of  whom  all  m.en  speak  well,  can  ride  in  the  rear, 
with  Dame  Tourzel  and  the  Soitbrettes. 

So  on  Saturday  evening,  about  seven  o'clock,  Paris  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  is  again  drawn  up  :  not  now  dancing  the  tricolor  joy- 
dance  of  hope  ;  nor  as  yet  dancing  in  fury-dance  of  hate  and 
revenge  ;'but  in  silence,  with  vague  look  of  conjecture  and  curio- 
.«,ity  mostly  scientific.    A  Sainte-Antoine  Placard  has  given  notice 
this  morning  that  'whosoever  insults  Louis  shall  be  caned,  v/hoso- 
'  ever  applauds  him  shall  be  hanged.'    Behold  then,  at  ia5t,  Uiat 
'  wonderful  New  Berline  ;  encircled  by  blue  National  sea  with  fixed 
bnvonets,  which  flows  slowly,  floating  it  on,  through  the  silent 
'cmbJed  hundreds  of  thousands.    Three  yellow  Couriers  sit  atop 
undvvith  ropes;  Petion,  Barnave,  their  Majesties,  with  Sister 
izabeth,  and  the  Children  of  France,  are  withhi. 

F  2 


132  VARENNES. 


Smile  of  embarrassment,  or  cloud  of  dull  sourness,  is  on  the 
broad  phlegmatic  face  of  his  Majesty  :  who  keeps  declaring  to  the  ; 
successive  Official-persons,  what  is  evident,  "  Eh  bien^  me  voila^  \ 
Well,  here  you  have  me  ; and  what  is  not  evident,  I  do  assure  ^ 
you  I  did  not  mean  to  pass  the  frontiers  ;  "  and  so  forth  :  speeches  ; 
natural  for  that  poor  Royal  Man  ;  which  Decency  would  veil.  1 
Silent  is  her  Majesty,  with  a  look  of  grief  and  scorn  ;  natural  for  i 
that  Royal  Woman.  Thus  lumbers  and  creeps  the  ignominious  \ 
Royal  Procession,  through  many  streets,  amid  a  silent-gazing  peo-  '\ 
pie  :  comparable,  Mercier  thinks,"^  to  some  Procession  de  Roi  de  \ 
Bazoche ;  or  say,  Procession  of  King  Crispin,  with  his  Dukes  of  i 
Sutor-mania  and  royal  blazonry  of  Cordwainery.  Except  indeed  i 
that  this  is  not  comic  ;  ah  no,  it  is  comico-tragic  ;  with  bound  \ 
Couriers,  and  a  Doom  hanging  over  it  ;  most  fantastic,  yet  most  i 
miserably  real.  Miserablest  y^^//^  liidibrium  oi  tx.  Pickleherring  '] 
Tragedy  !  It  sweeps  along  there,  in  most  ///^gorgeous  pall,  through  j 
many  streets,  in  the  dusty  summer  evening  ;  gets  itself  at  length  ! 
wriggled  out  of  sight ;  vanishing  in  the  Tuileries  Palace — towards  : 
its  doom,  of  slow  torture,  peine  forte  et  dure. 

Populace,  it  is  true,  seizes  the  three  rope-bound  yellow  Couriers ;  , 
will  at  least  massacre  them.  But  our  august  Assembly,  which  is 
sitting  at  this  great  moment,  sends  out  Deputation  of  rescue  ;  and  ;! 
the  whole  is  got  huddled  up.  Barnave,  '  all  dusty,^  is  already  there, 
in  the  National  Hall  ;  making  brief  discreet  address  and  report. 
As  indeed,  through  the  whole  journey,  this  Barnave  has  been  most 
discreet,  sympathetic  ;  and  has  gained  the  ()ueen's  trust,  whose 
noble  instinct  teaches  her  always  who  is  to  be  trusted.  Very 
different  from  heavy  Petion  ;  who,  if  Campan  speak  truth,  ate  his 
luncheon,  comfortably  filled  his  wine-glass,  in  the  Royal  Berline  ; 
flung  out  his  chicken-bones  past  the  nose  of  Royalty  itself ;  and, 
on  the  King's  saying  "  France  cannot  be  a  Republic,"  answered 
"  No,  it  is  not  ripe  yet."  Barnave  is  henceforth  a  Queen's  adviser; 
if  advice  could  profit ;  and  her  Majesty  astonishes  Dame  Campan 
by  signifying  almost  a  regard  for  Barnave  :  and  that,  in  a  day 
of  retribution  and  Royal  triumph,  Barnave  shall  not  be  exe- 
cuted.f 

On  Monday  night  Royalty  went ;  on  Saturday  evening  it  re- 
turns :  so  much,  within  one  short  week,  has  Royalty  accomplished 
for  itself  The  Pickleherring  Tragedy  has  vanished  in  the  Tuile- 
ries Palace,  towards  *  pain  strong  and  hard.'  Watched,  fettered, 
and  humbled,  as  Royalty  never  was.  Watched  even  in  its. sleep- 
ing-apartments and  inmost  recesses  :  for  it  has  to  sleep  with  door 
set  ajar,  blue  National  Argus  watching,  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
Queen's  curtains  ;  nay,  on  one  occasion,  as  the  Queen  cannot 
sleep,  he  offers  to  sit  by  her  pillow,  and  converse  a  little  !J 
*  Nouveau  Paris,  ill.  22. 

f  Campan,  ii.  c.  i8.  J  Ibid.  ii.  149, 


SHARP  SHOT, 


133 


CHAPTER  IX. 

c^ARP  SHOT 

In  reo-ard  to  all  which,  tnis  most  pressing  question  i^nses;  What 
is  to  be  done  with  it  ?  Depose  it  Irresolutely  answer  Robes- 
pierre and  the  thoroughgoing  few.  For  truly,  with  a  King  who 
runs  away,  and  need?  to  be  watched  in  his  very  bedroom  that  he 
may  stay  and  govern  you,  what  other  reasonable  thing  can  be 
done  ?  Had  Philippe  d'Orleans  not  been  a  caput  mortuum  !  But 
of  him,  known  as  one  defunct,  no  man  now  dreams.  "  Depose  it 
not ;  say  that  it  is  inviolable,  that  it  was  spirited  away,  v^^senleve; 
at  any  cost  of  sophistry  and  solecism,  reestablish  it !  "  so  answer 
with  loud  vehemence  all  m.anner  of  Constitutional  Royalists  ;  as 
all  your  Pure  Royahsts  do  naturally  likewise,  with  low  vehemence, 
and  rage  compressed  by  fear,  still  more  passionately  answer.  Nay 
Barnave  and  the  two  Lameths,  and  what  will  followvthem,  do  like- 
wise answer  so.  Answer,  with  their  whole  might  :  terror-struck 
at  the  unknown  Abysses  on  the  verge  of  which,  driven  thither  by 
themselves  mainly,  all  now  reels,  ready  to  plunge. 

By  mighty  effort  and  combination  this  latter  course,  of  reebcab- 
hsh  it,  is  the  course  fixed  on  ;  and  it  shaD  b^;  the  strong  arm,  if 
not  by  the  clearest  logic,  be  made  good.  With  the  sacrifice  of  all 
their  hard-earned  popularity,  this  notable  Triumvirate,  says  1  ou- 
longeon,  '  set  the  Throne  up  again,  which  they  had  so  toiled  to 
'  overturn  :  as  one  might  set  up  an  overturned  pyramid,  oa  its 
'  vertex  ;  to  stand  so  long  as  it  is  held: 

Unhappy  France  ;  unhappy  in  King,  Queen,  and  Constitution  ; 
one  knows  not  in  which  unhappiest  !  Was  the  meariing  of  our 
so  glorious  French  Revolution  this,  and  no  other.  That  when  Shams 
and  Delusions,  long  soul-kilhng,  had  become  body-killing,  and  got 
the  length  of  Bankruptcy  and  Inanition,  a  great  People  rose  and, 
with  one  voice,  said,  in  the  Name  of  .iie  Highest :  Shams  shall  oe 
no  7nore  ^  So  many  sorrows  and  bloody  horrors,  endured,  and  to 
be  yet  endured  through  dismal  -oming  centuries,  were  they  not 
the  heavy  price  paid  and  pa>cibl^  for  this  same  :  Total  Destruc- 
tion of  Shams  from  among  men  ?  And  now,  O  Barnave  Triumvi- 
rate '  is  it  in  such  ^^/^^/^- distilled  Delusion,  and  Sham  even  ot  a 
Sham,  that  an  Effort  of  this  kind  will  rest  acquiescent?  Messieurs 
of  the  popular  Triumvirate  :  Never  1  But,  after  all,  what  can  poor 
popular  Triumvirates  and  fallible  august  Senators  do  ?  They  can, 
'vhen  the  Truth  is  all  too-horrible,  stick  their  heads  ostrich-hke 
into  what  sheltering  Fallacy  is  nearest:  and  wait  \h^xQ,  a  posti- 
riori  / 

Readers  who  saw  the  Clermontais  and  Three-Bishopricks  gallop, 
in  the  Niprht  of  Spurs  ;  Diligences  ruffiiug  up  all  France  into  one 
terrific  tenified  Cock  of  India  ;  and  the  Town  of  Nantes  in  its 


m  VARENNES. 


snirt,-~may  fancy  what  an  affair  to  settle  this  was.  RobesDierre 
on  the  extreme  Left,  with  perhaps  Petion  and  lean  old  Goupil,  for 
the  very  Triumvirate  has  defalcated,  are  shrieking  hoarse ;  drowned 
m  Constitutional  clamour.  But  the  debate  and  arguing  of  a  whole 
Nation  ;  the  bellowings  through  all  Journals,  for  and  against  •  the 
reverberant  voice  of  Danton  ;  the  Hyperion-shafts  of  Camille'-  the 
porcupme-quills  of  implacable  Marat  :— conceive  all  this 

Constitutionalists  in  a  body,  as  we  often  predicted,  do  now  recede 
irom  the  Mother  Society,  and  become  Feuillans  j  threatening  her 
with  manition  the  rank  and  respectability  being  mostly  %one 
Petition  after  Petition,  forwarded  by  Post,  or  borne  in  Deputation* 
comes  praying  for  Judgment  and  Decheance,  which  is  our  name 
tor  Deposition  ;  praying,  at  lowest,  for  Reference  to  the  Eiehtv- 
three  Departments  of  France.  Hot  Marseillese  Deputation  comes 
declaring  among  other  things  :  "  Our  Phocean  Ancestors  fluna 
a  Bar  of  Iron  into  the  Bay  at  their  first  landing;  this  Bar  will  float 
again  on  the  Mediterranean  brine  before  we  consent  to  be  slaves  " 
A  1  this  for  four  weeks  or  more,  while  the  matter  still  hangs  doubt^ 
tul;  Emigration  streaming  with  double  violence  over  the  frontiers-^' 
France  seething  in  fierce  agitation  of  this  question  and  prize-ques- 
tion  :  What  is  to  be  done  with  the  fugitive  Hereditary  Represen- 
tative? ^ 

Finally,  on  Friday  the  15th  of  July  1791,  the  National  Assemblv 
decides  ;  m  what  negatory  manner  we  know.  Whereupon  the 
Iheatres  all  close,  the  ^^//r;^^-stones  and  Portable-chairs  begin 
spouting  Municipal  Placards  flaming  on  the  walls,  and  Proclama- 
tions published  by  sound  of  trumpet, '  invite  to  repose  \'  with  small 
ehect.  And  so  on  Sunday  the  17th,  there  shall  be  a  thing  seen, 
worthy  of  remembering.  Scroll  of  a  Petition,  drawh  up  by  Brissots 
Dantons,  by  Cordehers,  Jacobins  ;  for  the  thing  was  infinitely 
shaken  and  manipulated,  and  many  had  a  hand  in  it :  such  Scroll 
lies  now  visible,  on  the  wooden  framework  of  the  Fatherland's 
Altaic  for  signature.  Unworking  Paris,  male  and  female,  is  crowd- 
ing thither,  all  day,  to  sign  or  to  see.  Our  fair  Roland  herself  the 
eye  of  History  can  discern  there,  '  in  the  morning  ; '  f  not  without 
interest.  In  few  weeks  the  fair  Patriot  will  quit  Paris  :  yet  perhaps 
only  to  return.  w     r  r 

But,  what  with  sorrow  of  baulked  Patriotism,  what  with  closed 
theatres,  and  Proclamations  still  publishing  themselves  by  sound 
of  trumpet,  the  fervour  of  men's  minds,  this  day,  is  great.  Na}' 
over  and  above,  there  has  fallen  out  an  incident,  of  the  nature  of 
l^  arce-  Pragedy  and  Riddle  ;  enough  to  stimulate  all  creatures. 
Early  in  the  day,  a  Patriot  (or  some  say,  it  was  a  Patriotess,  and 
indeed  Truth  is  undiscoverable),  while  standing  on  the  firm  deal- 
board  of  Patherland's  Altar,  feels  suddenly,  with  indescribable 
torpedo-shock  of  amazement,  his  bootsole  pricked  throueh  from 


below ;  he  clutches  up  suddenly  this  electrified  bootsole  and  foot  ; 
discerns  next  instant— the  point  of  a  gimlet  or  brad-awl  playing 
up,  through  the  firm  deal-board,  and  now  hastily  drawing  itself 
back !  Mystery,  perhaps  Treason  1  The  wooden  frame-work  is 
*  Bouillc,  ii.  loi  f  Mjidame  Roland,  ii.  74. 


SHARP  SHOT.  13j 


impetuously  broken  up  ;  and  behold,  verily  a  mystery  ;  never  ex- 
plicable fully  to  the  end  of  the  world  !  Two  human  individuals, 
of  mean  aspect,  one  of  them  with  a  wooden  leg,  lie  ensconced 
there,  gimlet  in  hand  :  they  must  have  come  in  overnight  ;  they 
have  a  supply  of  provisions, — no  '  barrel  of  gunpowder '  that  one 
can  see;  they  affect  to  be  asleep  ;  look  blank  enough,  and  give 
the  lamest  account  of  themselves.  "  Mere  curiosity  ;  they  were 
boring  up  to  "jet  an  eye-hole;  to  see,  perhaps  'with  lubricity/ 
whatsoever,  from  that  new  point  of  vision,  could  be  seen  :  " — ^little 
that  was  edifying,  one  would  think  !  But  indeed  what  stupidest 
thing  may  not  human  Dulness,  Pruriency,  Lubricity,  Chance  and 
the  Devil,  choosing  Two  out  of  Half-a-million  idle  human  heads, 
tempt  them  to  ? 

Sure  enough,  the  two  human  individuals  with  their  gimlet  are 
there.  Ill-starred  pair  of  individuals  !  Foi  the  result  of  it  all  is  that 
Patriotism,  fretting  itself,  in  this  state  of  nervous  excitability,  with 
hypotheses,  suspicions  and  reports,  keeps  questioning  these  two 
distracted  human  individuals,  and  again  questioning  them  ;  claps 
them  into  the  nearest  Guardhouse,  clutches  them^  out  again  ;  one 
hypothetic  group  snatching  them  from  another  :  till  finally,  in  such 
extreme  state  of  nervous  excitability,  Patriotism  hangs  them  as 
spies  of  Sieur  Motier  ;  and  the  life  and  secret  is  choked  out  of 
them  forevermore.  Forevermore,  alas  !  Or  is  a  day  to  be  looked 
for  when  these  two  evidently  mean  individuals,  who  are  human 
nevertheless,  will  become  Historical  Riddles  ;  and,  like  him  of  the 
Iron  Maik  (also  a  human  individual,  and  evidently  nothing  more), 
—have  their  Dissertations  ?  To  us  this  only  is  certain,  that  they 
had  a  gimlet,  provisions  and  a  wooden  leg  ,'  and  have  died  there 
on  the  Lanterne,  as  the  unluckiest  fools  might  die. 

And  so  the  signature  goes  on,  in  a  still  more  excited  manner. 
And  Chaumette,  for  Antiquarians  possess  the  very  Paper  to  this 
hour,t—  has  signed  him.self  'in  a  flowing  saucy  hand  slightly 
'leaned  and  Hebert,  detestable  Pere  Ditckine,  as  if  'an  inked 
'spider  had  dropped  on  the  paper;'  Usher  Maillard  also  has. 
signed,  and  many  Crosses,  which  cannot  write.  And  Paris,  through 
its  thousand  avenues,  is  welling  to  the  Champ-de-Mars  and  from 
it,  in  the  utmost  excitability  of  humour  ;  central  Fatherland  a 
Altar  quite  heaped  with  signing  Patriots  and  Patriotesses  ;  the 
Thirty-benches  and  whole  internal  Space  crowded  with  onlookers, 
with  comers  and  goers  ;  one  regurgitating  whirlpool  of  men  and 
women  in  their  Sunday  clothes.  All  which  a  Constitutional  Sieur 
Motier  sees  ;  and  Bailly,  looking  into  it  with  his  long  visage  made 
still  longer.  Auguring  no  good  ;  perhaps  Dechcance  and  Deposi- 
tion after  all  !  Stop  it,  ye  Constitutional  Patriots  ;  fire  itself  is 
quenchable,  yet  only  quenchable  at  first ! 

Stop  it,  truly  :  but  how  stop  it  ?  Have  not  the  first  Free  Peopie 
of  the  Universe  a  right  to  petition  ?— Happily,  if  also  unhappily, 
here  is  one  proof  of  riot  :  these  two  human  individuals,  hanged  at 
the  Lanterne.  Proof,  O  treacherous  Sieur  Motier?  Were  they 
not  two  human  individuals  sent  thither  by  thee  to  be  hanged ;  to 
*  Hist.  Pari.  xi.  104-7.  t  ^hid.  xi.  113,  &a 


136 


VARENNES, 


be  a  pretext  for  thy  bloody  Drapcau  Range  ?    This  question  shall 
many  a  Patriot,  one  day,  ask  ;  and  answer  affirmatively,  strong  in  \ 
Preternatural  Suspicion.^ 

Enough,  towards  half  past  seven  in  the  evening,  the  mere  natural  \ 
eye  can  behold  this  thing  :  Sieur  Metier,  with  Municipals  in  scarf,  / 
with  blue  National  Patroliotism,  rank  after  rank,  to  the  clang  of  \ 
drums  ;  wending  resolutely  to  the  Champ-de~Mars  ;  Mayor  Bailly,  \ 
with  elongated  visage,  bearing,  as  in  sad  duty  bound,  the  Drapeau  ' 
Range  !    \\o\n\  of  angry  derision  rises  in  treble  and  bass  from  a 
hundred  thousand  throats,  at  the  sight  of  Martial  Law  ;  which 
nevertheless  waving  its  Red  sanguinary  Plag,  advances  there, 
from  the  Gros-Caillou  Entrance  ;  advances,  drumming  and  waving, 
towards  Altar  of  Fatherland.    Amid  still  wilder  howls,  with  objur- 
gation, obtestation  ;  with  flights  of  pebbles  and  mud,^"^^'^  et  fceces  ; 
with  crackle  of  a  pistol-shot  ; — finally  with  volley-fire  of  Patrol- 
otism ;  levelled  muskets  ;  roll  of  volley  on  volley  !  Precisely 
after  one  year  and  three  days,  our  sublime  Federation  Field  is 
wetted,  in  this  manner,  with  French  blood. 

Some  '  Twelve  unfortunately  shot,'  reports  Bailly,  counting  by 
units  ;  but  Patriotism  counts  by  tens  and  even  by  hundreds.  Not 
to  be  forgotten,  nor  forgiven  !  Patriotism  flies,  shrieking, 
execrating.  Camille  ceases  Journahsing,  this  day  ;  great  Danton 
with  Camille  and  Freron  have  taken  wing,  for  their  life  ;  Marat 
burrows  deep  in  the  Earth,  and  is  silent.  Once  more  Patroliotism 
has  triumphed  :  one  other  time  ;  but  it  is  the  last. 

This  was  the  Royal  Flight  to  Varennes.  Thus  was  the  Throne  ' 
overturned  thereby  ;  but  thus  also  was  it  victoriously  set  up  agaij?  i 
—on  its  vertex ;  and  will  stand  while  it  can  be  hekl 


BOOK  FIFTH. 

PARLIAMENT  FIRSX 


CHAPTER  1. 

GRANDE  ACCEPTATION. 

In  the  last  nights  of  September,  when  the  autumnal  equinox  is 
past,  and  grey  September  fades  into  brown  October,  why  are  the 
Champs  Elysees  illuminated ;  why  is  Paris  dancing,  and  flinging 
fire-works  ?  They  are  gala-nights,  these  last  of  September  ;  Paris 
may  well  dance,  and  the  Universe  :  the  Edifice  of  the  Constitu- 
tion is  completed!  Completed;  nay  revised^  to  see  that  there 
was  nothing  insufficient  in  it  ;  ,  solemnly  proferred  to  his  Majesty  ; 
solemnly  accepted  by  him,  to, the  sound  of  cannon-salvoes,  on 
the  fourteenth  of  the  month.  And  now  by  such  illumination, 
jubilee,  dancing  and  fire-working,  do  we  joyously  handsel  the  new 
Social  Edifice,  and  first  raise  heat  and  reek  there,  in  the  name  ot 
Hope. 

The  Revision,  especially  with  a  throne  standing  on  its  vertex, 
has  been  a  work  of  difhculty,  of  delicacy.  In  the  way  of  propping 
and  buttressing,  so  indispensable  now,  something  could  be  done  ; 
and  yet,  as  is  feared,  not  enough.  A  repentant  Barnave  Trium- 
virate, our  Rabauts,  Duports,  Thourets,  and  indeed  all  Constitu- 
?;ional  Deputies  did  strain  every  nerve  :  but  the  Extreme  Left  was 
so  noisy  ;  the  People  were  so  suspicious,  clamorous  to  have  the 
work  ended  :  and  then  the  loyal  Right  Side  sat  feeble  petulant  all 
the  while,  and  as  it  were,  pouting  and  petting  ;  unable  to  help, 
had  they  even  been  wiUing.  The  Two  Hundred  and  Ninety  had 
solemnly  made  scission,  before  that  :  and  departed,  shaking  the 
dust  off  their  feet.  To  such  transcendency  of  fret,  and  des- 
perate hope  that  worsening  of  the  bad  might  the  sooner  end  it 
and  bring  back  the  good,  had  our  unfortunate  loyal  Right  Side 
now  come  \^ 

However,  one  finds  that  this  and  the  other  httle  prop  has  been 
added,  where  possibility  allowed.  Civil-list  and  Privy-purse  were 
from  of  old  well  cared  for.  King's  Constitutional  Guard,  Eighteen 
hundred  loyal  men  from  the  Eighty- three  Departments,  under  a 
loyal  Duke  de  Brissac  ;  this,  with  trustworthy  Swiss  besides,  is  ot 
*  Toulongeon,  ii.  56,  59. 


itself  something.  The  old  loyal  Bodyguards  are  indeed  dissolved, 
in  name  as  well  as  in  fact ;  and  gone  mostly  towards  Coblentz. 
But  now  also  those  Sansculottic  violent  Gardes  Francaises,  or 
Centre  Grenadiers,  shall  have  their  mittimus  :  they  do  ere  long, 
in  the  Journals,  not  without  a  hoarse  pathos,  publish  their  Fare- 
well ;  '  wishing  all  Aristocrats  the  graves  in  Paris  which  to  us  are 
'  denied.'*  They  depart,  these  first  Soldiers  of  the  Revolution  ; 
they  hover  very  dimly  in  the  distance  for  about  another  year  ;  till 
thev  can  be  remodelled,  new-named,  and  sent  to  fight  the  Aus- 
trians  ;  and  then  History  beholds  them  no  more.  A  most  notable 
Corps  of  men  ;  which  has  its  place  in  World-History  though  to 
us,  so  is  History  written,  they  remain  mere  rubrics  of  men  ;  name- 
less ;  a  shaggy  Grenadier  Mass,  crossed  with  buff-belts.  And 
yet  might  we  not  ask  :  What  Argonauts,  what  Leonidas'  Spartans 
had  done  such  a  work  ?  Think  of  their  destiny  :  since  that  May 
morning,  some  three  years  ago,  when  they,  unparticipating, 
trundled  off  d'Espremenil  to  the  Calypso  Isles  ;  since  that  July 
evening,  some  two  years  ago,  when  they,  participating  and  sacre- 
ing  with  knit  brows,  poured  a  volley  mto  BesenvaFs  Prince  de 
Lambesc  !    History  waves  them  her  mute  adieu. 

So  that  the  Sovereign  Power,  these  Sansculottic  Watchdogs, 
more  like  wolves,  being  leashed  and  led  away  from  his  Tuileries, 
breathes  freer.  The  Sovereign  Power  is  guarded  henceforth  by  a 
loyal  Eighteen  hundred,— whom  Contrivance,  under  various  pre- 
texts, may  gradually  swell  to  Six  thousand  ;  who  will  hinder  no 
Journey  to  Saint-Cloud.  The  sad  Varennes  business  has  been 
soldered  up  ;  cemented,  even  in  the  blood  of  the  Cham_p-de-Mars, 
these  two  months  and  more  ;  and  indeed  ever  since,  as  formerly, 
Majesty  has  had  its  privileges,  its  '  choice  of  residence,'  though, 
for  good  reasons,  the  royal  mind  '  prefers  continuing  in  Paris.' 
Poor  royal  mind,  poor  Paris  ;  that  have  to  go  mumming  ;  en- 
veloped in  speciosities,  in  falsehood  which  knows  itself  false  ;  and 
to  enact  mutually  your  sorrowful  farce-tragedy,  being  bound  to  it ; 
and  on  the  whole,  to  hope  always,  in  spite  of  hope 

Nay,  now  that  his  Majesty  has  accepted  the  Constitution,  to 
the  sound  of  cannon-salvoes,  who  would  not  hope  ?  Our  good 
King  was  misguided  but  he  meant  well.  Lafayette  has  moved  for 
an  Amnesty,  for  universal  forgiving  and  forgetting  of  Revolution- 
ary faults  ;  and  now  surely  the  glorious  Revolution  cleared  of  itg 
rubbish,  is  complete  !  Strange  enough,  and  touching  in  severa» 
ways,  the  old  cry  of  Vive  le  Rot  once  more  rises  round  Kin^s 
Louis  the  Hereditary  Representative.  Their  Majesties  went  t( 
tlic  Opera  ;  gave  money  to  the  Poor  :  the  Queen  herself,  now 
when  the  Constitution  is  accepted,  hears  voice  of  cheering.  Bygone 
shall  be  bygone  ;  the  New  Era  shall  begin  !  To  and  fro,  amia 
those  lamp-galaxies  of  the  Elysian  Fields,  the  Royal  Carriage? 
slowly  wends  and  rolls  ;  every  where  with  vivats,  from  a  multi- 
Uide  striving  to  be  glad.  Louis  looks  out,  mainly  on  the  variegated 
lamps  and  gay  human  groups,  with  satisfaction  enough  for  the 
hour.  In  her  Majesty's  face,  *  under  that  kind  graceful  sjnik>  'a 
*  Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  73. 


GRANDE  ACCEPTATION.    .  -139 


'deed  sadness  is  legible.'^  Brilliancies^  of  valour  and  of  wit, 
stroll  here  observant  :  a  Dame  de  Stael,  leaning  most  probably  on 
the  arm  of  her  Narbonne.  She  meets  Deputies  ;  who  have  built 
this  Constitution  ;  who  saunter  here  with  vague  communings, — 
net  without  thoughts  whether  it  will  stand.  But  as  yet  melodious 
fiddlcstrings  twang  and  warble  every  where,  with  the  rhythm  of 
light  fantastic  feet ;  long  lamp-galaxies  fling  their  coloured  radi- 
ance ;  and  brass-lunged  Hawkers  elbow  and  bawl,  "  Grande  Ac- 
c^ptatioii^  Co7istitution  Monarchiqiie  : it  behoves  the  Son  of 
Adam  to  hope.  Have  not  Lafayette,  Barnave,  and  all  Constitu- 
tionalists set  their  shoulders  handsomely  to  the  inverted  pyramid 
of  a  throne  ?  Feuillans,  including  almost  the  whole  Constitutional 
Respectabilit}^  of  France,  perorate  nightly  from  their  tribune  ; 
correspond  through  all  Post-offices ;  denouncing  unquiet  Jacobin- 
ism ;  trusting  well  that  its  time  is  nigh  done.  Much  is  uncertain, 
quest :o::r,ble  :  but  if  the  Hereditary  Representative  be  wise  and 
lucky,  may  one  not,  with  a  sanguine  Gaelic  temper,  hope  that  he 
will  g2t  in  motion  better  or  worse  ;  that  what  is  wanting  to  him 
will  gradually  be  gained  and  added  ? 

For  the  rest,  as  w^e  must  repeat,  in  this  building  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Fabric,  especially  in  this  Revision  of  it,  nothing  that  one 
could  think. of  to  give  it  new  strength,  especially  to  steady  it,  to 
give  it  permanence,  and  even  eternity,  has  been  forgotten.  '  Bien- 
nial Parliament,  to  be  called  Legislative,  Assembi^c  Legislative; 
with  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-five  Members,  chosen  in  a  judi- 
cious manner  by  the  ^active  citizens'  alone,  and  even  by  electing 
of  elector:.  stHl  more  active  :  this,  with  privileges  of  Parliament 
shall  meet,  self-authorized  if  need  be,  and  self-dissolved  ;  shall 
grant  money-supplies  and  talk  ;  watch  over  the  administration  and 
authorities  ;  uischarge  for  ever  the  functions  of  ^  Constitutional 
Great  Council,  Collective  Wisdom,  and  National  Palaver, — as  the 
He-vens  will  enable.  Our  First  biennial  Parliament,  which 
indeed  has  been  a-choosing  since  early  in  August,  is  no .  -  as  good 
as  chosen.  Nay  it  has  mostly  got  to  Paris  :  it  arrived  gradually  - 
not  without  pathetic  greeting  to  its  .-enerablc  Parent,  the  now 
moribund  Constituent  ;  and  sat  there  in  the  Galleries,  reverently 
listening  ;  ready  to  begin,  the  instant  the  ground  were  clear. 

I'hen  as  to  changes  in  the  Constitution  itself?  This,  impossible 
fbr  any  Legislative,  or  common  biennial  Parhament;,  and  possible 
solely  for  some  resuscitated  Constituent  or  National  Convention^ 
—is  evidently  one  of  the  most  ticklish  points.  The  august  mori^ 
bund  Assembly  debated  it  for  four  entire  days.  Some  t'.ought  s 
change,  or  at  least  reviewal  and  new  approval,  might  be  admis'sible 
m  thirty  years  ;  some  even  went  lower,  down  to  twenty,  nay  to 
fifteen.  The  august  Assembly  had  once  decided  for  thirty  years  ; 
but  it  revoked  that,  on  better  thoughts ;  a:^d  did  not  fix  nny  date 
of  time,  but  merely  some  vague  outline  of  a  posture  of  circum- 
stances, and  Du  the  whole  left  the  matter  hanging.f  Doubtless  a 
Nation  il  Convention  can  be  assembled  even  unihin  the  thirty 

*  De  Stael,  Consideniiions,  i.  c.  23. 

t  Olioix  de  Rapports,  &.c.  (Paris,  1825^  vi.  239-317, 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


years  :  yet  one  may  hope,  not ;  but  that  Legislatives,  biennial  \ 
Parhaments  of  the  common  kind,  with  their  hmited  facuUy,  and  ; 
perhaps  quiet  successive  additions  thereto,  may  suffice,  for  gener^  \ 
ations,  or  indeed  while  computed  Time  runs. 

Furthermore,  be  it  noted  that  no  member  of  this  Constituent  ; 
has  been,  or  could  be,  elected  to  the  new  Legislative.    So  noble  i 
minded  were  these  Law-makers  !  cry  some  :  and  Solon-like  would  , 
banish  themselves.    So  splenetic  !  cry  more  :  each  grudging  the 
other,  none  daring  to  be  outdone  in  self-denial  by  the  other.  Sc 
unwise  in  either  case  !  answer  all  practical  men.    But  consider  ; 
this  other  self-denying  ordinance.  That  none  of  us  can  be  King's  ? 
Minister,  or  accept  the  smallest  Court  Appointment,  for  the  space  i 
of  four,  or  at  lowest  (and  on  long  debate  and  Revision),  for  the 
space  of  two  years  !    So  moves  the  incorruptible  seagreen  Robes  I 
pierre  ;  with  cheap  magnanimity  he  ;  and  none  dare  be  outdone  1 
by  him.    It  was  such  a  law,  not  so  superfluous  then,  that  sent 
Mirabeau  to  the  Gardens  of  Saint-Cloud,  under  cloak  of  dark-  : 
ness,  to  that  colloquy  of  the  gods  ;  and  thwarted  many  things.  . 
Happily  and  unhappily  there  is  no  Mirabeau  now  to  thwart.  • 

Welcomer  meanwhile,  welcome  surely  to  all  right  hearts,  i?  \ 
Lafayette's  chivalrous  Amnesty.    Welcome  too  is  that  hard-wrun<: 
Union  of  Avignon  ;  which  has  cost  us,  first  and  last,  '  thirty  ses:  ^ 
*  sions  of  debate,'  and  so  much  else  :  may  it  at  length  prove  lucky  \ 
Rousseau's  statue  is  decreed  :  virtuous  Jean-Jacques,  Evangehs:  , 
of  the  Contrat  Social.    Not  Drouet  of  Varennes  ;  nor  worth) 
Lataille,  master  of  the  old  world-famous  Tennis  Court  in  Ver  ' 
sailles,  is  forgotten  ;  but  each  has  his  honourable  mention,  and 
due  reward  in  money."^    Whereupon,  things  being  all  so  neatl>  ' 
winded  up,  and  the  Deputations,  and  Messages,  and  royal  anci 
other  Ceremonials  having  rustled  by  ;  and  the  King  having  no\\- 
affectionately  perorated  about  peace  and  tranquihsation,  and  mem  \ 
bers   having  answered  "Old/  otuf'  with  effusion,  even  witV  ' 
tears,— President  Thouret,  he  of  the  Law  Reforms,  rises,  and 
with  a  strong  voice,  utters  these  memorable  last-words  :  "  Theii 
National  Constituent  Assembly  declares  that  it  has  finished  it< 
mission  ;   and  that  its  sittings  are   all   ended."  Incorruptibk 
Robespierre,  virtuous  Petion  are  borne  home  on  the  shoulders  o: 
the  people  ;  with  vivats  heaven-high.    The  rest  glide  quietly  t( 
their  respective  places  of  abode.    It  is   the  last  afternoon  o 
September,  1791  ;  on  the  morrow  morning  the  new  Legislativt 
will  begin. 

So,  amid  glitter  of  illuminated  streets  and  Champs  Elysees,  anc 
crackle  of  fireworks  and  glad  deray,  has  the  first  Nationa 
Assembly  vanished  ;  dissolinnq;,  as  they  well  say,  into  blam 
Time  ;  and  is  no  more.  National  Assembly  is  gone,  its  work  re| 
maining  ;  as  all  P>odies  of  men  go,  and  as  man  himself  goes  :  ij 
had  itsi beginning,  and  must  likewise  have  its  end.  A  Phantasmj 
Reality  born  of  Time,  as  the  rest  of  us  are;  flitting  ever  back| 
wards  now  on  the  tide  of  Time  :  to  be  long  remembered  of  men 
*  Moil  it  cur  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xi.  473).  .  | 


GRANDE  ACCEPTATION. 


Verv  strange  Assemblages,  Sanhedrims,  Amphictyonics,  Trades 
Unions,  Ecumenic  Councils,  Parliaments  and  Congresses,  have 
met  together  on  this  Planet,  and  dispersed  again  ;  but  a  stranger 
Assemxblage  than  this  august  Constituent,  or  with  a  stranger  mis- 
sion, perhaps  never  met  there.  Seen  from  the  distance,  this  also 
will  be  a  miracle.  Twelve  Hundred  human  individuals,  with  the 
Gospel  of  Jean-Jacqucs  Rousseau  in  their  pocket,  congregating 
in  the  name  of  Twemv  five  Millions,  with  full  assurance  of  faith, 
to  '  make  the  Constitution  : '  such  sight,  the  acme  and  main  pro- 
duct of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  our  World  can  witness  once  only. 
For  Time  is  rich  in  wonders, 'in  monstrosities  most  rich  ;  and  is 
observed  never  to  repeat  himself,  or  any  of  his  Gospels  .'—surely 
least,  of  all,  this  Gospel  according  to  Jean-Jacques.  Once  it  was 
right  and  indispensable,  since  such  had  become  the  Belief  of  men  ; 
but  once  also  is  enough. 

They  have  made  the  Constitution,  these  Twelve  Huadred  Jean- 
Jacques  Evangelists  ;  not  without  result.  Near  twenty-nine 
months  they  sat,  with  various  fortune  ;  in  various  capacity  ;— 
always,  we  may  say,  in  that  capacity  of  carborne  Caroccio,  and 
miraculous  Standard  of  the  Revolt  of  Men,  as  a  Thing  high  and 
lilted  up  ;  whereon  whosoever  looked  might  hope  healing.  They 
have  seen  much  :  cannons  levelled  on  them  ;  then  suddenly,  by 
mterposition  of  the  Powers,  the  cannons  drawn  back  \  and  a  war- 
god  Broglie  vanishing,  in  thunder  not  his  own,  amid  the  dust  and 
downrushing  of  a  Bastille  and  Old  Feudal  France.  They  have 
suffered  somewhat  :  Royal  Session,  with  rain  and  Oath  of  the 
Tennis-Court  ;  Nights  of  Pentecost ;  Insurrections  of  Women. 
Also  have  they  not  done  somewhat  ?  Made  the  Constitution,  and 
managed  all  things  the  while  ;  passed,  m  these  twenty-nine  months, 

*  twenty-five  hundred  Decrees,' which  on  the  average  is  some  three 
for  each  day,  including  Sundays  !  Brevity,  one  finds,  is  possible, 
at  times  :  had  not  Moreau  de  St.  Mery  to  give  three  thousand 
orders  before  rising  from  his  seat  ? —There  was  valour  (or  value) 
in  these  men  ;  and  a  kind  of  faith,— were  it  only  faith  in  this.  That 
cobwebs  are  not  cloth  ;  that  a  Constitution  could  be  made.  Cob- 
webs and  chimeras  ought  verily  to  disappear  ;  for  a  Pveality  there 
is.  Let  formulas,  soul-kilhng,  and  now  grown  body-killing,  insup- 
portable, begone,  in  the  name  of  Heaven  and  Earth  I— Time,  as 
we  say,  brought  forth  these  Twelve  Hundred  ;  Eternity  was  before 
them,  Eternity  behind  :  they  worked,  as  we  all  do,  in  the  conflu- 
ence of  Two  Eternities  ;  what  work  was  given  them.  Say  not 
that  it  was  nothing  they  did.  Consciously  they  did  somewhat  ; 
unconsciously  how  much  !  They  had  their  giants  and  their 
dwarfs,  they  accomplished  their  good  and  their  evil  ;  they  are 
gone,  and  return  no  more.  Shall  they  not  go  with  our  blessing,  in 
these  circumstances  ;  with  our  mild  farewell  ? 

•  By  post,  by  diligence,  on  saddle  or  sole  ;  they  are  gone  : 
■  towards  the  four  winds  !    Not  a  few  over  the  marches,  to  rank  at 

Coblentz.    Thither  wended  Maury,  among  others  ;  but  in  the 
end  towards  Rome,— to  be  clothed  there  in  red  Cardinal  plush  ; 
j  in  falsehood  as  in  a  garment ;  pet  son  (her  last-hoxn  ?)  of  the 


142 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


Scarlet  Woman.  Talleyrand-Perigord,  excommunicated  Consti- 
tutional Bishop,  will  make  his  way  to  London  ;  to  be  Ambassador, 
spite  of  the  Self-denying  Law;  brisk  young  Marquis  Chauvelin 
acting  as  Ambassador's-Cloak.  In  London,  too,  one  finds  Petion 
the  virtuous ;  harangued  and  haranguing,  pledging  the  wine-cup 
with  Constitutional  Reform  Clubs,  in  solemn  tavern-dinner.  In 
corruptible  Robespierre  retires  for  a  little  to  native  Arras  :  seven 
short  weeks  of  quiet ;  the  last  appointed  him  in  this  world.  Public 
Accuser  in  the  Paris  Department,  acknowledged  highpriest  of  the 
Jacobins  ;  the  glass  of  incorruptible  thin  Patriotism,  for  his  narrow 
emphasis  is  loved  of  all  the  narrow,— this  man  seems  to  be  rising, 
somewhither.?*  Resells  his  small  heritage  at  Arras;  accompa- 
nied by  a  Brother  and  a  Sister,  he  returns,  scheming  out  with 
resolute  timidity  a  small  sure  destiny  for  himself  and  them,  to  his 
old  lodging,  at  the  Cabinet-maker's,  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore  :  — O 
resolute-tremulous  incorruptible  seagreen  man,  towards  what  a 
destiny ! 

Lafayette,  for  his  part,  will  lay  down  the  command.    He  retire^ 
Cincinnatus-like  to  his  hearth  and  farm ;  but  soon  leaves  then 
again.     Our  National  Guard,  however,  shall  henceforth  have  r. 
one  Commandant ;  but  all  Colonels  shall  command  in  successioi 
month  about.     Other  Deputies  we  have  met,  or  Dame  de  Stiu 
has  met,  'sauntering  in  a  thoughtful  manner;'  perhaps  uncertai 
what  to  do.    Some,  as  Barnave,  the  Lameths,  and  their  Dupori, 
will  continue  here  in  Paris  ;  watching  the  new  biennial  Legislative, 
Parliament  the  First ;  teaching  it  to  walk,  if  so  might  be  ;  and  the 
Court  to  lead  it. 

Thus  these  :  sauntering  in  a  thoughtful  manner;  travelling  by 
post  or  diligence, — whither  Fate  beckons.  Giant  Mirabeau 
slumbers  in  the  Pantheon  of  Great  Men  :  and  France  ?  and 
Europe  } — The  brass-lunged  Hawkers  sing  "  Grand  Acceptation, 
Monarchic  Constitution  "  through  these  gay  crowds  :  the  Morrow, 
grandson  of  Yesterday,  must  be  what  it  can,  as  To-day  its  father 
is.  Our  new  biennial  Legislative  begins  to  constitute  itself  on  the 
first  of  October,  1791. 


CHAPTER  II. 

tmf:  book  of  the  law. 

If  the  august  Constituent  Assembly  itself,  fixing  the  regards  of 
the  Universe,  could,  at  the  present  distance  of  time  and  place, 
gain  comparatively  small  attention  from  us,  how  much  less  can 
this  poor  IvCgislativc !  It  has  its  Right  Side  and  its  Left;  the  less 
l\'itriotic  and  the  more,  for  Aristocrats  exist  not  here  or  now :  it 
spouts  and  speaks:  hstens  to  Reports,  reads  liills  and  Laws; 
works  in  its  vocation,  for  a  season :  but  the  History  of. France, 
one  finds,  is  seldom  or  never  there.    Unhappy  Legislative,  what 


THE  BOOK  OP  THE  LAW.  Hi 


ran  History  do  with  it ;  if  not  drop  a  tear  over  it,  ahnost  in  silence  ? 
First  of  the  two-vear  Parhaments  of  France,  vyhich,  if  Paper  Con^ 
stitution  and  oft^repeated  National^  Oath  could  avau  aught  wcie 
to  follow  in  softly-strong  indissoluble  sequence  while  limcian,- 
^  had  to  vanish  dolefully  within  one  year;  and  there  came  no 
serond  like  it.  Alas  !  your  biennial  Parliaments  m  end^.s 
dissoluble  sequence  ;  they,  and  aU  that  Consti..itional  Fabnc, 
bulk  wi^'.  such  explosive  Federation  Oaths,  and  its  top-stone 
brcup-ht  out  with  dancing  and  variegated  radiance,  went  to  piece., 
-ail  crockerv,  in  the  crash  of  things  ;  and  already,  m  eleven 
?r,onths,  were  in  that  Limbo  near  the  Moon,  with  the  ghosts 
oi  o.her  Chimeras.  There,  except  for  rare  specific  purposes,  let 
them  rest,  in  melancholy  peace. 

On  the  whole,  how  unknown  is  a  man  to  himself ;  or  a  public 
Bodv  of  men  to  itself  1  ^sop's  f.y  sat  on  the  chariot-wheel,  ex- 
claiming, What  a  dust  I  do  raise  !  Great  Governors,  clad  m  pur- 
ple with  fasces  and  insignia,  are  governed  by  their  valets,  by  the 
pouting-  of  their  women  and  children  ;  or,  in  Constitutional  coun- 
tries by  the  paragraphs  of  their  Able  Editors.  Say  not,  I  am 
this  or  that  ;  1  am  doing  this  or  that  !  For  thou  knowest  zt  not, 
thou  knowest  only  the  name  it  as,  yet  goes  by.  A  purple  Nebu- 
chadnezzar rejoices  to  feel  himself  now  verily  Emperor  of  this 
great' Babylon  which  he  has  builded  ;  and  is  a  nondescript  biped- 
quadruped,  on  the  eve  of  a  seven-years  course  of  grazing  !  1  hese 
Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-five  elected  individuals  doubt  not  but 
thev  are  the  First  biennial  Parliament,  come  to  govern  France  by 
parliamentary  eloquence  :  and  they  are  what  ?  And  they  have 
come  to  do  what  ?    Things  foolish  and  not  wise  !  .  ,  ,  . 

It  is  much  lamented  bv  manv  that  this  First  Biennial  had  no 
members  of.  the  old  Constituent  in  .it,  with  their  experience  or 
parties  and  parhamentary  tactics  ;  that  such  was  their  foohsh  belt- 
denvincT  Law.  Most  surely,  old  members  of  the  Constituent  had 
been  welcome  to  us  here.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  what  old  or 
what  new  members  of  any  Constituent  under  the  Sun  could  have 
effectually  profited  ?  There  are  First  biennial  Parliaments  so  pos- 
tured as  to  be,  in  a  sense,  beyond  wisdom  ;  where  wisdom  and 
folly  differ  only  in  degree,  and  wreckage  and  dissolution  are  the 
appointed  issue  for  both  .    .  vi 

Old-Constituents,  vour  Barnaves,  Lameths  and  the  hke,  tor 
'  liom  a  special  Gallery  has  been  set  apart,  where  they  may  sit  m. 
lour  and  listen,  are  in  the  habit  of  sneering  at  these  new  Legis- 
)rs     but  let  not  us  !    The  poor  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-tive 
t  too-ether  by  the  active  citizens  of  France,  are  what  they  could 
•  dcTwhat  is  fated  them.    That  they  are  of  Patriot  temper  we 
a  well  understand.    Aristocrat  Noblesse  had  fled   over  the 
rches,  or  sat  brooding  silent  in  their  iinburnt  Chateaus ;  small 
aspect  had  they  in  Primary  Electoral  Assemblies  Whatwuti 
a  >hts  to  Varennes,  what  with  Davs  of  Poniards,  with  plot  atter 
plot,  the  People  are  left  to  themselves  ;  the  People  mtist  needs 
choose  Defenders  of  the  People,  such  as  can  be  had.  Choosing, 
*  Dumouriez,  ii.  150,  &c. 


144  PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


as  they  also  will  ever  do,       not  the  ablest  man,  yet  the  mait 
*  ablest  to  be  chosen  ! '    Fervour  of  character,  decided  Patriof:  1 
Constitutional  feeling  ;  these  are  qualities  :  but  free  utterance  ; 
mastership  iri  tongue-fence ;  this  is  the  quality  of  qualities.  Ac 
cordingly  one  hnds^  with  little  astonishment,  in  this  First  Biennial  : 
that  as  many  as  Four  hundred  Members  are  of  the  Advocate  o  » 
Attorney  species.     Men  who  can  speak,  if  there  be  aught  tv  j 
speak :  nay  here  are  men  also  who  can  think,  and  even  act.    Can  ; 
dour  will  say  of  this  ill-fated  First  French  Parliament  that  i 
wanted  not  its  modicum  of  talent,  its  modicum  of  honesty  ;  tha 
it,  neither  in  the  one  respect  nor  in  the  other,  sank  below  th?  . 
average  of  Parliaments,  but  rose  above  the  average.    Let  averag< 
Parliaments,  whom  the  world  does  net  guillotine,  and  cast  fort!  ; 
to  long  infamy,  be  thankful  not  to  themselves  but  to  their  stars  ! 

France,  as  we  say,  has  once  more  done  what  it  could  :  ferviv  : 
men  have  come  together  from  wide  separation*;  for  strange  issues  • 
Fiery  Max  Isnard  is  come,  from  the  utmost  South-East ;  fier  f 
Claude  Fauchet,  Te-Deum  Fauchet  Bishop  of  Calvados,  from  th{  i 
utmost  North- West.  No  Mirabeau  now  sits  here,  who  hav 
swallowed  formulas  :  our  only  Mirabeau  now  is  Danton,  working  I 
as  yet  out  of  doors  ;  whom  some  call  '  Mirabeau  of  the  Sanscu  i 
lottes.'  ^  ; 

Nevertheless  we  have  our  gifts,— especially  of  speech  and  logic  i 
An  eloquent  Vergniaud  we  have  ;  most  mellifluous  yet  most  im  \ 
petuous  of  public  speakers  ;  from  the  region  named  Gironde,  O;  \ 
the  Garonne  :  a  man  unfortunately  of  indolent  habits  ;  w^ho  wil  \ 
sit  playing  with  your  children,  when  he  ought  to  be  scheming  ami  \ 
perorating.    Sharp  bustling  Guadet ;  considerate  grave  Gensonne  | 
kind-sparkling  mirthful  young  Ducos  ;  Valaze  doomed  to  a  sac,  1 
end  :  all  these  likewise  are  of  that  Gironde,  or  Bourdeaux  region  \ 
men  of  fervid  Constitutional  principles  ;  of  quick  talent,  irrefra  \ 
gable  logic,  clear  respectability ;  who  will  have  the  Reign  oi  | 
Liberty  establish  itself,  but  only  by  respectable  methods.    Round  j 
whom  others  of  like  temper  will  gather  ;  known  by  and  by  a:-  j 
Giro7tdins,  to  the  sorrowing  wonder  of  the  world.    Of  which  sort  \ 
note  Condorcet,  Marquis  and  Philosopher  ;  who  has  worked  at  -i 
much,  at  Paris  Municipal  Constitution,   Differential   Calculus,  . 
Newspaper  Chroniqtte  de  Paris,  Biography,  Philosophy  ;  and  now  i 
sits  here  as  two-years  Senator  :  a  notable  Condorcet,  wdth  stoical  ; 
Roman  face,  and  fiery  heart ;  ^  volcano  hid  under  snow     styled  j 
likewise,  in  irreverent  language,  '  mouUm  enrage^'  peaceablest  of|| 
creatures  bitten  rabid  !  Or  note,  lastly,  Jean-Pierre  Brissot ;  whom 
Destiny,  long  working  noisily  with  him,  has  hurled  hither,  say,  to 
have  done  with  him.    A  biennial  Senator  he  too  ;  nay,  for  the  pre- 
sent, the  king  of  such.    Restless,  scheming,  scribbling  Brissot  -, 
who  took  to  himself  the  style  dc  Warville.,  heralds  know  not  in 
the  least  why ; — unless  it  were  that  the  father  of  him  did,  in  an 
unexceptionable  manner,  perform  Cookt^ry  and,  Vintnery  in  the 
Village  of  Ouarv\\\(^  ?    A  man  of  the  windniill  species,  that  grin^ 
always,  turning  towards  all  winds  ;  not  in  the  steadiest  manner. 

In  all  these  men  there  is  talent,  faculty  to  work  ;  and  they  wiii 

i 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  LA  IV. 


Jo  it ;  working  and  shaping-,  not  without  enect,  though  alas  not  in 
marble,  only  in  quicksand  !— But  the  highest  faculty  of  them  all 
remains  yet  to  be  mentioned  ;  or  indeed  has  yet  to  unfold  itself 
for  mention  :  Captain  Hippolyte  Carnot,  sent  hither  from  the  Pas 
ie  Calais  ;  with  his  cold  mxathem_atical  head,  and  silent  stubborn- 
ness of  will :  iron  Carnot,  far-planning,  imperturbable,  unconquer- 
ible  ;  who,  in  the  hour  of  need,  shall  not  be  found  wanting.  His 
lair  is  yet  black  ;  and  it  shall  grow  grey,  under  many  kinds  of  for- 
:une,  bright  and  troublous ;  and  with  iron  aspect  this  man  shall 
ace  them  all. 

Nor  is  Cote  Droit,  and  'band  of  King's  friends,  wanting  :  Vau- 
Dlanc,  Dumas,  Jaucourt  the  honoured  Chevalier  ;  who  love  Liberty, 
/et  with  Monarchy  over  it  ;  and  speak  fearlessly  according  to  that 
"aith; — whom  the  thick-coming  hurricanes  will  sweep  away.  With 
hem,  let  a  new  military  Theodore  Lameth  be  named  \ — were  it 
)nly  for  his  two  Brothers'  sake,  who  look  down  on  him,  appro v- 
ngly  there,  from  the  Old- Constituents'  Gallery.  Frothy  profess- 
ng  Pastorets,  honey-mouthed  conciliatory  Lamourettes,  and 
peechless  nameless  individuals  sit  plentiful,  as  Moderates,  in  the 
niddle.  Still  less  is  a  Cote  Gattche  wanting :  extreme  Left ;  sitting 
>n  the  topmost  benches,  as  if  aloft  on  its  speculatory  Height  or 
Mountain,  which  will  become  a  practical  fulminatory  Height,  and 
aake  the  name  of  Mountain  famous-infamous  to  all  times  and 
mds. 

,   Honour  waits  not  on  this  Mountain  ;  nor  as  yet  even  loud  dis- 
I  lOnour.    Gifts  it  boasts  not,  nor  graces,  of  speaking  or  of  thinking; 
'  olely  this  one  gift  of  assured  faith,  of  audacity  that  will  defy  the 
:  Carth  and  the  Heavens.    Foremost  here  are  the  Cordelier  Trio  : 
i  ot  Merlin  from  Thionville,  hot  Bazire,  Attorneys  both  ;  Chabot, 
;  isfrocked  Capuchin,  skilful  in  agio.    Lawyer  Lacroix,  who  wore 
i  nee  as  subaltern  the  single  epaulette,  has  loud  lungs  and  a  hungry 
i  eart.    There  too  is  Couthon,  little  dreaming  what  he  is  ; — whom 
I  sad  chance  has  paralysed  in  the  lower  extremities.  For,  it  seems, 
■  e  sat  once  a  whole  night,  not  warm  ii  his  true  love's  bov/er  (who 
ideed  was  by  law  another's),  but  sunken  to  the  middle  in  a  cold 
eat-bog,  being  hunted  out  ;  quaking  for  his  life,  in  the  cold  quak- 
■ig  morass     and  goes  now  on  crutches  to  the  end.^  Cambon  like^ 
•  •ise,  in  whom  slumbers  undeveloped  such  a  finance-talent  for 
Tinting  of  Assignats  ;  Father  of  Paper-money  ;  who,  in  the  hour 
;  f  menace,  shall  utter  this  stern  sentence,  '  War  to  the  i\Ianor- 
bouse,  peace  to  the   Hut,   Guerre  aux   Chateaux,  palx  aux 
\  Chaumieres  I '  t    Lecointre,  the "  intrepid  Draper  of  Versailles,  is 
l  elcome  here  ;  known  since  the  Opera-Repast  and  Insurrection 
if  Women.    Thuriot  too;  Elector  Thuriot,  who  stood  in  the 
I  mbrasures  of  the  Bastille,  and  saw  Saint- Antoine  rising  in  mass  ; 
j  ho  has  many  other  things  to  see.    Last  and  grimmest  of  all  note 
Id  Ruhl,  with  his  brown  dusky  face  and  long  white  hair  ;  of 
Isatian  Lutheran  breed;  a  man  whom  age  and  book-learning 
ave  not  taught  ;  who,  haranguing  the  old  men  of  Rheims,  shall 
old  up  the  Sacred  A^npulla  (Heaven-sent,  wherefrom  Clovis  and 
*  bumouriez,  ii.  370,  f  Choix  dc  Rapports ^  xi.  25. 


146 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


all  Kings  have  been  anointed)  as  a  mere  worthless  oil-bottle,  an 
dash  it  to  sherds  on  the  pavement  there;  who,  alas,  shall  dasi| 
much  to  sherds,  and  hnally  his  own  wild  head,  by  pistol-shot,  anci 
so  end  it. 

Such  lava  welters  redhot  in  the  bowels  of  this  Mountain  ;  un 
known  to  the  world  and  to  itself  I  A  mere  commonplace  Mountain  \ 
hitherto  ;  distinguished  from  the  Plain  chiefly  by  its  superio  y 
barrenness,  its  baldness  of  look  :  at  the  utmost  it  may,  to  the  rno . 
observant,  perceptibly  sjnoke.    For  as  yet  all  lies  so  solid,  peace 
able  ;  and  doubts  not,  as  was  said,  that  it  will  endure  while  Tin 
runs.    Do  not  all  'ove  Liberty  and  the  Constitution  ?    All  heartilv 
—and  yet  with  degrees.    Some,  as  Chevaher  Jaucourt  and  h'( 
Right  Side,  may  love  JLiberty  less  than  Royalty,  were  the  tri.t . 
made  ;  others,  as  Brissot  and  his  Left  Side,  may  love  it  moretha.' 
Royaky.    Nay  again  of  these  latter  some  may  love  Liberty  mor. 
than  Law  itself  ;  others  not  more.    Parties  will  unfold  themselvc: 
no  mortal  as  yet  knows  how.    Forces  work  within  these  men  ar 
without  :  dissidence  grows  opposition  ;  ever  widening  ;  waxin, 
into  incompatibility  and   internecine   feud:   till   the   strong  f' 
abolished  by  a  stronger  ;  himself  in  his  turn  by  a  stj  ongest 
Who  can  help  it.^    Jaucourt  and  his  Monarchists,  Feuiilans,  u  - 
Moderates;   Brissot  and  his  Brissotins,  Jacobins,  or  Girondins 
these,  witli  the  Cordelier  Trio,  and  all  men,  must  work  what  i  . 
appointed  them  and  in  the  way  appointed  them. 

And  to  think  what  fate  these  poor  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty 
five  are  assembled,  most  unwittingly,  to  meet  !    Let  no  heart  be 
hard  as  not  to  pity  them.    Their  soul's  wish  was  to  live  and  woi  1'  ■ 
as  the  First  of  the  French  Parliaments  :  and  make  the  Constiti;' 
tion  march.    Did  they  not,  at  their  very  instalment,  go  throng;, 
the  most  affecting  Constitutional   ceremony,  almost  with  tears  ' 
The  Tweh'e  Eldest  are  sent  solemnly  to  fetch  the  Constitution 
itself,  the  printed  Book  of  the  Law.    Archivist  Camus,  an  Oki 
Constituent  appointed  Archivist^  he  and  the  Ancient  Twelve,  amii 
blare  of  military  pomp  and  clangour,  enter,  bearing  the  divint 
Book  :  and  President  and  all  Legislative  Senators,  laying  tlieir 
hand  on  the  same,  successively  take  the  Oath,  with  cheers  an  ' 
heart-effusion,  universal  three-times-three."^    In  this  manner  tl 
begin  their  Session.    Unhappy  mortals  !    For,  that  same  day,  i 
Majesty  having  received  their  Deputation  of  welcome,,  as  seemed 
rather  drily,  the  Deputation  cannot  but  feel  ' slighted,  cannot  bin 
lament  such  slight  :  and  thereupon  our  cheering  swearing 
Parliament  sees  itself,  on  the  morrow,  obliged  to  explode  into  fici 
retaliatory  sputter,  of  anti-royal  Enactment  as  to  how  they,  . 
their  part,  will  receive  Majesty  ;  and  how  Majesty  shall  not 
called  Sire  any  more,  except  they  please  :  and  then,  on  the  foll( 
ing  day,  to  rccal  this  Enactment  of  theirs,  as  too  hasty,  and  a  m< 
sputter  thougli  not  unprovoked. 

An  effervescent  well-intentioned  set  of  Senators  ;   too  co; 
bustible,  where  continual  sparks  are  flying  !    Their  History  i 
^  Moniicur,  Seance  du  4  Octobrc  1791, 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  LAW, 


147 


series  of  sputters  and  quarrels ;  true  desire  to  do  their  function, 
fatal  impossibility  to  do  it.  Denunciations,  reprimandings  of 
King's  Ministers,  of  traitors  supposed  and  real ;  hot  rage  and 
fulmination  against  fulminating  Emigrants  ;  terror  of  Austrian 
Kaiser,  of '  Austrian  Committee '  in  the  Tuileries  itself :  rage  and 
haunting  terror,  haste  and  dim  desperate  Jjewilderment  ! — Haste, 
we  say  ;  and  yet  the  Constitution  had  provided  against  haste.  No 
Bill  can  be  passed  till  \i  have  been  printed,  till  it  have  been  thrice 
read,  with  intervals  of  eight  days  ;— ^  unless  the  Assembly  shall 
*  beforehand  decree  that  there  is  urgency.'  Which,  accordingly, 
the  Assembly,  scrupulous  of  the  Constitution,  never  omits  to  do  : 
Considering  this,  and  also  cohsidering  that,  and  then  that  other, 
the  Assembly  decrees  sXvf Siys  '  qu'zl  y  a  urgencej'  and  thereupon 
*the  Assembly,  having  decreed  that  there  is  urgence/  is  free  to 
decree— what  indispensable  distracted  thing  seems  best  to  it. 
Two  thousand  and  odd  decrees,  as  men  reckon,  within  Eleven 
months  !  ^  The  haste  of  the  Constituent  seemed  great ;  but  this 
is  treble-quick.  For  the  time  itself  is  rushing  treble-quick ;  and 
they  have  to  keep  pace  with  that.  Unhappy  Seven  Hundred  and 
Forty-five:  true-patriotic,  but  so  combustible;  being  fired,  they  must 
needs  fling  fire  :  Senate  of  touchwood  and  rockets,  in  a  world  of 
smoke-storm,  with  sparks  wind-driven  continually  flying  ! 

Or  think,  on  the  other  hand,  looking  forward  some  months,  of 
that  scene  they  call  Baiser  de  Lainourette  !    The  dangers  of  the 
country  are  now  grown  imminent,  immeasurable;  National  Assem- 
bly, hope  of  France,  is  divided  against  itself.    In  such  extreme 
circumstances,  honey-mouthed  Abbe  'Lamourette,  new  Bishop  of 
Lyons,  rises,  whose  name,  ra^nourette^  signifies  the  sweetheart^  or 
Delilah  doxy,— he  rises,  and,  with  pathetic  honied  eloquence,  calls 
on  all  august  Senators  to  forget  mutual  griefs  and  grudges,  to  swear 
a  new  oath,  and  unite  aa  brothers.    Whereupon  they  all,  with 
viyats,  embrace  and  swear  ;   Left  Side  confounding  itself  with 
Right ;  barren  Mountain  rushing  down  to  fruitful  Plain,  Pastoret 
into  the  arms  of  Condorcet,  injured  to  the  breast  of  injurer,  with 
tears  ;  ai>d  all  swearing  that  whosoever  wishes  either  .l^euillant 
Two-Chamber  Monarchy  or  Extreme-Jacobin  Republic,  or  any 
thing  but  the  Constitution  and  that  only,  shall  be  anathem.a  ma- 
rantha.t  Touching  to  behold !  For,  literally  on  the  morrow  norning, 
they  must  again  quarrel,  driven  by  Fate  ;  'and  their  sublime  recon- 
^  cilement  is  called  derisively  Baiser  de  L amourette,  or  Delilah  Kiss. 
!^    Like  fated  Eteocles-Polynices  Brothers,  embracing,  though  in 
pVain  ;  weeping  that  they  must  not  love,  that  they  must  hate  onlv, 
:  and  die  by  each  other's  hands!    Or  say,  like  doomed  Familiar 
Spirits;  ordered,  by  Art  Magic  under  penalties,  to  do  a  harder 
than  twist  ropes  of  sand  :  'to  make  the  Constitution  march.  If  the 
Constitution  would  but  march  !  Alas,  the  Constitution  will  not  stir. 
'  It  falls  on  its  face;  they  tremblingly  lift  it  on  end  again:  march,  thou 
gold  Constitution  !    The  Constitution  will  not  march.—"  He  shall 
march,  by  !  "  said  kind  Uncle  Toby,  and  even  swore.   The  Cor- 
poral answered  mournfully:  "  He  will  never  march  in  this  world." 
|;   •  Montgaillard,  iii.  i,  237.  f  Moniicur,  .Seance  du  6  Juillet  179a. 


148  PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


A  constitution,  as  we  often  : ay,  will  march  when  it  images,  if  I 
not  the  old  Habits  and  Beliefs  of  the  Constituted  ;  then  accurately  \ 
their  Rights,  or  better  indeed,  their  Mights     for  these  two,  well-  \ 
understood,  are  they  not  one  and  the  same  ?  .  The  old  Habits  of  ■ 
France  are  gone  :  her  new  Rights  and  Mights  are  not  yet  ascer-^ 
tained,  except  in  Paperitheorem  ;  nor  can  be,  in  any  sort,  till  she  ^ 
have  tried.    Till  she  have  measured  herself,  in  fe'l  death-grip,  and 
vvere  it  in  utmost  preternatural  spasm  of  madness,  with  Principali 
ties  and  Powers,  with  the  upper  and  the  under,  internal  and  ex- 
ternal ;  with  the  Earth  and  Tophet  and  the  very  Heaven  !  Then 
will  she  knowo — Three  things  bode  ill  for  the  marching  of  this 
French  Constitution  :   the  French  People ;   the  French  King ; 
thirdly  the  French  Noblesse  and  an  assembled  European  World.  * 


CHAPTER  III. 

AVIGNON. 

But  quitting  generalities,  what  strange  Fact  is  this,  in  the  far 
South-West,  towards  which  the  eyes  of  all  men  do  now^  in  the  end 
of  October,   bend   themselves?     A  tragical  combustion,  Ion 
smoking  and  smouldering  unluminous,  has  now  burst  into  flan; 
there. 

Hot  is  that  Southern  Proyengal  blood  -  pLis,  collisions,  as  was 
once  said,  must  occur  in  a  career  of  Freedom  ;  different  direction 
will  produce  such  ;  nay  different  velocities  in  the  came  dircctio 
will  !  To  much  that  went  on  there  History,  busied  elsev/here, 
would  not  specially  give  heed  ?  to  troubles  of  Uzez,  troublc3  ol 
N  ismes,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  Patriot  and  Aristocrat;  to  troubles 
of  Marseilles,  Montpelier,  Aries  :  to  Aristocrat  Camp  of  Jales,  that 
wondrous  real-imaginary  Entity,  now  fading  pale-dim,  then  always 
again  glowing  forth  deep-hued  (in  the  Imagination  mainly);— omin- 
ous magical,  '  an  Aristocrat  picture  of  v/ar  done  naturally  i '  All 
this  was  a  tragical  deadly *^combustion,  with  plot  and  riot,  tumult 
by  night  and  by  day  ;  but  a  dark  combustion,  not  luminous,  not 
noticed  ;  which  now,  however,  one  cannot  help  noticing. 

Above  all  places,  the  unluminous  combustion  i  i  Avignon  and 
the  Comtat  Venaissin  was  fierce.    Papal  Avignon,  with  ks  Castle 
rising  sheer  over  the  Rhono-stream  ;  beautifullcst  Tovin,  v/ith  its  j 
purple  vines  and  -o]  i- orange  groves  :  why  must  foolish  old  rhym- 
ing Rene,  the  last  Sovereign  of  Provence,  bequeath  it  to  the  Pope 
and  Gold  Tiara,  not  rather  to  Louis  Eleventh  with  the  Leaden 
Virgin  in  his  hatband?    For  good  and  fcr  evil  I     Popes,  /nti- 
popes,  with  their  pomp,  have  dwelt  in  that  Castle  of  Avignon  rising  I 
sheer  over  the  Rhone-stream  :  there  Laura  dc  Sade  \yent  to  hear  \ 
mass  ;  her  Petrarch  twanging  and  singing  by  the  Fountain  of  | 
Vauchisc  hard  by,  surely  in  a  most  melancholy  manner.    This  wai  \ 
va  the  old  days. 


\ 

AVIGNON.  149 


And  now  in  these  new  days,  such  issues  do  come  from  a  squirt 
of  the  pen  by  some  foolish  rhyming  Rene,  after  centuries,  this  is  what 
we  have  :  Jourdan  Coupc-tete^  leading  to  siege  and  warfare  an  Army, 
from  three  to  hfteen  thousand  strong,  called  the  Brigands  of  Avig- 
non ;  which  title  they  themselves  accept,  with  the  addition  of  an 
epithet,  '  The  b?'ave  Brigands  of  Avignon  !^  It  is  even  so.  Jourdan 
the  Headsman  fled  hither  from  that  Chatelet  Inquest,  from  that 
Insurrection  of  Women  ;  and  began  dealing  in  madder  ;  but  the 
scene  was  rife  in  other  than  dye-stuffs  ;  so  Jourdan  shut  his  madder 
shop,  and  has  risen,  for  he  was  the  man  to  do  it.  The  tile-beard 
of  Jourdan  is  shaven  off ;  his  fat  visage '  las  got  coppered  and  studded 
with  black  caj'buncles  :  the  Silenus  trunk  k  swollen  with  drink  and 
high  living :  he  wears  blue  National  uniform  with  epaulettes,  ^  an 
'  enormous  sabre,  two  horse-pistols  crossed  in  his  belt,  and  other 
*  two  smaller,  sticking  from  his  pockets  ; '  styles  himself  General, 
and  is  the  tyrant  of  men."^  Consider  this  one  fact,  O  Reader  ; 
and  what  sort  of  facts  must  have  preceded  it,  must  accompany  it  ! 
Such  things  come  of  old  Rene  ;  and  of  the  question  which  has 
risen.  Whether  Avignon  cannot  now  cease  wholly  to  be  Papal  and 
become  French  and  free  ? 

For  some  twenty-five  months  the  confusion  has  lasted.  Say 
three  months  of  arguing  ;  then  seven  of  raging  ;  then  finally  some 
fifteen  months  now  of  fighting,  and  even  of  hanging.  For  already 
in  February  1790,  the  Papal  Aristocrats  had  set  up  four  gibbets, 
for  a  sign  \  but  the  People  rose  in  June,  in  retributive  frenzy ;  and, 
forcing  the  public  Hangman  to  act,  hanged  four  Aristocrats,  on 
each  Papal  gibbet  a  Papal  Haman.  Then  were  Avignon  Emigra- 
tions, Papal  Aristocrats  emigrating  over  the  Rhone  River  ;  demis- 
sion of  Papal  Consul,  flight,  victory  :  je-entrance  of  Papal  Legate, 
truce,  and  new  onslaught  ;  and  the  various  turns  of  war.  Peti- 
tions there  were  to  Na.'onal  Assembly  ;  Congresses  of  ToAvn- 
ships  ;  three-score  and  odd  Townships  voting  for  French  Reunion, 
and  the  blessings  of  Liberty  ;  while  some  twelve  of  the  smaller, 
manipulated  by  Aristocrats,  gave  vote  the  other  way  :  with  shrieks 
and  discord  !  Township  against  Township,  Town  against  Town  : 
Carpentras,  long  jealous  of  Avigno",  is  now  turned  out  in  open 
war  with  it  ; — and  Jourdan  Coupe-teie^  your  first  General  being 
killed  in  mutiny,  closes  his  dye-shop  ;  and  does  there  visibly,  with 
siege-artillery,  above  all  with  bluster  and  tumult,  with  the  '  bra\ne 
'  Brigands  of  Avignon,^  beleaguer  the  rival  Town,  for  two  months, 
^in  the  face  of  the  world  ! 

I    Pleats  were  done,  doubt  it  not,  far-famed  in  Parish  History  ; 

ibut  to  Universal  History  unknown.  Gibbets  we  see  rise,  on  the 
one  side  and  on  the  other  ;  and  wretched  carcasses  swinging 
there,  a  dozen  in  the  row  ;  wretched  Mayor  of  Vaison  buried 
before  dead.t  The  fruitful  seedfield,  lie  unreaped,  the  vineyards 
trampled  down  ;  there  is  red  cruelty,  madness  of  universal  choler 
and  gall.    Havoc  and  anarchy  everywhere  ;  a  combustion  most 

j fierce,  but  ?/^lucent,  not  to  be  noticed  here  ! — Finally,  as  we  saw, 

I  *  Dampmartin,  Evtucmcjis,  i.  267. 

f  Barbaroux,  Mhnoires,  p.  26. 


I 


150 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


on  the  14th  of  September  last,  the  National  Constituent  Assembly,  ; 
having  sent  Commissioners  and  heard  them  ;*  having  heard 
Petitions,  held  Debates,  month  after  month  ever  since  August  ' 
1789  ;  and  on  the  whole  ^  spent  thirty  sittings'  on  this  matter,  did  ' 
solemnly  decree  that  Avignon  and  the  Comtat  were  incorporated  \ 
with  France,  and  His  Holiness  the  Pope  should  have  what  \ 
indemnity  w  as  reasonable.  : 

And  so  hereby  all  is  amnestied  and  finished  ?    Alas,  w^hen  \ 
madness  of  choler  has  gone  through  the  blood  of  men,  and  gibbets  ^ 
have  swung  on  this  side  and  on  that,  what  will  a  parchment  \ 
Decree  and  Lafayette  Amnesty  do  ?    Oblivious  Lethe  Hows  not  i 
above  ground  !    Papal  Aristocrats  and  Patriot  Brigands  are  still  \ 
an  eye-sorrow  to  each  other  ;  suspected,  suspicious,  in  what  they  1 
do  and  .forbear.    The  august  Constituent  xAssembly  is  gone  but  a  ^ 
fortnight,  when,  on  Sunday  the  vSixteenth  morning  of  October  ■{ 
1791,  the  unquenched  combustion  suddenly  becomes  luminous  !  1 
For  Anti-constitutional  Placards  are  up,  and  the  Statue  of  the  I 
Virgir  is  said  to  have  shed  tears,  and  grown  red.f    Wherefore,  ^ 
on  that  morning.  Patriot  FEscuyer,  one  of  our   ^  six   leading  \ 
^  Patriots,'  having  taken  counsel  with  his  brethren  and  General 
Jourdan,  determines  on  going  to  Church,  in  company  with  a  friend 
or  tw^o  :  not  to  hear  mass,  w^hich  he  values  little  ;  but  to  meet  all  the  ! 
Papalists  there  in  a  body,  nay  to  meet  that  same  weeping  Virgin, 
for  it  is  the  Cordeliers  Church  ;  and  give  them  a  word  of  admoni- 
tion.    Adventurous  errand  ;  which  has  the  fatallest  issue  !  What 
L'Escuyer's  w^ord  of  admonition  might  be  no  History  records  ;  but  j 
the  answer  to  it  w^as  a  shrieking  howl  from  the  Aristocrat  Papal  j 
worshippers,  many  of  them  women.     A  thousand-voiced  shriek  j 
and  menace  ;  which  as  L'Escuy(5r  did  not  fly,  became  a  thousand-  I 
handed  hustle  and  jostle  ;  a  thousand-footed  kick,  with  tumblings 
and  tramplings,  with  the  pricking  of  semstresses  stilettos,  scissors, 
and  female  j^ointed  instruments.    Horrible  to  behold  ;  the  ancient 
Dead,  and  Petrarchan  Laura,  sleeping  round  it  there  ;  J  high 
Altar  and  burning  tapers  looking  down  on  it  ;  the  Virgin  quite 
tearless,  and  of  the  natural  stone-colour  ! — L'Escuyer's  friend  or 
two  rush  off,  like  Job's  Messengers,  for  Jourdan  and  the  National 
Force.    But  heavy  Jourdan  will  seize  the  Town-Gates  first  ;  does 
not  run  treble-fast,  as  he  might  :  on  arriving  at  the  Cordeliers 
Church,  the  Church  is  silent,  vacant;  L'Escuyer,  all  alone,  lies 
there,  swim^ming  in  his  blood,  at  the  foot  of  the  high  Altar  ; 
pricked  with  scissors  ;  trodden,  massacred  ; — gives  one  dumb  sob, 
and  gasps  out  his  miserable  life  for  evermore. 

Sight  to  stir  tlic  heart  of  any  man  ;  much  more  of  many  men, 
self-styled   Brigands  of  Avignon  !     The  corpse  of  L'Escuyci 
stretched  on  a  bier,  the  ghastly  head  girt  with  laurel,  is  bon 
through   the   streets  ;  with    many- voiced   unmelodious  Neuia 

Lcscenc  I)(»smaisons  :  Com  pie  midu  d  V  Assemblde  Nationale,  10  Sep 
tembre  1791  [(-hoix  dcs  Rapporls,  vii.  273-93). 

\  Proces-vcrbal  dc  la  (\>mnnine  d' Avignon ,  Sec.  (in ///.y/.  Par/,  xii.  419-23). 
j  Ugo  Foscolo,  /Lssaj  oa  Petrarch,  p.  35. 


A  VIGNON. 


funeral-wail  still  deeper  than  it  is  loud !  The  copper-face  of 
Jourdan,  of  bereft  Patriotism,  has  grown  black.  Patriot  Munici- 
pality despatches  official  Narrative  and  tidings  to  Paris  ;  orders 
numerous  or  innumerable  arrestments  for  inquest  and  perquisition. 
Aristocrats  male  and  female  are  haled  to  the  Castle  ;  lie  crowded 
in  subterranean  dungeons  there,  bemoaned  by  the  hoarse  rushing 
of  the  Rhone  ;  cut  out  from  help.  ^ 
So  He  they  ;  waiting  inquest  and  perquisition.  Alas  !  with  a 
Jourdan  Headsman  for  Generalissimo,  with  his  copper-face  grown 
black,  and  armed  Brigand  Patriots  chanting  their  Nenia,  the 
inquest  is  likely  to  be  brief  On  the  next  day  and  the  next,  let 
Municipality  consent  or  not,  a  Brigand  Court-Martial  estabhshes 
itself  in  the  subterranean  stories  of  the  Castle  of  Avignon  ; 
Brigand  Executioners,  with  naked  sabre,  waiting  at  the  door^ 
for  a  Brigand  verdict.  Short  judgment,  no  appeal !  There  is' 
Brigand  wrath  and  vengeance  ;  not  unrefreshed  by  brandy. 
Close  by  is  the  Dungeon  of  the  Glaciere^  or  Ice-Tower  :  there 
may  be  deeds  done —  ?  For  which  language  has  no  name  1 — 
Darkness  and  the  shadow  of  horrid  cruelty  envelopes  these 
Castle  Dungeons,  that  Glaciere  Tower  :  clear  only  that  many 
have  entered,  that  few  have  returned.  Jourdan  and  the  Brigands, 
supreme  now  over  Municipals,  over  all  Authorities  Patriot  or 
Papal,  reign  in  Avignon,  waited  on  by  Terror  and  Silence. 

The  result  of  all  which  is  that,  on  the  15th  of  November  1791, 
we  behold  Friend  Dampmartin,  and  subalterns  beneath  him, 
and  General  Choisi  above  him,  with  Infantry  and  Cavalry,  and 
proper  cannon-carriages  rattling  in  front,  with  spread  banners,  to 
the  sound  of  fife  and  drum,  wend,  in  a  deliberate  formidable 
manner,  towards  that  sheer  Casde  Rock,  towards  those  broad 
Gates  of  Avignon  ;  three  new  National-Assembly  Commissioners 
following  at  safe  distance  in  the  rear."^  Avignon,  summoned  in 
the  name  of  Assembly  and  Law,  flings  its  Gates  wide  open  ; 
Choisi  with  the  rest,  Dampmartin  and  the  Bons  Enfans,  '  Good 
*  Boys  of  Baufremont;  so  they  name  these  brave  Constitutional 
Dragoons,  known  to  them  of  old —do  enter,  amid  shouts  and  scat- 
tered flowers.  To  the  joy  of  all  honest  persons  ;  to  the  terror  onlv 
of  Jourdan  Headsman  and  the  Brigands.  Nay  next  we  behold 
carbuncled  swollen  Jourdan  himself  shew  copper-face,  with  sabre 
and  four  pistols  ;  affecting  to  talk  high  :  engaging,  meanwhile,  to 
surrender  the  Castle  that  instant.  So  the  Chisi  Grenadiers  enter 
;  with  him  there.  They  start  and  stop,  passing  that  Glaciere,  snuf- 
I  fing  its  horrible  breath  ;  with  wild  yell,  with  cries  of  "  Cut  the 
j  Butcher  down  !  "—and  Jourdan  has  to  whisk  himself  through  secret 
;  passages,  and  instantaneously  vanish. 

Be  the  mystery  of  iniquity  laid  bare  then  !  A  Hundred  and 
Thirty  Corpses,  of  men,  nay  of  women  and  even  children  (for  the 
trembling  mother,  hastily  seized,  could  not  leave  her  infant),  lie 
heaped  in  that  Glaciere ;  putrid,  under  putridities  :  the  horror  of 
the  world.  For  three  days  there  is  mournful  lifting  out,  and  recog- 
nition ;  amid  the  cries  and  movements  of  a  passionate  Southern 
*  Dampmartin,  i.  251-94, 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


people,  now  kneeling  in  prayer^  now  storming  in  wild  pity  and  rage: 
lastly  there  is  solemn  sepulture,  with  muffled  drums,  religious  re- 
quiem, and  all  the  people's  wail  and  tears.  Their  Massacred  rest 
now  in  holy  ground  ;  buried  in  one  grave. 

And  Jourdan  Coitpe-tete  f  Kim  also  we  behold  again,  after  a 
day  or  two  :  in  flight,  through  the  most  romantic  Petrarchan  hill- 
country  ;  vehemently  spurring  his  nag;  young  Ligonnet,  a  brisk 
youth  of  Avignon,  with  Choisi  Dragoons,  close  in  his  rear  !  With 
such  swollen  mass  of  a  rider  no  nag  can  run  to  advantage.  The 
tired  nag,  spur-driven,  does  take  the  River  Sorgue  ;  but  sticks 
in  the  middle  of  it  ;  firm  on  that  chiaro  fondo  di  Sorga;  and  will , 
proceed  no  further  for  spurring  !  Young  Ligonnet  dashes  up  ;  the 
Copper-face  menaces  and  bellows,  draws  pistol,  perhaps  even  snaps  \ 
it ;  is  nevertheless  seized  by  the  collar  ;  is  tied  firm,  ancles  under ' 
horse's  belly,  and  ridden  back  to  Avignon,  hardly  to  be  saved  from  \ 
massacre  on  the  streets  there.*  ^  \ 

Such  is  the  combustion  of  Avignon  and  the  South- West,  when  it ' 
becomes  luminous  !    Long  loud  debate  is  in  the  august  Legislative,  \ 
in  the  Mother- Society  as  to  what  now  shall  be  done  with  it' 
Amnesty,  cry  eloquent  Vergniaud  and  all  Patriots  :  let  there  be 
mutual  pardon  and  repentance,  restoration,  pacification,  and,  if  so 
might  any  how  be,  an  end  !    Which  vote  ultimately  prevails.    So  , 
the  South- West  smoulders  and  welters  again  in  an  "^Amnesty,'  or 
Non-remembrance,  which  alas  cannot  but  remember,  no  Lethe 
flowing  above  ground  !  Jourdan  himself  remains  unchanged  ;  gets 
loose  again  as  one  not  yet  gallows-ripe  ;  nay,  as  we  transciently , 
discern  from  the  distance,  is  ^  carried  m  triumph  through  the  cities ; 
of  the  South.'f     What  things  men  carry  !  ; 

With  which  transient  glimpse,  of  a  Copper-faced  Portent  faring 
in  this  manner  through  the  cities  of  the  South,  we  must  quit  these 
regions  ; — and  let  them  smoulder.  They  want  not  their  Aristocrats; 
proud  old  Nobles,  not  yet  emigrated.  Aries  has  its  '  Chiffonne'^^  so, 
in  symbolical  cant,  they  name  that  Aristocrat  Secret^ Association  ; 
Aries  has  its  pavements  piled  up,  by  and  by,  into  Aristocrat  barri- 
cades. Against  which  Rebecqui,  the  hot-clear  Patriot,  must  lead 
Marseilles  with  cannon.  The  Bar  of  Iron  has  not  yet  risen  to  the 
top  in  the  Lay  of  Marseilles  ;  neither  have  these  hot  Sons  of  the 
Phoceans  submitted  to  be  slaves.  By  clear  management  and  hot 
instance,  Rebecqui  dissipates  that  Chijfo/me,  without  bloodshed  ; 
restores  the  pavement  of  Aries.  He  sails  in  Coast-barks,  this  Re- 
becqui, scrutinising  suspicious  Martello-towcrs,  with  the  keen  eye 
of  Patriotism  ;  marches  overland  with  despatch,  singly,  or  in  force; 
to  City  after  City  ;  dim  scouring  far  and  wide  ;  J— argues,  and  if  it 
must  be,  fights.  '  For  there  is  much  to  do  ;  Jales  itself  is  looKing 
suspicious.  So  that  Legislator  Fauchet,  after  debate  on  it,  has  to 
propose  Commissioners  and  a.  Camp  on  the  Plain  of  Beaucaife  * ! 
with  or  without  result. 

*  13ampmartin,  ubi  supra. 

t  Deux  Amis  vii.  (Paris,  1797),  pp.  59-71' 

X  l'>,irb;uQux,  p.  hi  ;  jll.sL  /'arl.  \\\\.  421-4. 


A  VIGNON. 


Of  all  which,  and  much  else,  let  us  note  only  this  small  conse- 
quence, that  young  Barbaroux,  Advocate,  Town- Clerk  of  Marseilles, 
being  charged  to  have  these  things  remedied,  arrived  at  Paris  in 
the  month  of  February  1792.  The  beautiful  and  brave  :  young 
Spartan,  ripe  in  energy,  not  ripe  in  wisdom  ;  over  whose  black 
doom^  there  shall  flit  nevertheless  a  certain  ruddy  fervour,  streaks 
of  bright  Southern  tint,  not  wholly  swallowed  of  Death  !  Note 
also  that  the  Rolands  of  Lyons  arc  again  in  Paris  ;  for  the  second 
an:.:  final  time.  King's  Inspectorship  is  abrogated  at  Lyons,  as  else- 
where :  Roland  has  his  retiring-pension  to  claim,  if  attainable  ;  has 
Patriot  friends  to  commune  r/ith  ;  at  lowest,  has  a  book  to  publish. 
That  young  Barbaroux  and  the  Rolands  came  together  ;  that 
elderly  Spartan  Roland  liked,  or  even  loved  the  young  Spartan, 
and  was  loved  by  him,  one  can  fancy  :  and  Madame  —  ?  Breathe 
not,  thou  poison-breath.  Evil-speech  \  That  soul  is  taintless,  clear, 
as  the  mirror-sea.  And  yet  if  they  too  did  look  into  each  other's 
eyes,  and  each,  in  silence,  in  tragical  renunciance,  did  find  that  the 
other  was  all  too  lovely?  Honi  soit !  She  calls  him  ^  beautiful  as 
'  Antinous  : '  he  '  will  speak  :"'sev7here  of  that  astonishing  woman. 
—A  Madame  d'Udon  (or  some  such  name,  for  Dumont  does  not 
recollect  quite  clearly)  gives  copious  Breakfast  to  the  Brissotin 
Deputies  and  us  Friends  of  Freedom,  at  her  house  in  the  Place 
Vendome  ;  "vith  temporary  celebrity,  with  graces  and  wreathed 
smiles  ;  not  without  cost.  There,  amid  wide  babble  and  jingle, 
lour  plan  of  Legislative  Debate  is  settled  for  the  day,  and  much 
counselling  held.     Strict  Roland  is  seen  there,  but  does  not  eo 


■  CHAPTER  IV. 

W  NO  SUGAR. 

SxTCH  are  our  inward  troubles  ;  seen  in  the  Cities  of  the  South  ; 
Jxtant,  seen  or  unseen,  in  all  cities  and  district^-,  North  as  well  as 

1  South.  For  in  all  are  Aristocrats,  more  or  less  molig-nant  ;  watched 
Dy  Patriotism  ;  which  again^  being  of  various  shades,  from  light 
Fayettist-Feuillant  down  to  deep-sombre  Jacobin,  has  to  watch 

Mselfl 

.  Directories  of  Departments,  what  we  call  County  Magistracies, 
being  chosen  by  Citizens  of  a  too  '  active '  class,  are  found  to  pull 
Dne  way;  Municipahties,  Town  Magistracies,  to  pull  the  other 
lyay.  In  all  places  too  are  Dissident  Priests  ;  whom  the  Legisla- 
tive will  have  to  deal  with  :  contumacious  individuals,  working  on 
that  angriest  of  passions  ;   plotting,  enlisting  for  Coblentz  ;  or 

i] suspected  of  plotting:  fuel  of  a  universal  unconstitutional  heat. 

; What  to  do  with  them?    They  may  be  conscientious  as  well  as 

I :ontumacious  :  gently  they  should  be  dealt  with,  and  yet  it  must 
i)e  speedily.  In  unilluminated  La  Vendee  the  simple  are  like  to 
*  DumcnU,  Souvmirs,  p.  374. 


254 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


be  seduced  by  them  ;  many  a  simple  peasant,  a  Cathelineau  the 
wool-dealer  wayfaring  meditative  with  his  wool-packs,  in  these 
hamlets,  dubiously  shakes  his  head  !  Two  Assembly  Com- 
missioners went  thither  last  Autumn  ;  considerate  Gensonne,  not 
yet  called  to  be  a  Senator  ;  Gallois,  an  editorial  man.  These  Two, 
consulting  with  General  Dumouriez,  spake  and  worked,  softly,  with 
judgment  ;  .  they  have  hushed  down  the  irritation,  and  produced  a 
soft  Report,— for  the  time. 

The  General  himself  doubts  not  in  the  least  but  he  can  keep 
peace  there  ;  being  an  able  man.  He  passes  these  frosty  months 
among  the  pleasant  people  of  Niort,  occupies  'tolerably  handsome 
*  apartments  in  the  Castle  of  Niort,'  and  tempers  the  minds  of 
men."^  Why  is  there  but  one  Dumouriez  Elsewhere  you  find 
South  or  North,  nothing  but  untempered  obscure  jarring  ;  which 
breaks  forth  ever  and  anon  into  open  clangour  of  riot.  Southern 
Perpignan  has  its  tocsin,  by  torch  light  ;  with  rushing  and 
onslaught  :  Northern  Caen  not  less,  by  daylight ;  with  Aristocrats 
ranged  in  arms  at  Places  of  Worship  ;  Departmental  compromise 
proving  impossible  ;  breaking  into  musketry  and  a  Plot  dis- 
covered !  t  Add  Hunger  too  :  for  Bread,  always  dear,  is  getting 
dearer  :  not  so  much  as  Sugar  can  be  had  ;  for  good  reasons. 
Poor  Simoneau,  Mayor  of  Etampes,  in  this  Northern  region, 
hanging  out  his  Red  Flag  in  some  riot  of  grains,  is  trampled  to 
death  by  a  hungry  exasperated  People.  What  a  trade  this  of 
Mayor,  in  these  times  !  Mayor  of  Saint-Denis  hung  at  the 
Lanterne,  by  Suspicion  and  Dyspepsia,  as  we  saw  long  since  ; 
Mayor  of  Vaison,  as  we  saw  lately,  buried  before  dead  ;  and  now 
this  poor  Simoneau,  the  Tanner,  of  Etampes, — whom  legal  Con- 
-stitutionalism  will  not  forget. 

W^ith  factions,  suspicions,  want  of  bread  and  sugar,  it  is  verily 
what  they  call  dechire,  torn  asunder  this  poor  country  :  France 
and  all  that  is  French.  For,  over  seas  too  come  bad  news.  In 
black  Saint-Domingo,  before  that  variegated  Ghtter  in  the 
Champs  Elysees  was  lit  for  an  Accepted  Constitution,  there  had 
risen,  and  was  burning  contemporary  with  it,  quite  another 
variegated  Glitter  and  nocturnal  Fulgor,  had  we  known  it :  of 
molasses  and  ardent-spirits  ;  of  sugar-lDoileries,  plantations,  furni- 
ture, cattle  and  m.en  :  sky  high  ;  the  Plain  of  Cap  Francais  one 
huge  whirl  of  smoke  and  flame  ! 

What  a  change  here,  in  these  two  years  ;  since  that  first  ^  Box 
"of  Tricolor  Cockades'  got  through  the  Custom-house,  and 
atrabiliar  Creoles  too  rejoiced  that  there  was  a  levelling  of 
Bastilles  !  Levelling  is  comfortable,  as  we  often  say  :  levelling, 
yet  only  down  to  oneself.  Your  pale-white  Creoles,  have  their 
grievances  : — and  your  yellow  Ouarteroons  ?  And  your  dark- 
yellow  Mulattoes?  And  your  Slaves  soot-black.^  Ouarteroon 
Og(*,  Friend  of  our  Pai  isian  lirissotin  F?'iends  of  the  Blacks,  iV  ti, 
for  his  share  too,  that  Insurrection  v/as  the.  most  sacred  of  diilics. 
So  the  tricolor  Cockades  had  fluttered  and  swashed  only  souie 
three  months  on  the  Creole  hat,  when  ^Jge  s  signal-conflagrations 
*  Duiiiouncz,  ii.  129.       f  IllU.  Pari,       131,  141;  xiii.  114,  417, 


NO  SUGAR. 


went  aloft ;  with  the  voice  of  rage  and  terror.  Repressed,  doomed 
to  die,  he  toojv  black  powder  or  seedgrains  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  this  Oge  ;  sprinkled  a  film  of  white  ones  on  the  top,  and 
said  to  his  Judges,  *^  Behold  they  are  white;" —  then  shook  his 
hand,  and  said,  "  Where  are  the  Whites,  On  sont  les  B/aJtcs 

So  now,  in  the  Autumn  of  1791,  looking  from  the  sky- windows  of 
Cap  Fran^ais,  thick  clouds  of  smoke  girdle  our  horizon,  smoke  in 
the  day,  in  the  night  fire  ;  preceded  by  fugitive  shrieking  white 
women,  by  Terror  and  Rumour.  Black  demonised  squadrons  are 
massacring  and  harrying,  with  nameless  cruelty.  They  fight  and 
fire  ^  from  behind  thickets  and  coverts,' for  the  Black  man  loves 
the  Bush  ;  they  rush  to  the  attack,  thousands  strong,  with  bran- 
dished cutlasses  and  fusils,  with  caperings,  shoutings  and  vocifera- 
tion,—  which,  if  the  White  Volunteer  Company  stands  hrm, 
dwindle  into  staggering s,  into  quick  gabblement,  into  panic  flight 
at  the  first  volley,  perhaps  before  it.  Poor  Oge  could  be  broken 
on  the  wheel  ;  this  fire-whirlwind  too  can  be  abated,  driven  up 
into  the  Mountains  :  but  Saint-Domingo  is  shaken^  as  Oge's 
seedgrains  v/ere  ;  shaking,  writhing  in  long  horrid  death-  throes,  it 
is  Black  without  remedy ;  and  remains,  as  African  Haiti,  a 
monition  to  the  world. 

O  my  Parisian  Friends,  is  not  this,  as  well  as  Regraters  and 
Feuillant  Plotters,  one  cause  of  the  astonishing  dearth  of  Sugar  ! 
The  Grocer,  palpitant,  with  drooping  lip,  sees  his  Sugar  tax^j 
weighed  out  by  Female  Patriotism,  in  instant  retail,  at  the  inade- 
quate rate  of  twenty-five  sous,  or  thirteen  pence  a  pound.  "Abstain 
from  it  Yes,  ye  Patriot  Sections,  all  ye  Jacobins,  abstain  ! 
Louvet  and  Collot-dTierbois  so  advise  ;  resolute  to  make  the 
sacrifice  :  though  ^'how  shall  literary  men  do  without  coffee?'^ 
Abstain,  with  an  oath  ;  that  is  the  surest  If 

Also,  for  like  reason,  must  not  Brest  and  the  Shipping  Interest 
languish  ?  Poor  Brest  languishes,  sorrowing,  not  without  spleen  ; 
denounces  an  Aristocrat  Bertrand-Moleville  traitorous  Aristocrat 
Marine-Minister.  Do  not  her  Ships  and  King's  Ships  lie  rotting 
piecemeal  in  harbour  ;  Naval  Officers  mostly  fled,  and  on  furlough 
too,  with  pay  1  Little  stirring  there  ;  if  it  be  not  the  Brest  Gallics  , 
whip-driven,  with  their  Galley- Slaves, — alas,  with  some  Forty  or 
our  hapless  Swiss  Soldiers  of  Chateau-Vieux,  among  others  ! 
These  Forty  Swiss,  too  min'dful  of  Nanci,  do  now,  in  their  red 
wool  caps,  tug  sorrowfully  at  the  oar  ;  looking  into  the  Atlantic 
brine,  which  reflects  only  their  own  sorrowful  shaggy  faces  ;  and 
seem  forgotten  of  Hope. 

But,  on  the  v/hole,  may  we  not  say,  in  figurative  language,  that 
the  French  Constitution  which  shall  march  is  very  rheumatic,  full 
of  shooting  internal  pains,  in  joint  and  muscle  ;  and  will  not  march 
without  difficulty  ? 

*  Deux  Amis,  x.  157. 

t  Dibats  des  Jacobms,  &c.  [Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  171,  92-98)* 


156 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


CHAPTER  V. 

KINGS  AND  EMIGRANTS. 

Extremely  rheumatic  Constitutions  have  been  known  to  march, 
and  keep  on  their  feet,  though  in  a  staggering  sprawhng  manner, 
for  long  periods,  in  virtue  of  one  thing  only  :  that  the  Head  were 
healthy.  But  this  Head  of  the  French  Constitution  !  What  King 
Louis  is  and  cannot  help  being,  Readers  already  know.  A  King 
who  cannot  take  the  Constitution,  nor  reject  the  Constitution  :  nor 
do  anything  at  all,  but  miserably  ask.  What  shall  I  do  ?  A  King 
environed  with  endless  confusions  ;  in  whose  own  mind  is  no  germ 
of  order.  Haughty  implacable  remnants  of  Noblesse  struggling 
with  humiliated  repentant  Bar  nave- Lameths  :  struggling  in  that 
obscure  element  of  fetchers  and  carriers,  of  Half-pay  braggarts 
from  the  Cafe  Valois,  of  Chambermaids,  whisperers,  and  subaltern 
officious  persons  ;  fierce  Patriotism  looking  on  all  the  while,  more 
and  more  suspicious,  from  without  :  what,  in  such  struggle,  can 
they  do  ?  At  best,  cancel  one  another,  and  produce  zero.  Poor 
King  !  Barnave  and  your  Senatorial  Jaucourts  speak  earnestly  into 
this  ear  ;  Bertrand-Moleville,  and  Messengers  from  Coblentz, 
speak  earnestly  into  that :  the  poor  Rayal  head  turns  to  the  one 
side  and  to  the  other  side  ;  can  turn  itself  fixedly  to  no  side. 
Let  Decency  drop  a  veil  over  it  :  sorrier  misery  was  seldom  en- 
acted  in  the  world.  This  one  small  fact,  does  it  not  throw  the 
saddest  light  on  much  ?  The  Queen  is  lamenting  to  Madam 
Campan  :  "  What  am  I  do  to  ?  When  they,  these  Barnaves,  get 
us  advised  to  any  step  which  the  Noblesse  do  not  like,  then  I  am 
pouted  at  ;  nobody  comes  to  my  card  table  ;  the  King's  Couchee 
is  solitary.""^  In  such  a  case  of  dubiety,  what  is  one  to  do  1  Go 
inevitably  to  the  ground  ! 

The  King  has  accepted  this  Constitution,  knowing  beforehand 
that  it  will  not  serve  :  he  studies  it,  and  executes  it  in  the  hope 
mainly  that  it  will  be  found  inexecutable.  King^s  Ships  lie  rotting 
in  harbour,  their  officers  gone  ;  the  Armies  disorganised  ; 
robbers  scour  the  highways,  which  wear  down  unrepaired  ;  all 
Public  Service  lies  slack  and  waste  :  the  Executive  makes  no 
effort,  or  an  effort  only  to  throw  the  blame  on  the  Constitution. 
Shamming  death, le  inort!^  What  Constitution,  use  it 
in  this  manner,  can  march  ^  Grow  to  disgust  the  Nation'  it  will 
truly,t — unless  yott  first  grow  to  disgust  the  Nation  !  It  is  Ber~ 
trand  de  Moleville's  plan,  and  his  Majesty's  ;  the  best  they  can 
form. 

Or  if,  after  all,  this  best-plan  proved  too  slow  ;  proved  a  failure? 
Provident  of  that  too,  the  Queen,  shrouded  in  deepest  mystery, 
*  writes  all  day,  in  cipher,  day  after  day,  to  Coblentz  ; '  Engineer 
Goguelat,  he  of  the  Night  of  Sp7i7's,  whom  the  Lafayette  Amnesty 
*  Campan,  ii.  177,  20^.  f  Bertrand-Moleville,  i.  c.  4. 


KINGS  AND  EMIGRANTS. 


has  deliverod  from  Prison,  rides  and  runs.  Now  and  then,  on  fit 
occasion,  a  Royal  familiar  visit  can  be  paid  to  that  Salle  de 
Manege,  an  affecting  encouraging  Royal  Speech  (sincere,  doubt  it 
not,  for  the  moment)  can  be  delivered  there,  and  the  Senators  all 
cheer  and  almost  weep  ;— at  the  same  time  Mallet  du  Pan  has 
visibly  ceased  editing,  and  invisibly  bears  abroad  a  King's  Auto- 
graph, soliciting  help  from  the  Foreign  Potentates  *  Unhappy 
Louis,  do  this  thing  or  else  that  other, — if  thou  couldst  ! 

The  thing  which  the  King's  Government  did  do  was  to  stagger 
distractedly  from  contradiction  to  contradiction ;  and  wedding 
Fire  to  Water,  envelope  itself  in  hissing,  and  ashy  steam  I  Dan"^ 
ton  and  needy  corruptible  Patriots  are  sopped  with  presents  of 
cash  :  they  accept  the  sop  :  they  rise  refreshed  by  it,  and  travel 
their  own  way.f  Nay,  the  King's  Government  did  likewise  hire 
Hand-clappers,  or  claqueurs,  persons  to  applaud.  Subterranean 
Rivarol  has  Fifteen  Hundred  men  in  King's  pay,  at  the  rate  of 
some  ^10,000  sterling,  per  month;  what  he  calls  'a  staff  of 
'genius  :'  Paragraph-writers,  Placard-Journalists  ;  'two  hundred 
^  and  eighty  Applauders,  at  three  shillings  a  day  : '  one  of  the 
strangest  Staffs  ever  commanded  by  man.  The  muster-rolls  and 
account-books  of  which  still  exist.J  Bertrand-Moleville  himself,  in 
a  way  he  thinks  very  dexterous,  contrives  to  pack  the  Galleries  of 
the  Legislative  ;  gets  Sansculottes  hued  to  go  thither,  and  applaud 
at  a  signal  given,  they  fancying  it  was  Petion  that  bid  them:  a 
device  which  was  not  detected  for  almost  a  week.  Dexterous 
enough  ;  as  if  a  man  finding  the  Day  fast  decline  should  determine 
on  altering  the  Clockhands  :  that  is  a  thing  possible  for  him. 

Here  too  let  us  note  an  unexpected  apparition  of  Philippe 
d'Orleans  at  Court  :  his  last  at  the  Levee  of  any  King.  D'Orleans, 
sometime  in  the  winter  months  seemingly,  has  been  appointed  to 
that  old  first-coveted  rank  of  Admiral,— though  only  over  ships 
rotting  in  port.  The  wished-for  comes  too  late  !  However,  he 
waits  on  Bertrand-Moleville  to  give  thanks  :  nay  to  state  that  he 
would  willingly  thank  his  Majesty  in  person  ;  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  horrible  things  men  have  said  and  sung,  he  is  far  from  being 
his  Majesty's  enemy  ;  at  bottom,  how  far  !  Bertrand  delivers  the 
message,  brings  about  the  royal  Interview,  which  does  pass  to  the 
satisfaction  of  his  Majesty  ;  d'Orleans  seeming  clearly  repentant- 
determined  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf.  And  yet,  next  Sunday,  what 
do  we  see  ?    '  Next  Sunday,'  says  Bertrand,  '  he  came  to  the  King's 

*  Levee  ;  but  the  Courtiers  ignorant  of  what  had  passed,  the  crowd 
'of  Royalists  who  were  accustomed  to  resort  thither  on  that  day 
'  specially  to  pay  their  court,  gave  him  the  most  humiliating  recep- 
*tion.  They  came  pressing  round  him;  managing,  as  if  by 
'mistake, to  tread  on  his  toes,  to  elbow  him  towards  the  door,  and 
'not  let  him  enter  again.    He  went  downstairs  to  her  Majesty's 

*  Apartments,  where  cover  was  laid  ;  so  soon  as  he  shewed  face, 
^  sounds  rose  on  all  sides,  "  Messieurs,  take  care  of  the  dishes','  as 
'  if  he  had  carried  poison  in  his  pockets.  The  insults  which  his 
'presence  every  where  excited  forced  him  to  retire  without  having 

*  Moleville.  i.  370.  f  Ibid.  i.  c.  17.  J  ISrontgaillard,  iii.  41. 


158 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


*  seen  the  Royal  Family :  the  crowd  followed  him  to  the  Queen's 
'  Starircase ;  in  descending,  he  received  a  spitting  {crackat)  on  the 

*  head,  and  some  others,  on  his  clothes.    Rage  and  spite  were  seen 

*  visibly  painted  on  his  face  :  as  indeed  how  could  they  miss  to 
be?  He  imputes  it  all  to  the  King  and  Queen,  who  know  nothing 
of  it,  who  are  even  much  grieved  at  it  ;  and  so  descends,  to  his 
Chaos  again.  Bertrand  was  there  at  the  Chateau  that  day  himself, 
and  an  eye-witness  to  these  things. 

For  the  rest,  Non-jurant  Priests,  and  the  repression  of  them, 
will  distract  the  King's  conscience ;  Emigrant  Princes  and  No- 
blesse will  force  him  to  double-dealing  :  th^remusthQ  veto onveto j 
amid  the  ever-waxing  indignation  of  men.  For  Patriotism,  as  we 
said,  looks  o:"^  from  without,  more  and  more  suspicious.  WaxiHg 
tempest,  blast  after  blast,  of  Patriot  indignation,  from  without ; 
dim  inorganic  whirl  of  Intrigues,  Fatuities,  within  !  Inorganic, 
fatuous  ;  from  which  the  eye  turns  away.  De  Stael  intrigues  for 
her  so  gallant  Narbonne,  to  get  him  made  War- Minister  ;  and 
ceases  not^  Ziavinggot  him  made.  The  King  shall  fly  to  Rouen  ; 
she  il  there,  with  the  gallant  Narbonne,  properly  '  modify  the  Con- 

*  stitution.'  This  is  the  same  brisk  Narbonne,  who,  last  year,  cut  out 
from  their  entanglement,  by  force  of  dragoons,  those  poor  fugitive 
Royal  Aunts  men  say  he  is  at  bottom  their  Brother,  or  even  more, 
so  scandalous  is  scandal.  He  drives  now,  with  his  de  Stael, 
rapidly  to  the  Armies,  to  the  Frontier  Towns  ;  produces  rose- 
coloured  Reports,  not  too  credible  ;  perorates,  gesticulates  ;  wavers 
poising  himself  the  top,  lOr  a  moment,  seen  of  men;  then 
tumbles,  dismissed,  washed  away  by  the  Time-flood. 

Also  the  fair  Princess  C.z  Lamballe  intrigues,  booom  friend  of  her 
Majesty  :  to  the  angering  of  Patriotism.  Beautiful  Unfortunate, 
why  did  she  ever  return  from  England  ?  Her  small  silver-voice, 
what  can  it. profit  in  that  piping  of  the  black  World-tormado.'* 
Which  will  whirl  her,  poor  fragile  Bird  of  Paradise,  against  grim 
rocks.  Lamballe  r.nd  do  Stael  intrigue  visibly,  apart  or  together  : 
but  who  shall  reckon  how  many  others,  and  in  what  infinite  ways, 
invisibly  !  Is  tTiere  .^  ot  what  one  may  call  an  *  Austrian  Com- 
mittee,' sitting  ini/isible  in  the  Tuileries  ;  centre  of  an  invisible 
Anti-National  Spiderweb,  which,  for  we  sleep  among  mysteries, 
stretches  its  threads  the  ends  of  the  Earth  ?  Journalist  Carra 
has  now  the  clearest  cn  tainty  of  it :  to  Brissotin  Patriotism,  and 
France  generally,  it  is  growing  more  and  more  probable. 

O  Reader,  hast  thou  no  pity  for  this  Constitution  ?  Rheumatic 
shooting  pains  in  its  members  ;  pressure  of  hydrocephale  and 
hysteric  vapours  on  its  Brain  :  r.  Constitution  divided  against  itself ; 
which  will  never  march,  hardly  even  stagger  .^^  Why  were  not  Drouet 
and  Procureur  Sausse  in  their  beds, that  unblessed  Varennes  Night ! 
Why  did  they  not,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  let  the  Korff  Berline 
go  whither  i'.  listed  I  Nameless  incoherency,  incompatibility,  per- 
haps prodigies  at  which  the  world  still  shudders,  had  been  spared. 

But  now  comes  the  third  thing  tliat  bodes  ill  for  the  marching  of 
"  Bertrand-Moleville,  i.  177. 


159 


this  French  Constitution  :  besides  the  French  People,  and  the 
French  King,  there  is  thirdly— the  assembled  European  world  ? 
it  has  become  necessary  now  to  look  at  that  also.  Fair  France  is 
so  luminous  :  and  round  and  round  it,  is  troublous  Cimmerian 
Night.  Calonnes,  Breteuils  hover  dim,  far-flown  :  overnetting 
Europe  with  intrigues.  From  Turin  to  Vienna ;  to  Berlin,  and 
^  utmost  Petersburg  in  the  frozen  North  !  Great  Burke  has  raised 
his  great  voice  long  ago  ;  eloquently  demonstrating  that  the  end 
ot  an  Epoch  is  come,  to  all  appearance  the  end  of  Civilised  Time. 
Him  many  answer  :  Camille  Desmouhns,  Clootz  Speaker  of  Man- 
kind, Paine  the  rebellious  Needleman,  and  honourable  Gallic 
Vindicators  in  that  country  and  in  this  :  but  the  great  Burke 
remains  unanswerable  ;  '  the  Age  of  Chivalry  is  gone,'  and  could 
not  but  go,  having  now  produced  the  still  more  indomitable  Age  of 
Hunger.  Altars  enough,  of  the  Dubois-Rohan  sort,  changing  to 
the  Gobel-and-Talleyrand  sort,  are  faring  by  rapid  transmutation 
to,  shall  we  say,  the  right  Proprietor  of  them  }  French  Game  and 
French  Game- Preservers  did  alight  on  the  Cliffs  of  Dover,  with 
cries  of  distress.  Who  will  say  that  the  end  of  much  is  not  come.^ 
A  set  of  mortals  has  risen,  who  believe  that  Truth  is  not  a  printed 
Speculation,  but  a  practical  Fact ;  that  Freedom  and  Brotherhood 
are  possible  in  this  Earth,  supposed  always  to  be  Belial's,  which 
*tlie  Supreme  Quack'  was  to  inherit  !  Who  will  say  that  Church, 
State,  Throne,  Altar  are  not  in  danger  ;  that  the  sacred  Strong- 
box itself,  last  Palladium  of  effete  Humanity,  may  not  be  blas- 
phemously blown  upon,  and  its  padlocks  undone  ? 

The  poor  Constituent  Assembly  might  act  with  what  delicacy 
and  diplomacy  it  would  ;  declare  that  it  abjured  meddling  with  its 
neighbours,  foreign  conquest,  and  so  forth  ;  but  from  the  first 
this  thing  was  to  be  predicted  :  that  old  Europe  and  new  France 
could  not  subsist  together.  A  Glorious  Revolution,  oversetting 
State-Prisons  and  Feudalism  ;  publishing,  with  outburst  of  Fede- 
rative Cannon,  in  face  of  all  the  Earth,  that  Appearance  is  not 
Reahty,  how  shall  it  subsist  amid  Governments  which,  if  Appear- 
ance is  not  Reality,  are— one  knows  not  what  ?  In  death-feud, 
and  internecine  wrestle  and  battle,  it  shall  subsist  with  them  ;  not 
otherwise. 

Rights  of  Man,  printed  on  Cotton  Handkerchiefs,  in  various 
dialects  of  human  speech,  pass  over  to  the  Frankfort  Fair.^ 
What  say  we,  Frankfort  Fair  They  have  crossed  Euphrates 
and  the  fabulous  Hydaspes  ;  wafted  themselves  beyond  the  Ural, 
Altai,  Himmalayah  :  struck  off  from  wood  stereotypes,  in  angular 
Picture-writing,  they  are  jabbered  and  jingled  of  in  China  and 
Japan.  Where  will  it  stop  Kien-Lung  smells  mischief ;  not  the 
remotest  Dalai-Lama  shall  now  knead  his  dough-pills  in  peace.— 
Hateful  to  us  ;  as  is  the  Night  !  Bestir  yourselves,  ye  Defenders 
of  Order!  They  do  bestir  themselves  :'ail  Kings  and  Kinglets, 
with  their  spiritual  temporal  array,  are  astir  ;  their  brows  clouded 
with  menace.  Diplomatic  emissaries  fly  swift  ;  Conventions, 
privy  Conclaves  assemble ;  and  wise  w^igs  wag,  taking  what 
counsel  they  can. 

*  Toulongeon,  i,  256. 


i6o 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


Also,  as  we  said,  the  Pamphleteer  draws  pen,  on  this  side  and 
that:  zealous  fists  beat  the  Pulpit-drum.  Not  without  issue! 
Did  not  iron  Birmingham,  shouting  '  Church  and  King,'  itself 
knew  not  why,  burst  out,  last  July,  into  rage,  drunkenness,  and 
hre  ;  and  your  Priestleys,  and  the  like,  dining  there  on  that  Bastille 
day,  get  the  maddest  singeing  :  scandalous  to  consider  !  In  which 
same  days,  as  we  can  remark,  high  Potentates,  Austrian  and 
Prussian,  with  Emigrants,  were  faring  towards  Pilnitz  in  Saxony  ; 
there,  on  the  27th  of  August,  they,  keeping  to  themselves  what 
further  '  secret  Treaty '  there  might  or  might  not  be,  did  pubhsh 
their  hopes  and  their  threatenings,  their  Declaration  that  it  was 
'  the  common  cause  of  Kings/ 

Where  a  will  to  quarrel  is,  there  is  a  way.  Our  readers 
remember  that  Pentecost-Night,  Fourth  of  August  1789,  when 
Feudalism  fell  in  a  few  hours  ?  The  National  Assembly,  in 
abolishing  Feudahsm,  promised  that  '  compensation '  should  be 
given  ;  and  did  endeavour  to  give  it.  Nevertheless  the  Austrian 
Kaiser  answers  that  his  German  Princes,  for  their  part,  cannot  be 
unfeudahsed  ;  that  they  have  Possessions  in  French  Alsace,  and 
F^eudal  Rights  secured  to  them,  for  which  no  conceivable  comipen- 
sation  wih  suffice.  So  this  of  the  Possessioned  Princes,  '  Princes 
'  Possessiones '  is  bandied  from  Court  to  Court  ;  covers  acres  of 
diplomatic  paper  at, this  day  :  a  weariness  to  the  world.  Kaumtz 
argues  from  Vienna ;  Delessart  responds  from  Paris,  though 
perhaps  not  sharply  enough.  The  Kaiser  and  his  Possessioned 
Princes  will  too  evidently  come  and  take  compensation— so  nmch 
as  they  can  get.  Nay  might  one  not  partition  France,  as  we 
have  done  Poland,  and  are  doing  ;  and  so  pacify  it  with  a  ven- 
geance ? 

From  South  to  North  1  For  actually  it  is  '  the  common  cause 
^of  Kings.'  Swedish  Gustav,  sworn  Knight  of  the  Queen  of 
France,  will  lead  Coalised  Armies  ;— had  not  Ankarstrom  treason- 
ously  shot  him  ;  for,  indeed,  there  were  griefs  nearer  home.^ 
Austria  and  Prussia  speak  at  Pilnitz  ;  all  men  intensely  hstening  : 
Imperial  Rescripts  have  gone  out  from  Turin  ;  there  will  be 
secret  Convention  at  Vienna.  Catherine  of  Russia  beckons 
approvingly  ;  will  help,  were  she  ready.  Spanish  Bourbon  stirs 
amid  his  pillows  ;  from  him  too,  even  from  him,  shall  there  come 
help.  Lean  Pitt,  '  the  Minister  of  Preparatives,'  looks  out  from 
his  watch-tower  in  Saint-James's,  in  a  suspicious  manner.  Coun- 
cillors plotting,  Calonnes  dim-hovering  ;  alas,  Serjeants  rub-a- 
duVjbing  openly  through  all  manner  of  (German  market-towns, 
collecting  ragged  valour  !t  Pook  where  you  will,  immeasurable 
Obscurantism  is  girdling  this  fair  France  :  which,  again,  will  not 
be  girdled  1)y  it. '  luiro])c  is  in  travail ;  pang  after  pang  ;  what  a 
shriek  was  tiiat  of  J^ilnitz  !    The  birth  will  be  :  War. 

Nay  the  worst  feature  of  the  business  is  this  last,  still  to  be 
named  ;  the  Emigrants  at  Coblentz,    So  many  thousands  ranking 
there,  in  bitter  hate  and  menace  :  King's  Brothers,  all  Princes  of 
■'^  30th  Miircli  1792  [Annual  Register,  p.  ii).      f  Toulongeon,  ii.  100-117. 


KINGS  AND  EMIGRANTS. 


i6i 


thQ  Blood  except  wicked  d'Orleans  ;  your  duelling  de  Castries, 
your  eloquent  Cazales  ;  bull-headed  Malseignes,  awargod  Broglie; 
Distaff  Seigneurs,  insulted  Officers,  all  that  have  ridden  across  the 
Rhine-stream  ;~d'Artois  welcoming  Abbe  Maury  with  a  kiss,  and 
clasping  him  publicly  to  his  own  royal  heart  !  Emigration,  flow- 
ing over  the  Frontiers,  now  in  drops,  now  in  streams,  in  various 
humours  of  fear,  of  petulance,  rage  and  hope,  ever  since  those 
hrst  Bastille  days  when  d'Artois  went,  '  to  shame  the  citizens  of 

*  Paris,'— has  swollen  to  the  size  of  a  Phenomenon  of  the  world. 
Coblentz  is  become  a  small  extra-national  Versailles  ;  a  Versailles 
m  partibus :  briguing,  intriguing,  favouritism,  strumpetocracv 
itselt,  they  say,  goes  on  there  ;  all  the  old  activities,  on  a  small 
scale,  quickened  by  hungry  Revenge. 

Enthusiasm,  of  loyalty,  of  hatred  and  hope,  has  risen  to  a  high 
pitch  ;  as,  in  any  Coblentz  tavern,  you  may  hear,  in  speech,  and 
in  smgmg.  Maury  assists  in  the  interior  Council  ;  much  is 
decided  on  :  for  one  thing,  they  keep  lists  of  the  dates  of  your 
emigrating  ;  a  month  sooner,  or  a  month  later  determines  your 
greater  or  your  less  right  to  the  coming  Division  of  the  Spoil. 
Cazales  himself,  because  he  had  occasionally  spoken  with  a  Con- 
stitutional tone,  was  looked  on  coldly  at  first  :  so  pure  are  our 
principles.-^  And  arms  are  a-hammering  at  Liege  ;  '  three 
'  thousand  herses '  ambling  hitherward  from  the  Fairs  of  Ger- 
many :  Cavalry  enrolling  ;  likewise  Foot-soldiers,  '  in  blue  coat, 
red  waistcoat,  and  nankeen  trousers  !  'f  They  have  their  secret 
domestic  correspondences,  as  their  open  foreign  :  with  disaffected 
Crypto-Aristocrats,  with  contumacious  Priests,  with  Austrian 
Committee  in  the  Tuileries.  Deserters  are  spirited  over  by 
assiduous  crimps  ;  Royal- Allemand  is  gone  almost  wholly.  Their 
route  of  march,  towards  France  and  the  Division  of  the  Spoil,  is 
marked  out,  were  the  Kaiser  once  ready.  "  It  is  said,  they 
mean  to  poison  the  sources  ;  but,''  adds  Patriotism  making 
Report  of  it,  they  will  not  poison  the  source  of  Liberty,"  where- 
at 'on  applaudit,'  we  cannot  but  applaud.  Also  they  have 
manufactories  of  False  Assignats  ;  and  men  that  circulate  in  the 
mterior  distributing  and  disbursing  the  same  ;  one  of  these  we 
denounce  now  to  Legislative  Patriotism  :  '  a  man  Lebrun  by 

*  name ;  about  thirty  years  of  age,  with  blonde  hair  and  in 
\  quantity  ;  has,'  only  for  the  time  being  surely,  '  a  black-eye,  ceil 
"poche;  goes  m  a  wiski  a  black  horse,'t— always  keeping 
his  Gig  ! 

Unhappy  Emigrants,  it  was  their  lot,  and  the  lot  of  France  ! 
They  are  ignorant  of  much  that  thev  should  know  :  of  them- 
selves, of  what  IS  around  them.  A  Political  Party  that  knows  no 
when  It  IS  beateit,  may  become  one  of  the  fatallist  of  things,  to 
Itself,  and  to  all.  Nothing  will  convince  these  men  that  they  can 
not  scatter  the  French  Revolution  at  the  first  blast  of  their  war- 

*  Montgaillard,  iii.  517;  Toulongeon,  [^ubi  supra). 
t  See  Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  11-38,  41-61,  358,  &c. 
J  Moniteur,  Stance  du  2  Novembre  lyoj  iHist.  Pari.  xii.  212) 
VOL.11.    .  _  ^  a 


152 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


trumpet ;  that  the  French  Revolution  is  other  than  a  blustering 
Effervescence,  of  brawlers  and  spouters,  which,  at  the  flash 
chivalrous  broadswords,  at  the  rustle  of  gallows-ropes,  will  burrow 
itself,  in  dens  the  deeper  the  welcomer.  But,  alas,  what  man 
does  know  and  measure  himself,  and  the  things  that  are  round 
him  ; — else  where  were  the  need  of  physical  fighting  at  all  ? 
Never,  till  they  are  cleft  asunder,  can  these  heads  believe  that  a 
Sansculottic  arm  has  any  vigour  in  it  :  cleft  asunder,  it  will  be  too 
late  to  believe. 

One  may  say,  without  spleen  against  his  poor  erring  brothers  of 
any  side^  that  above  all  other  mischiefs,  this  of  the  Emigrant 
Nobles  acted  fatally  on  France.  Could  they  have  known,  could 
they  have  understood  !  In  the  beginning  of  1789,  a  splendour 
and  a  terror  still  surrounded  them  :  the  Conflagration  of  their 
Chateaus,  kindled  by  montlis  of  obstinacy,  went  out  after  the 
Fourth  of  August  ;  and  might  have  continued  out,  had  they  at  all 
known  what  to  defend,  what  to  relinquish  as  indefensible.  They 
were  still  a  graduated  Hierarchy  of  Authorities,  or  the  accredited 
Similitude  of  such  :  they  sat  there,  uniting  King  with  Com- 
monalty ;  transmitting  and  translating  gradually,  from  degree  to 
degree,  the  command  of  the  one  into  the  obedience  of  the  other  ; 
rendering  com_mand  and  obedience  still  possible.  Had  they 
understood  their  place,  and  what  to  do  in  it,  this  French  Revolu- 
tion, which  went  forth  explosively  in  years  and  in  months,  might 
have  spread  itself  over  generations  ;  and  not  a  torture-death  but 
a  quiet  euthanasia  have  been  provided  for  many  things. 

But  they  were  proud  and  high,  these  men  ;  they  were  not  wise 
to  consider.  They  spurned  all  from  them  ;  in  disdainful  hate, 
they  drew  the  svv^ord  and  flung  away  the,  scabbard.  France  has 
not  only  no  Hierarchy  of  Authorities,  to  translate  command  into 
obedience  ;  its  Hierarchy  of  Authorities  has  fled  to  the  enemies  of 
France  ;  calls  loudly  on  the  enemies  of  France  to  interfere  armed, 
who  v/ant  but  a  pretext  to  do  that.  Jealous  Kings  and  Kaisers 
might  have  looked  on  long,  meditating  interference,  yet  afraid  and 
ashamed  to  interfere  :  but  now  do  not  the  King's  Brothers,  and 
all  French  Nobles,  Dignitaries  and  Authorities  that  are  free  to 
speak,  which  the  King  himself  is  not, — passionately  invite  us,  in 
the  name  of  Right  and  of  Might  Ranked  at  Coblentz,  from 
Fifteen  to  Twenty  thousand  stand  now  brandishing  their  weapons, 
with  the  cry  :  On,  on  !  Yes,  Messieurs,  you  shall  on  ; — and  divide 
the  spoil  according  to  your  dates  of  emigrating. 

Of  all  which  things  a  poor  Legislative  Assembly,  and  Patriot 
France,  is  informed  :  by  denunciant  friend,  by  triumphant  foe. 
Sulleau's  Pamphlets,  of  the  Rivarol  Staff  of  ( renins,  circulate;  Ivjrald- 
ing  supreme  hope.  Durosoy's  IMacards  tapestry  the  walls  ;  Chant 
du  Coq  crows  day,  pecked  at  by  7'allien's  dcs  CUoyem,  King's- 
Friend,  Royou,  Ami  du  Roi,  can  name,  in  exact  arithmetical 
ciphers,  the  contingents  of  the  various  Invading  Potentates  ;  in 
all.  Four  hundred  and  nineteen  thousand  Foreign  fighting  men, 
with  Fifteen  thousand  Emig^rants,    Not  to  reckon  these  youf 


BRIGANDS  AND  J  ALES. 


daily  and  houriy  desertions,  which  an  Editor  must  daily  record,  of 
whole  Companies,  and  even  Regiments,  crying  Vive  le  Roi^  vive 
la  Reiite.,  and  marching  over  with  banners  spread  :^ — lies  all, 
and  wind  ;  yet  to  Patriotism  not  wind  ;  nor,  alas,  one  day,  to 
Royou  !  Patriotism,  therefore,  may  brawl  and  babble  yet  a  little 
while  :  but  its  hours  are  numbered  :  Europe  is  coming  with  Four 
hundred  and  nineteen  thousand  and  the  Chivalry  of  France  ;  the 
gallows,  one  may  hope,  will  get  its  own. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

BRIGANDS  AND  JALES. 

We  shall  have  War,  then  ;  and  on  what  terms  !  With  an 
Executive  '  pretending,'  really  with  less  and  less  deceptiveness 
now,  *  to  be  dead ; '  casting  even  a  wishful  eye  towards  the 
enemy  :  on  such  terms  we  shall  have  War. 

Public  Functionary  in  vigorous  action  there  is  none  ;  if  it  be 
not  Rivarol  with  his  Staff  of  Genius  and  Two  hundred  and  eighty 
Applauders.  The  Public  Service  lies  waste  :  the  very  tax- 
gatherer  has  forgotten  his  cunning  :  in  this  and  the  other  Pro- 
vincial Bosrd  of  Management  {pirectoire  de  Depart?nente)  it  is 
found  advisible  to  retain  what  Taxes  you  can  gather,  to  pay  your 
ov/n  inevitable  expenditures.  Our  Revenue  is  Assignats  ;  emission 
on  emission  of  Paper-money.  And  the  Army  ;  our  Three  grand 
Armies,  of  Rochambeau,  of  Liickner,  of  Lafayette  1  Lean,  dis- 
consolate hover  these  Three  grand  Armies,  watching  the  Frontiers 
there  ;  three  Flights  of  long-necked  Cranes  in  moulting  time  ; — 
wrecked,  disobedient,  disorganised  ;  who  never  saw  fire  ;  the  old 
Generals  and  Officers  gone  across  the  Rhine.  War-minister 
Narbonne,  he  of  the  rose-coloured  Reports,  solicits  recruitments, 
equipments,  money,  always  money  ;  threatens,  since  he  can  get 
none,  to  'take  his  sword/  which  belongs  to  himself,  and  go  serve 
his  country  with  that.t 

The  question  of  questions  is  :  What  shall  be  done  ?  Shall  we, 
with  a  desperate  detiance  which  Fortune  sometimes  favours,  d'  aw 
the  sword  at  once,  in  the  face  of  this  in-ru.shing  world  of  Emigra- 
tion and  Obscurantism  ;  or  wait,  and  temporise  and  diplomatise, 
till,  if  possible,  our  resources  mature  themselves  a  little  ?  And 
yet  again  are  our  resources  growing  towards  maturity  ;  or  grov>'ing 
the  other  ^^yl  Dubious  :  the  ablest  Patriots  are  divided  ;  Brissot 
and  his  Brissotins,  or  Girondins,  in  the  Legislative,  cry  aloud 
for  the  former  defiant  plan  ;  Robespierre,  in  the  Jacobins,  pleads 
as  loud  for  the  latter  dilatory  one  :  with  responses,  even  with 
mutual  reprimands  ;  distracting  the  Mother  of  Patriotism.  Con- 

Ami  du  Roi  Newspaper  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  175). 
i  Monifeur,  du  23  Janvier,  1792;  Biographie  dcj  Ministres Nar^ 

me. 

G  2 


l64 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


sider  also  what  agitated  Breakfasts  there  may  be  at  Madame 
d'Udon's  in  the  Place  V^endoine  !  The  alarm  of  all  men  is  great. 
Help,  ye  Patriots  ;  and  O  at  least  agree  ;  for  the  hour  presses. 
Frost  was  not  yet  gone,  when  in  that  '  tolerably  handsome  apart- 
^  ment  of  the  Castle  of  Niort,'  there  arrived  a  Letter  :  General 
Dumouriez  must  to  Pans.  It  is  War-minister  Narbonne  that 
writes  ;  the  General  shall  give  counsel  about  many  things."^  In 
the  month  of  February  1792,  Brissotin  friends  welcome  then 
Dumouriez  Poly  metis., — comparable  really  to  an  antique  Ulysses 
in  modern  costume  ;  quick,  elastic,  shifty,  insuppressible,  a 
'many-counselled  man.' 

Let  the  Reader  fancy  tiiis  fair  France  with  a  whole  Cimmerian 
Europe  girdling  her,  rolling  in  on  her  ;  black,  to  burst  in  red 
thunder  of  War  ;  fair  France  herself  hand-shackled  and  foot- 
shackled  in  the  weltering  complexities  of  this  Social  Clothing,  or 
Constitution,  which  they  have  m.ade  for  her  ;  a  France  that,  in  \ 
such  Constitution,  cannot  march  I  And  Hunger  too  ;  and  plotting  < 
Aristocrats,  and  excommunicating  Dissident  Priests  :  '  the  man  \ 
'Lebrun  by  name'  urging  his  black  wiski,  visible  to  the  eye  :  and, 
still  more  terrible  in  his  invisibility,  Engineer  Goguelat,  with  ^ 
Queen's  cipher,  riding  and  running  ! 

The  excommunicatory  Priests  give  new  trouble  in  the  Maine  ; 
and  Loire  ;  La  Vendee,  nor  Cathelineau  the  wool-dealer,  has  not  ^ 
ceased  grumbling  and  rumbling.  .  Nay  behold  J  ales  itself  once  ; 
more  :  how  often  does  that  real-imaginary  Camp  of  the  Fiend  | 
require  to  be  extinguished  !    For  near  two  years  now,  it  has  \ 
waned  faint  and  again  waxed  bright,  in  the  bewildered  soul  of  < 
Patriotism  :  actually,  if  Patriotism  knew  it,  one  of  the  miOst  sur-  ^ 
prising  products  of  Nature  working  with  Art.    Royalist  Seigneurs,  ' 
under  this  or  the  other  pretext,  assemble  the  simple  people  of  these 
Cevennes  Mountains  ;  men  not  unused  to  revolt,  and  with  heart 
for  fighting,  could  their  poor  heads  be  got  persuaded.    The  Royalist 
Seigneur  harangues  ;  harping  mainly  on  the   religious  string  : 
"True  Priests  maltreated,   false  Priests    intruded,  Protestants 
(once  dragooned)  now  triumphing,  things  sacred  given  to  the 
dogs  ;  "  and  so  produces,  from  the  pious  Mountaineer  throat, 
rough  growlings.    "  Shall  we  not  tei:tify,  then,  ye  brave  hearts  of 
the  Cevennes  ;  march  to  the  rescue  ?    Holy  Rehgion  ;  duty  to 
God  and  King  ?  "    "  Si  fait,  si  fait,  Just  so,  just  so,"  answer  the 
brave  hearts"  always  :  "  Mais  il y  a  de  bieii  bojines  chases  dans  hi 
Revolution,  But  there  are  main  good  things  in  the  Revolution 
too  ! " — And  so  the  matter,  cajole  as  we  may,  will  only  turn  on  its 
axis,  not  stir  from  the  spot,  and  remains  theatrical  merely.+ 

Nevertheless  deepen  your  cajolery,  harp  quick  and  quicker,  ye 
Royalist  Seigneurs  ;  with  a  dead-lift  effort  you  may  bring  it  to 
that.  In  the  month  of  June  next,  tliis  Camp  of  Jales  will  step 
forth  as  a  tlieatricality  suddenly  become  real  ;  Two  thousand 
strong,  and  with  the  boast  that  it  is  Seventy  thousand  :  most 
Strange  to  see ;  with  flags  flying,  bayonets  fixed;  with  Proclama-' 
*  Ehirnouricz,  ii.  c.  6.  f  l^ampmartin,  i.  201. 


CONSTITUTION  WILL  NOT  MARCH,  165 


tion,  and  d'Artois  Commission  of  civil  war  !  Let  some  Rebecqui, 
or  other  the  Hke  hot-clear  Patriot  ;  let  some  '  Lieutenant- Colonel 
*Aubry,'  if  Rebecqui  is  busy  elsewhere,  raise  instantaneous 
National  Guards,  and  disperse  and  dissolve  it  ;  and  blow  the  Old 
Castle  asunder,^  that  so,  if  possible,  we  hear  of  it  no  more  1 

In  the  Months  of  February  and  March,  it  is  recorded,  the  terror, 
especially  of  rural  France,  had  risen  even  to  the  transcendental 
pitch:  not  far  from  madness.  In  Town  and  Hamlet  is  rumour; 
of  war,  massacre  :  that  Austrians,  Aristocrats,  above  all,  that  The 
Brlga7tds -axQ  close  by.  Men  quit  their  houses  and  huts  ;  rush 
fugitive,  shrieking,  with  wife  and  child,  they  knew  what  whither. 
Such  a  terror,  the  eye-witnesses  say,  never  fell  on  a  Nation  ;  nor 
shall  again  fall,  even  in  Reigns  of  Terror  expressly  so-called. 
The  Countries  of  the  Loire,  all  the  Central  and  South-East  regions, 
start  up  distracted,  '  simultaneously  as  by  an  electric  shock  ;  '—for 
indeed  grain  too  gets  scarcer  and  scarcer.  '  The  people  barricade 
*  the  entrances  of  Towns,  pile  stones  in  the  upper  stories,  the 
'  women  prepare  boihng  water  ;  from  moment  to  moixient.  expect- 
ing the  attack.  In  the  Country,  the  alarm-bell  rings  incessant: 
'troops  of  peasants,  gathered  by  it,  scour  the  highways,  seeking  an 
'imaginary  enemy.  They  are  armed  mostly  with  scythes  stuck  m 
'  wood  ;  and,  arriving  in  wild  troops  at  the  barricaded  Towns,  are 
'  themselves  sometimes  taken  for  Brigands.'f  • 

So  rushes  old  France  :  old  France  is  rushing  down.  What  the 
end  will  be  is  known  to  no  mortal ;  that  the  end  is  near  all  mortals 
may  know. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONSTITUTION  WILL  NOT  MARCH. 

To  all  which  our  poor  Legislative,  tied  up  by  an  unmarching 
Constitution,  can  oppose  nothing,  by  way  of  remedy,  but  mere 
bursts  of  parliamentary  eloquence  !  They  go  on,  debating,  de- 
nouncing, objurgating  :  loud  weltering  Chaos,  which  devours  itself. 

But  their  two  thousand  and  odd  Decrees?  Reader,  these 
happily  concern  not  thee,  nor  me.  Mere  Occasional  Decrees, 
foolish  and  not  foolish  ;  sufficient  for  that  day  was  its  own  evil  : 
Of  the  whole  two  thousand  there  are  not,  now  half  a  score,  and 
these  mostly  blighted  in  the  bud  by  royal  Veto,  that  will  profit  or 
disprofit  us.  On  the  17th  of  January,  the  Legislative,  for  one  thing, 
jrot  its  High  Court,  its  Haute  Coiir,  set  up  at  Orleans.  The  theory 
had  been*^given  by  the  Constituent,  in  May  last,  but  this  is  the 
reality  •  a  Court  for  the  trial  of  Political  Offences  ;  a  Court  which 
cannot  want  work.  To  this  it  was  decreed  that  there  needed  no 
r^yal  Acceptance,  therefore  iIkU  tliere  could  be  no  Veto.  Also 
Priests  can  now  be  married  ;  e\  er  since  last  October.  A  patriotic 
♦  Mo7iiteiir,  Seance  du  15  fuillet  1792. 
f  Newspapers,  i&c.  (in  hist.  Pari.  xiii.  323). 


l66  PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 

adventurous  Priest  had  made  bold  to  marry  himself  then  ;  and  not 
thmkmg  this  enough,  came  to  the  bar  with  his  new  spouse  •  that 
the  whole  world  might  hold  honey-moon  with  him,  and  a  Law  be 
obtamed. 

Less  joyful  are  the  Laws  against  Refractory  Priests  ;  and  yet 
not  less  needful  !  Decrees  on  Priests  and  Decrees  on  Emigrants  • 
these  are  the  two  brief  Series  of  Decrees,  worked  out  with  endless 
debate,  and  then  cancelled  by  Veto,  which  mainly  concern  us  here. 
For  an  august  National  Assembly  must  needs  conquer  these 
Refractories,  Clerical  or  Laic,  and  thumbscrew  them  into  obedi- 
ence ;  yet,  behold,  always  as  you  tun:  your  legislative  thumbscrew 
and  will  press  and  even  crush  till  Refractories  give  way  — King  s 
Veto  steps  in,  with  magical  paralysis ;  and  your  thumbscrew, 
hardly  squeezing,  much  less  crushing,  does  not  act  ' 

Truly  a  melancholy  Set  of  Decrees,  a  pair  of  Sets  ;  paralysed 
by  Veto/  First,  under  date  the  28th  of  October  1791,  we  have 
Legislative  Proclamation,  issued  by  herald  and  bill-stickc' • 
mvitmg  Monsieur,  the  King's  Brother  to  return  within  two  months', 
under  penalties.  To  which  invitation  Monsieur  rephes  nothino-  • 
or  indeed  ^replies  by  Newspaper  Parody,  inviting  the  aurust 
Legislative  '  to  return  to  common  sense  within  two  months '  under 
penalties.  Whereupon  the  Legislative  must  take  stronger 
measures.  So,  on  the  9th  of  November,  we  declare  all  Emio-rants 
to  be  *  suspect  of  conspiracy  ; '  and,  in  brief,  to  be  '  outlawed  '  if 
they  have  not  returned  at  Newyear  s-day :— Will  the  King  say 
Veto?  That  '  triple  impost '  shall  be  levied  on  these  men's  Pro- 
perties, or  even  their  Properties  be  '  put  in  sequestration,'  one  can 
understand.  But  further,  on  Newyear's-day  itself,  not  an  indivi- 
dual having  '  returned,'  we  declare,  and  with  fresh  emphasis  some 
fortnight  later  again  declare.  That  Monsieur  is  dechu,  forfeited  of 
his  eventual  Heirship  to  the  Crown  ;  nay  more  that  Conde 
Calonne,  and  a  considerable  List  of  others  are  accused  of  hi^^h 
treason  ;  and  shall  be  judged  by  our  High  Court  of  Orleans  : 
K^/^?  ./—Then  again  as  to  Nonjurant  Priests:  it  was  decreed  in 
November  last,  that  they  should  forfeit  what  Pensions  they  had  • 
be  '  put  under  inspection,  under  surveillance,'  and,  if  need  were' 
be  banished  :  Veto  /  A  still  sharper  turn  is  coming  :  but  to  thi^ 
also  the  answer  will  be,  Veto. 

F^/^  after  Veto;  your  thumbscrew  paralysed!  Gods  and  men 
may  see  that  the  Legislative  is  in  a  false  position.  As,  alas  who 
IS  in  a  true  one  ?  Voices  already  murmur  for  a  '  National  'Con- 
vention  '*  This  poor  Legislative,  spurred  and  stung  into  action 
by  a  whole  Prance  and  a  whole  Europe,  cannot  act;  can  only 
objurgate  and  perorate  ;  with  stormy '  motions,'  and  motion  in  which 
is  no  :  with  effervescence,  with  noise  and  fuliginous  fury  ' 
•  I'f,  ^^^"^^  ^^^^  National  Hall  !  President  jingling  his 
inaudible  bell  ;  or,  as  utmost  signal  of  distress,  clapping  on  his 
hat;  the  tumult  subsiding  in  twenty  minutes,' and  this  or  the 
other  indiscreet  Member  sent  to  Abbaye  Prison  for  three 
days  !    Suspected  Persons  must  he  sununoncd  and  questioned  • 


Dcccfiib;. 


CONSTITUTION  WILL  NOT  MARCH.  167 


old  M.  de  Sombreuil  of  the  Invalides  has  to  give  account  of  him- 
self, and  why  he  leaves  his  Gates  open.  Unusual  smoke  rose 
from  the  Sevres  Pottery,  indicating  conspiracy  ;  the  Potters  ex- 
plained that  it  was  Necklace- Lam otte's  Me?noirs^  bought  up  by 
her  Majesty,  which  they  were  endeavouring  to  suppress  by  fijre  *— 
which  nevertheless  he  that  runs  may  still  read. 

Again,  it  would  seem,  Duke  de  Brissac  and  the  King's  ConstL 
tutional-Guard  are  *  making  cartridges  secretly  in  the  cellars  ; '  a 
set  of  Royahsts,  pure  and  impure  ;  black  cut-throats  many  of  them, 
picked  out  of  gaming  houses  and  sinks  ;  in  all  Six  thousand  in- 
stead of  Eighteen  hundred  ;  who  evidently  gloom  on  us  every 
time  we  enter  the  Chateau. t  Wherefore,  with  infinite  debate,  let 
Brissac  and  King's  Guard  be  disbanded.  Disbanded  accordingly 
they  are  ;  after  only  two  months  of  existence,  for  they  did  not  get 
on  foot  till  March  of  this  same  year.  So  ends  briefly  the  King's 
new  Constitutional  MaisoJt  MiUtaire  j  he  must  now  be  guarded 
by  mere  Swiss  and  blue  Nationals  again.  It  seems  the  lot  of  Consti- 
tutional things.  New  Constitutional  Maison  Civile  he  woul<f 
never  even  establish,  much  as  Barnave  urged  it ;  old  resident 
Duchesses  sniffed  at  it,  and  held  aloof  ;  on  the  whole  her  Majesty 
thought  it  not  worth  while,  the  Noblesse  vv^ould  so  soon  be  back 
triumphant.  \ 

Or,  looking  still  into  this  National  Hall  and  its  scenes,  behold 
Bishop  Torne,  a  Constitutional  Prelate,  not  of  severe  morals, 
demanding  that  '  religious  costumes  and  such  caricatures '  be 
abolished.  Bishop  Torne  warms,  catches  fire  ;  finishes  by  unty- 
ing, and  indignantly  flinging  on  the  table,  as  if  for  gage  or  bet, 
his  own  pontifical  cross.  Which  cross,  at  any  rate,  is  instantly 
covered  by  the  cross  of  Te-Deum  Fauchet,  then  by  other  crosses, 
and  insignia,  till  all  are  stripped  ;  this  clerical  Senator  clutching 
off  his  skull-cap,  that  other  his  frill-collar,— lest  Fanaticism  return 
on  us.§ 

Quick  is  the  movement  here  !  And  then  so  confused,  unsub- 
stantial, you  might  call  it  almost  spectral ;  pallid,  dim,  inane,  like 
the  Kingdoms  of  Dis  !  Unruly  Liguet,  shrunk  to  a  kind  of  spectre 
for  us,  pleads  here,  some  cause  that  he  has  :  amid  rumour  and 
interruption,  which  excel  human  patience  ;  he  '  tears  his  papers- 
*  and  withdraws,'  the  irascible  adust  Uttle  man.  Nay  honourable 
members  will  tear  their  papers,  being  effervescent  :  Merhn  or 
Thionville  tears  his  papers,  crying  :  "  So,  the  People  cannot  be 
saved  by "  Nor  are  Deputations  .wanting  :  Deputations  of 
Sections  ;  generally  with  complaint  and  denouncement,  always 
with  Patriot  fervour  of  sentiment  :  Deputation  of  Women,  plead- 
ing that  they  also  may  be  allowed  to  take  Pikes,  and  exercise  m 
the  Champ-de-Mars.  Why  not,  ye  Amazons,  if  it  be  in  you? 
Then  occasionally,  having  done  our  message  and  got  answer,  we 
'defile  through  the  Hall,  singing  ca-ira;'  or  rather  roll  and  whirl 
through  it,  '  dancing  our  ronde  patriotique  the  while,'— our  new 

*  Mojiiteur,  Stance  dm  28  Mai  1792  ;  Campan,  ii.  196. 
t  Dumouriez,  ii.  168.  t  Campan,  ii.  c.  19. 

I  Moniteur,  du  7  Avril  1792;  Deux  Amis,  vii.  iii. 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


Carmagnole^  or  Pyrrhic  war-dance  and  liberty-dance.  Patriot 
Huguenin,  Ex- Advocate,  Ex- Carabineer,  Ex-Clerk  of  the  Barriers, 
comes  deputed,  with  Saint-Antoine  at  his  heels ;  denouncing 
Anti-patriotism,  Famine,  Forstalment  and  Man-eaters;  asks  an 
august  Legislative  :  "  Is  there  not  a  tocsin  in  your  hearts  against 
these  mangeiirs    homines  ! 

But  above  all  things,  for  this  is  a  continual  business,  the  Legis- 
lative has  to  reprimand  the  King's  Ministers.  Of  His  Majesty's 
Minister's  we  have  said  hitherto,  and  say,  next  to  nothing.  Still 
more  spectral  these  !  Sorrowful  ;  of  no  permanency  any  of  them, 
none  at  least  since  Montmorin  vanished  :  the  '  eldest  of  the 

*  King's  Council '  is  occasionally  not  ten  days  old  !  f  Feuillant- 
Constitutional,  as  your  respectable  Cahier  de  Gerville,  as  your 
respectable  unfortunate  Delessarts  ;  or  Royahst-Constitutional,  as 
Montmorin  last  Friend  of  Necker  ;  or  Aristocrat  as  Bertrand-Mole- 
ville  :  they  flit  there  phantom-like,  in  the  huge  simmering  confusion  ; 
poor  shhdows,  dashed  in  the  racking  winds  ;  powerless,  without 
meaning  ; — whom  the  human  memory  need  not  charge  itself  with,  i 

But  how  often,  we  say,  are  these  poor  Majesty's  Ministers 
summoned  over ;  to  be  questioned,  tutored  ;  nay  threatened, 
almost  bullied  !  They  answer  what,  with  adroitest  simulation 
and  casuistry,  they  can  :  of  which  a  poor  Legislative  knows  not 
what  to  make.  One  thing  only  is  clear,  That  Cimmerian  Europe 
is  girdling  us  in  ;  that  France  (not  actually  dead,  surely  ?)  cannot 
march.  Have  a  care,  ye  Ministers  !  Sharp  Guadet  transfixes' 
you  with  cross-questions,  with  sudden  Advocate-conclusions  ;  the  • 
sleeping  tempest  that  is  in  Vergniaud  can  be  awakened.  Restless' 
Brissot  brings  up  Reports,  Accusations,  endless  thin  Logic  ;  it  is, 
the  man's  highday  even  now.  Condorcet  redacts,  with  his  firm ' 
pen,  our* Address  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  to  the  French 

*  Nation.'l  Fiery  Max  Isnard,  who,  for  the  rest,  will  carry  not 
Fire  and  Sword"  on  those  Cimmerian  Enemies  "but  Liberty,"— 
is  for  declaring  "  that  we  hold  Ministers  responsible  ;  and  that  by 
responsibility  we  mean  death,  notes  enteitdons  la  77iortP 

For  verily  it  grows  serious :  the  time  presses,  and  ^traitors  there 
are.  Bertrand-Moleville  has  a  smooth  tongue,  the  known  Ari?^- 
tocrat ;  gall  in  his  heart.  How  his  answers  and  explanations  flow 
ready  ;  jesuitic,  plausible  to  the  ear  !  But  perhaps  the  notablest 
is  this,  which  befel  once  when  Bertrand  had  done  answering  and 
was  withdrawn.  Scarcely  had  the  august  Assembly  begun  con- 
sidering what  was  to  be  done  with  him,  when  the  Hall  fills  with 
smoke.  Thick  sour  smoke  :  no  oratory,  only  wheezing  and  bark- 
ing ;— irremediable  ;  so  that  the  august  Assembly  has  to  adjourn  !  § 
A  miracle.?  Typical  miracle?  One  knows  not:  only  this  one 
seems  to  know,  that  '  the  Keeper  of  the  Stoves  was  appoiiited  by 

*  Bertrand'  or  by  some  underling  of  his  !— O  fuliginous  confused 

*  See  Moniteur,  Seances  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  xiv.). 
f  Damouriez,  ii.  137. 

t  i6th  February  J792  [Choix  des  Rapports,  viii.  375-92). 
§  Courrier  de  Faris,  ^4  Janvier,  1792  (Gorsas's  Newspaper),  in  Hist,  Pari^ 
siii.  83. 


THE  JACOBINS, 


169 


Kingdom  of  Dis,  with  thy  Tantalus-Ixion  toils,  with  thy  angry 
Fire-floods,  and  Streams  named  of  Lamentation,  why  hast  thou 
not  thy  Lethe  too,  that  so  one  might  finish  ? 


CHAPTERVIII. 

THE  JACOBINS. 

Nevertheless  let  not  Patriotism  despair.  Have  we  not,  in 
Paris  at  least,  a  virtuous  Petion,  a  wholly  Patriotic  Municipahty  ? 
Virtuous  Petion,  ever  since  November,  is  Mayor  of  Paris  :  in  our 
Municipality,  the  Public,  for  the  Public  is  now  admitted  too,  may 
behold  an  energetic  Danton  ;  further,  an  epigrammatic  slow-sure 
Manuel ;  a  resolute  unrepentant  Billaud-Varennes,  of  Jesuit  breed- 
ing ;  Tallien  able-editor  ;  and  nothing  but  Patriots,  better  or 
worse.  So  ran  the  November  Elections  :  to  the  joy  of  most 
citizens ;  nay  the  very  Court  supported  Petion  rather  than 
Lafayette.  And  so  Bailly  and  his  Feuillants,  long  waning  like  th 
Moori,  had  to  withdraw  then,  making  some  sorrowful  obeisance,^ 
into  extinction ; — or  indeed  into  worse,  into  lurid  half-light, 
grimmed  by  the  shadow  of  that  Red  Flag  of  theirs,  and  bitter 
memory  of  the  Champ-de-Mars.  How  swift  is  the  progress  of 
things  and  men  !  Not  now  does  Lafayette,  as  on  that  Federation- 
day,  when  his  noota  was,  '  press  his  sword  firmly  on  the  Father- 
*  land's  Altar,'  and  swear  in  sight  of  France  :  ah  no  ;  he,  waning 
and  setting  ever  since  that  hour,  hangs  now,  disastrous,  on  the  edge 
of  the  horizon  ;  commanding  one  of  those  Three  moulting  Crane^ 
flights  of  Armies,  in  a  most  suspected,  unfruitful,  uncomfortable 
manner  ! 

But,  at  most,  cannot  Patriotism,  so  many  thousands  strong  in 
this  Metropolis  of  the  Universe,  help  itself?  Has  it  not  right- 
hands,  pikes  ?  Hammering  of  pikes,  which  was  not  to  be  pro- 
hibited by  Mayor  Bailly,  has  been  sanctioned  by  Mayor  Petion  ; 
sanctioned  by  Legislative  Assembly.  How  not,  when  the  King's 
so-called  Constitutional  Guard  '  was  making  cartridges  in  secret  ? ' 
Changes  are  necessary  for  the  National  Guard  itself ;  this  whole 
Feuillant- Aristocrat  Staff  of  the  Guard  must  be  disbanded.  Like- 
wise, citizens  without  uniform  may  surely  rank  in  the  Guard,  the 
pike  beside  the  musket,  in  such  a  time  :  the  '  active '  citizen  and 
the  passive  who  can  fight  for  us,  are  they  not  both  welcome  ? — O 
my  Patriot  friends,  indubitably  Yes  !  Nay  the  truth  is.  Patriotism 
throughout,  were  it  never  so  white-frilled,  logical,  respectable, 
must  either  lean  itself  heartily  on  Sansculottism,  the  black, 
bottomless  ;  or  else  vanish,  in  the  frightfullest  way,  to  Limbo  ! 
Thus  some,  with  upturned  nose,  will  altogether  sniff  and  disdain  Sans- 
culottism ;  others  will  lean  heartily  on  it  ;  nay  others  again  will 
lean  what  we  call  heartlessly  on  it  :  three  sorts  ;  each  sort  with  a 
destiny  corresponding. 

*  Discours  de  Bailly,  Rifonse  de  PiUo7i  {Mo7iitcur  du  2oNovembre  1791)- 


170 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


In  such  point  of  view,  however,  have  we  not  for  the  present  a 
i^olunteer  Ally,  stronger  than  all  the  rest:  namely,  Hungei? 
Hunger  ;  and  what  rushing  of  Panic  Terror  this  and  the  sum- 
total  of  our  other  miseries  may  bring  !  For  Sansculottism  grows- 
by  what  all  other  things  die  of.  Stupid  Peter  Bailie  almost  made 
an  epigram,  though  unconsciously,  and  with  the  Patriot  w^orld 
laughing  not  at  it  but  at  him,  when  he  wrote  '  Tout  va  Men  ici,  le 
pain  ma?ique,  All  goes  well  here,  victuals  not  to  be  had.'^ 

Neither,  if  yon  knew  it,  is  Patriotism  without  her  Constitution 
that  can  march  ;  her  not  impotent  Parhament  ;  or  call  it,  Ecumenic 
Council,  and  General-Assembly  of  the  Jean-Jacques  Churches  : 
the  Mother-Society,  namely  !  Mother-Societv  with  her  three 
hundred  full-grown  Daughters  ;  with  what  we  can  callhttle  Grand- 
daughters trying  to  walk,  in  every  village  of  France,  numerable,  as 
Burke  thinks,  by  the  hundred  thousand.  This  is  the  true  Consti- 
tution ;  made  not  by  Twelve-Hundred  august  Senators,  but  by 
Nature  herself;  and  has  grown,  unconsciously,  out  of  the' wants 
and  the  efforts  of  these  Twenty-five  Millions  of  men.  They  are 
'  Lords  of  the  Articles,'  our  Jacobins  ;  they  originate  debates  for 
the  Legislative  ;  discuss  Peace  and  War  ;  settle  beforehand  what 
the  Legislative  is  to  do.  Greatly  to  the  scandal  of  philosophical 
men,  and  of  niost  Historians  ;— who  do  in  that  judge  naturally, 
and  yet  not  wisely,  A  Governing  power  must  exist  :  your  other 
powders  here  are  simulacra ;  this  power  is 

Great  is'the  Mother-Society:  She  has  had  the  honour  to  be 
denounced  by  Austrian  Kaunitz  ;t  and  is  all  the  dearer  to 
Patriotism.  By  fortune  and  valour,  she  has  extinguished 
Feuillantism  itself,  at  least  the  Feuillant  Club.  This  latter,  high 
as  it  once  carried  its  head,  she,  on  the  i8th  of  February,  has  the 
satisfaction  to  see  shut,  extinct  ;  Patriots  having  gone  thither,  with 
tumult,  to  hiss  it  out  of  pain.  The  Mother  Society  has  enlarged 
her  locality,  stretches  now  over  the  whole  nave  of  the  Church. 
I  et  us  glance  in,  with  the  worthy  Toulongeon,  our  old  Ex-Con- 
stituent Friend,  who  happily  has  eyes  to  see  :  '  The  nave  of  the 
'  Jacobins  Church,'  says  he,  '  is  changed  into  a  vast  Circus,  the 
'  seats  of  which  mount  up  circularly  like  an  amphitheatre  to  the 
'  very  groin  of  the  domed  roof.  A  high  Pyramid  of  black  marble, 
'  built  against  one  of  the  walls,  which  was  formerly  a  funeral 
'  monument,  has  alone  been  left  standing  :  it  serves  now  as  back 
^  to  the  Office-bearers'  Bureau.  Here  on  an  elevated  Platform  sit 
^  President  and  Secretaries,  behind  and  above  them  the  white 
'  Busts  of  Mirabeau,  of  Franklin,  and  various  others,-nay  finally  of 
Marat.  Facing  this  is  the  Tribune,  raised  till  it  is  midway  between 
'  floor  and  groin  of  the  dome,  so  that  the  speaker's  voice  may  be  in 
4he  centre.  From  that  point,  thunder  the  voices  which  shake  all 
^  Europe  :  down  below,  in  silence,  are  forging  the  thunderboUs  and 
4he  firebrands.  Penetrating  into  this  huge  circuit,  where  all  is 
'out  of  measure,  gigantic,  the  mind  cannot  repress  some  movement 
of  terror  and  wonder  ;  the  imagination  recals  those  dread  temples 

*  Barbaroux,  p.  94. 
t  Moniteur,  Seaoce  du  39  Mars,  1792. 


MINISTER  ROLAND. 


171 


*  which  Poetr/,  of  old,  had  consecrated  to  the  Avenging 
'Deities.'"^ 

Scenes  too  are  in  this  Jacobin  Amphitheatre,— had  History 
time  for  them.  Flags  of  the  '  Three  free  Peoples  of  the  Universe,' 
trinal  brotherly  flags  of  England,  America,  France,  have  been 
waved  here  in  concert  ;  by  London  Deputation,  of  Whigs  or  Wighs 
and  their  Club,  on  this  hand,  and  by  young  French  Citizenesses  on 
that  ;  beautiful  sweet-tongued  Female  Citizens,  who  solemnly  send 
over  salutation  and  brotherhood,  also  Tricolor  stitched  by  their  , 
own  needle,  and  finally  Ears  of  Wheat  ;  v/hile  the  dome  rebeilows 
with  Vivent  les  trois  peuples  lib7^es  I  from  all  throats  : — a  most 
dramatic  scene.  Demoiselle  Theroigne  recites,  from  that  Tribune 
m  mid  air,  her  persecutions  in  Austria,;  comes  leaning  on  the  arm 
of  Joseph  Chenier,  Poet  Chenier,  to  demand  Liberty  for  the  hap- 
less Swiss  of  Chateau-VieuxJ-  Be  of  hope,  ye  Forty  Swiss  ;  tugg- 
'ing  there,  in  the  Brest  w^aters  ;  not  forgotten  ! 

Deputy  Brissot  perorates  from  that  Tribune  ;  Desmoulins,  oOr 
wicked  Camille,  interjecting  audibly  from  below,  Coqidji 
Here,  though  oftener  in  the  Cordeliers,  reverberates  the  lion-voice 
of  Danton  ;  grim  Billaud-Varennes  is  here  ;  Collot  d'Herbois, 
pleading  for  the  Forty  Swiss  ;  tearing  a  passion  to  rags.  Apoph- 
thegmatic  Manuel  winds  up  in  this  pithy  way  :  ''A  Minister  must 
perish  !  " — to  w^hich  the  Amphitheatre  responds  :  To7is,  Tons, 
All,  All  1  "  But  the  Chief  Priest  and  Speaker  of  this  place,  as  we 
said,  is  Robespierre,  the  long-winded  incorruptible  man.  What 
spirit  of  Patriotism  dwelt  in  men^  in  those  times,  this  one  fact,  it 
seems  to  us,  will  evince  :  that  fifteen  hundred  human  creatures, 
not  bound  to  it,  sat  quiet  under  the  oratory  of  Robespierre  ;  nay, 
listened  nightly,  hour  after  hour,  applausive  :  and  gaped  as  for  the 
word  of  life.  More  insupportable  individual,  one  would  say, 
seldom  opened  his  mouth  in  any  Tribune.  Acrid,  implacable- 
impotent  ;  dull-drawling,  barren  as  the  Hamxtattan-wind  !  He 
pleads,  in  endless  earnest-shallow  speech,  against  immediate  War, 
against  Woollen  Caps  or  Bonnets  Roitges,  against  many  things  ; 
and  is  the  Trismegistus  and  Dalai-Lama  of  Patrioc  men.  Whom 
nevertheless  a  shrill-voiced  little  man,  yet  with  fine  eyes,  and  a 
broad  beautifully  sloping  brow,  rises  respectfully  to  controvert  : 
he  is,  say  the  Newspaper  Reporters,  '  M.  Louvet,  Author  of  the 

*  charming  Romance  of  FaiiblasJ    Steady,  ye  Patriots  !    Pull  not  * 
yet  two  ways  ;  with  a  France  rushing  panic-stricken  in  the  rural 
districts,  and  a  Cimmerian  Europe  storming  in  on  you  ! 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MINISTER  ROLAND. 

About  the  vernal  equinox,  however,  one  unexpected  gleam  of 
hope  does  burst  forth  on  Patriotism  :    the  appointment  of  a 
*  Toulongeon,  ii,  124.  f  Dcbats  des  j\:cjain.^  [Ili^t.  Par:,  xiii.  259,  <S:c.). 


172 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


thoroughly  Patriot  Ministry.  This  also  his  Majesty,  among  his 
innumerable  experiments  of  wedding  fire  to  water,  will  try.  Quod 
bonum  sit.  Madame  d'Udon's  Breakfasts  have  jingled  with  ?  .^ew 
significance  ;  not  even  Genevese  Dumont  but  had  a  word  it. 
Finally,  on  the  1 5th  and  onwards  to  the  23d  day  of  March,  1792, 
when  all  is  negociated, — this  is  the  blessed  issue  ;  this  Patriot 
Ministry  that  we  see. 

General  Dumouriez,  with  the  Foreign  Portfolio  shall  ply  Kaunitz 
and  the  Kaiser,  in  another  style  than  did  poor  Delessarts  ;  whom 
indeed  we  have  sent  to  our  High  Court  of  Orleans  for  his  slug- 
gishness. War-minister  Narbonne  is  washed  away  by  the  Time- 
fiood  ;  poor  Chevalier  de  Grave,  chosen  by  the  Court,  is  fast 
washing  away  :  then  shall  austere  Servan,  able  Engineer-Officer, 
mount  suddenly  to  the  War  Department.  Genevese  Qaviere  sees 
an  old  omen  realized  :  passing  the  Finance  Hotel,  long  years  ago, 
as  a  poor  Genevese  Exile,  it  was  borne  wondrously  on  his  mind 
that  he  was  to  be  Finance  Minister  ;  and  now  he  is  it  ; — and  his 
poor  Wife,  given  up  by  the  Doctors,  rises  and  walks,  not  the  victim 
of  nerves  but  their  vanquisher.*  And  above  all,  our  Minister  of 
the  Interior?  Roland  de  la  Platriere,  he  of  Lyons  !  So  have  the 
Brissotins,  public  or  private  Opinion,  and  Breakfasts  in  the  Place 
Vendome  decided  it.  Strict  Roland,  compared  to  a  Quaker 
endimanche,  or  Sunday  Quaker,  goes  to  kiss  hands  at  the  Tuileries, 
in  round  hat  and  sleek  hair,  his  shoes  tied  with  mere  riband  or 
ferrat  !  The  Supreme  Usher  twitches  Dumouriez  aside  :  "  Quoi, 
Monsieur/  No  buckles  to  his  shoes  — "  Ah,  Monsieur,"  answers 
Dumouriez,  glancing  towards  the  ferrat  :  "  All  is  lost,  Totit  est 
perdu, 

And  so  our  fair  Roland  removes  from  her  upper- floor  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Jacques,  to  the  sumptuous  saloons  once  occupied  by 
Madame  Necker.  Nay  still  earlier,  it  was  Calonne  that  did  all 
this  gilding  ;  it  was  he  who  ground  these  lustres,  Venetian  mir- 
rors ;  who  polished  this  inlaying,  this  veneering  and  or-moulu  ; 
and  made  it,  by  rubbing  of  the  proper  sa?^^,  an  Aladdin's  Palace  : 
—and  now  behold,  he  w^anders  dim-flitting  over  Europe,  half- 
drowned  in  the  Rhine-stream,  scarcely  saving  *  his  Papers  !  Vos 
non  vobis. — The  fair  Roland,  equal  to  either  fortune,  has  her  pubhc 
Dinner  on  Fridays,  the  Ministers  all  there  in  a  body  :  she  with- 
draws to  her  desk  (the  cloth  once  removed),  and  seems  busy 
writing  ;  nevertheless  loses  no  word  :  if  for  example  Deputy  Bris- 
sot  and  Minister  Clavicre  get  too  hot  in  argument,  she,  not  without 
timidity,  yet  with  a  cunning  gracefulness,  will  interpose.  Deputy 
]->rissot's  head,  they  say,  is  getting  giddy,  in  this  sudden  height  : 
as  feeble  heads  do. 

Envious  men  insinuate  that  the  Wife  Roland  is  Minister,  and 
not  the  Husband  :  it  is  happily  the  worst  they  have  to  charge  her 
with.  For  the  rest,  let  whose  head  soever  be  getting  giddy,  it  is 
not  this  brave  woman's.  Serene  and  queenly  here,  as  she  was  of 
old  iji  her  own  hired  garret  of  the  UrsuHnes  Convent  !  She  who 
has  quietly  shelled  French-beans  lor  her  dinner  ;  being  led  to 
*  Dumont,  c.  20,  ai.  t  Madame  Roland,  ii.  80-115. 


MINISTER  ROLAND, 


173 


that,  as  a  young  maiden,  by  quiet  insight  and  computation  ;  and 
knowing  what  that  was,  and  what  she  was  :  such  a  one  will  also 
look  quietly  on  or-moulu  and  veneering,  not  ignorant  of  these 
either.  Calonne  did  the  veneering  :  he  gave  dinners  here,  old 
Besenval  diplomatically  whispering  to  him  ;  and  was  great  :  yet 
Calonne  we  saw  at  last  walk  with  long  strides.'  Necker  next  ; 
and  where  now  is  Necker  ?  Us  also  a  swift  change  has  brought 
hither;  a  swift  change  will  send  us  hence.  Not  a  Palace  but  a 
Caravansera  1 

So  wags  and  wavers  this  unrestful  World,  day  after  day,  moiim 
after  month.    The  Streets  of  Paris,  and  all  Cities,  roll  daily  theif 
oscillatory  flood  of  men  ;  which  flood  does,  nightly,  disappear, 
and  lie  hidden  horizontal  in  beds  and  trucklebeds ;  and  awakes 
on  the  morrow  to  new  perpendicularity  and  movement.    Men  go 
their  roads,  foolish  or  wise  ;— Engineer  Goguelat  to  and  fro,  bear- 
ing Queen's  cipher.    A  Madame  de  Stael  is  busy  ;  cannot  clutch 
her  Narbonne  from  the  Time-flood  :  a  Princess  de  Lamballe  is 
busy  ;  cannot  help  her  Queen.    Barnave,  seeing  the  Feuillants 
dispersed,  and  Coblentz  so  brisk,  begs  by  way  of  final  recompence 
to  kiss  her  Majesty's  hand  ;  augurs  not  well  of  her  new  course  ; 
and  retires  home  to  Grenoble,  to  wed  an  heiress  there.  The 
Cafe  Valois  and  Meet  the  Pvcstaurateur's  hear  daily  gasconade  ; 
loud  babble  of  Half-pay  Royalists,  with  or  without  Poniards. 
Remnants  of  Aristocrat  saloons  call  the  new  Ministry  Ministere- 
Sa?isculotte.    A  Louvet,  of  the  Romance  Faublas,  is  busy  in  the 
Jacobins.    A  Cazotte,  of  the  Romance  Diable  Amojireux,  is  busy 
elsewhere  :  better  wert  thou  quiet,  old  Cazotte  ;  it  is  a  world,  this, 
of  magic  become  real  /    All  men  are  busy  ;  doing  they  only  half 
guess  what  :— flinging  seeds,  of  tares  mostly,  into  the  Seed-field 
I  of  Time  :'  this,  by  and  by,  will  declare  wholly  what, 
i     But  Social  Explosions  have  in  them  something  dread.^and  as  it 
I  were  mad  and  magical  :  which  indeed  Life  always  secretly  has  ; 
!  thus  the  dumb  Earth  (says  Fable),  if  you  pull  her  mandrake-roots, 
i  will  give  a  daemonic  mad-making  7?ioan.    These  Explosions  and 
!  Revolts  ripen,  break  forth  like  dumb  dread  Forces  of  Nature  ; 
I  and  yet  they  are  Men's  forces  ;  and  yet  we  are  part  of  them  :  the 
i  Daemonic  that  is  in  man's  life  has  burst  out  on  us,  will  sweep  us 
too  away  ! — One  day  here  is  like  another,  and  yet  it  is  not  like 
but  difl"erent.     How  much  is  growing,  silently  resistless,  at  all 
naoments  !    Thoughts  are  growing  ;  forms  of  Speech  are  growing, 
and  Customs  and  even  Costumes  ;  still  more  visibly  are  actions 
and  transactions  growing,  and  that  doomed  Strife,  of  France  with 
herself  and  with  the  whole  world. 

The  word  Liberty  is  never  named  now  except  in  conjunction 
with  another  ;  Liberty  and  Equality.    In  like  manner,  what,  in  a 
reign  of  Liberty  and  Equality,  can  these  words,  '  Sir,'  '  obedient 
; 'Servant,' '  H:>nour  to  be,'  and  such  hke,  signify?    Tatters  and 
\  fibres  of  old  Feudality  ;  which,  were  it  only  in  the  Grammatical 
province,  ought  to  be  rooted  out  !    The  Mother  Society  has  long 
i  since  had  proposals  to  that  effect  :  these  she  could  not  entertain 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST, 


not,  at  the  moment.    Note  too  how  the  Jacobin  Brethren  are  i 
mounting  new  symbohcal  headgear  :  the  Woollen  Cap  or  Night-  '\ 
cap,  bonnet  de  laine^  better  known  as  bonnet  rouge,  the  colour 
being  red.    A  thing  one  wears  not  only  by  way  of  Phrygian  Cap-  | 
of- Liberty,  but  also  for  convenience'  sake,  and  then  also  in  com-  \ 
pliment  to  the  Lower-class  Patriots  and  Bastille-Heroes  ;  for  the 
Red  Nightcap  combines  all  the  three  properties.    Nay  cockades  : 
themselves  begin  to  be  made  of  wool,  of  tricolor  yarn  :  the 
riband-cockade,  as  a  symptom  of  Feuillant  Upper-class  temper,  is  ! 
becoming  suspicious.    Signs  of  the  times. 

Still  more,  note  the  travail- throes  of  Europe:  or. rather,  note  \ 
the  birth  she  brings  ;  for  the  successive  throes  and  shrieks,  of 
Austrian  and  Prussian  Alliance,  of  Kaunitz  Anti-jacobin  Despatch,  : 
of  French  Ambassadors  cast  out,  and  so  forth,  were  long  to  note.  . 
Dumouriez  corresponds  with  Kaunitz,  Metternich,  or  Cobentzel,  in  \ 
another  style  that  Delessarts  did.    Strict  becomes  stricter  ;  cate-  j 
gorical  answer,  as  to  this  Coblentz  work  and  much  else,  shall  be  ; 
given.    Failing  which  ?    Faihng  which,  on  the  20th  day  of  April' 
1792,  King  and  Ministers  step  over  to  the  Salle  de  Manege  ;  ' 
promulgate  how  the  matter  stands;  and  poor  Louis,  'with  tears 
'in  his  eyes,'  proposes  that  the  Assembly  do  now  decree  War.  : 
After  due  eloquence.  War  is  decreed  that  night.  ; 

War,  indeed  !  Paris  came  all  crowding,  full  of  expectancy,  to  i 
the  morning,  and  still  more  to  the  evening  session.  D'Orleans  lj 
with  his  two  sons,  is  there  ;  looks  on,  wide-eyed,  from  the  oppo-'  j 
site  Gallery.^  Thou  canst  look,  O  Philippe  :  it  is  a  War  big  with  :j 
issues,  for  thee  and  for  all  men.  Cimmerian  Obscurantism  and'|| 
this  thrice  glorious  Revolution  shall  wrestle  for  it,  then  :  some  |i 
Four-and-  twenty  years  ;  in  immeasurable  Briareus'  wrestle ;  ] 
trampling  ,and  tearing  ;  before  they  can  come  to  any,  not  agree- 1^ 
meant,  but  compromise,  and  approximate  ascertainm.ent  each  of 
what  is  in  the  other. 

Let  our  Three  Generals  on  the  Frontiers  look  to  it,  therefore  ; 
and  poor  Chevalier  de  Grave,  the  Warminister,  consider  what  he 
will  do.  What  is  in  the  three  Generals  and  Armies  we  may  guess. 
As  for  poor  Chevalier  de  Grave,  he,  in  this  whirl  of  things  all 
coming  to  a  press  and  pinch  upon  him,  loses  head,  and  merely 
whirls  with  them,  in  a  totally  distracted  manner  ;  signing  himself 
at  last,  •  De  Grave,  Mayor  of  Paris  : '  whereupon  he  demits,  re- 
turns over  the  Channel,  to  ^valk  in  Kensington  Gardens  ;t  and 
austere  Servan,  the  able  Engineer-Officer,  is  elevated  in  his  stead. 
To  the  post  of  Honour  ?    To  that  of  Difficulty,  at  least. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PETION-NA'J  lONAL-PIQUE. 

And  yet,  how,  on  dark  bottomless  Cataracts  there  plays  the 
ioolishest  fantastic-coloured  spray  and  shadow  ;  hiding  the  Abyssl 
*  Deux  A?nLs,  vii.  146-66.  t  Dumont,  c.  19,  21. 


PETION-NA  TIONAL-PIQUE.  I7S 


mder  vapoury  rainbows  !  '  Alongside  of  this  discussion  as  to  Aus- 
rian-  Prussian  War,  there  goes  on  not  less  but  more  vehemently  a 
liscussion,  Whether  the  Forty  or  Two-and-forty  Swiss  of  Ch^teau- 
^ieux  shall  be  liberated  from  the  Brest  Galhes  ?  And  then, 
Whether,  being  liberated,  they  shall  have  a  public  Festival,  or 
only  private  ones  ?  ,       i  tt 

Theroi^me,  as  we  saw,  spoke  ;  and  Collot  took  up  the  tale.  Mas 
not  Bouiile's  final  displav  of  himself,  in  that  final  Night  of  Spurs, 
ctamped  vour  so-called^ '  Revolt  of  Nanci '  into  a  '  Massacre  of 
*  Nanci,'  for  all  Patriot  judgments?  Hateful  is  that  massacre; 
hateful  the  Lafavette-Feuillant  '  public  thanks '  given  for  it !  t  or 
indeed.  Jacobin 'Patriotism  and  dispersed  Feuillantism  are  now  at 
death-grios  ;  and  do  fight  with  all  weapons,  even  with  scenic  shows. 
The  \v:ills  of  Paris,  accordingly,  are  covered  with  Placard  and 
Counter-Placard,  on  the  subject  of  Forty  Swiss  blockheads. 
Journal  responds  to  Journal  ;  Player  Collot  to  Poetaster  Roucher  ; 
Joseph  Chenier  the  Jacobin,  squire  of  Theroigne,  to  his  Brother 
Andre  the  Feuillant  ;  Mayor  Petion  to  Dupont  de  Nemours  :  and 
for  the  space  of  two  months,  there  is  nowhere  peace  for  the  thought 
of  man,— till  this  thing  be  settled. 

Gloria  in  excelsis  !  The  Forty  Swiss  are  at  last  got  amnestied 
Rejoice  ye  Forty  :  doff  your  greasy  wool  Bonnets,  which  shall 
become  Caps  of  Liberty.  The  Brest  Daughter-Society  welcomes 
you  from  on  board,  with  kisses  on  each  cheek  :  your  iron  Hand- 
cuffs are  disputed  as  Rehcs  of  Saints  ;  the  Brest  Society  indeed 
can  have  one  portion,  which  it  will  beat  into  Pikes,  a  sort  of  Sacred 
Pikes  ;  but  the  other  portion  must  belong  to  Paris,  and  be  sus- 
pended from  the  dome  there,  along  with  the  Flags  of  the  Three 
Free  Peoples  !  Such  a  goose  is  man  ;  and  cackles  over  plush- 
velvet  Grand  Monarques  and  woollen  Galley-slaves  ;  over  every- 
thing and  over  nothing,-  and  will  cackle  with  his  whole  soul  merely 
if  others  cackle  !  .     i  i    1 1  j 

On  the  ninth  morning  of  April,  these  Forty  Swiss  blockheads 
arrive.  From  Versailles  ;  with  vivats  heaven-high  ;  with  the  afflu- 
ence of  men  and  women.  To  the  Townhall  we  conduct  them  ;  nay 
to  the  Legislative  itself,  though  not  without  difficulty.  They  are 
harangued,  bedinnered,  begifted,— the  very  Court,  not  for  con- 
science' sake,  contributing  something  ;  and  their  Pubhc  Festival 
shall  be  next  Sunday.  Next  Sunday  accordingly  it  is."^  They  are 
mounted  into  a  '  triumphal  Car  resembling  a  ship  ; '  are  carted 
over  Paris,  with  the  clang  of  cymbals  and  drums,  all  mortals  assist- 
ing applausive;  carted  to  the  Champ-de-Mars  and  Fatherlands 
Altar  ;  and  finally  carted,  for  Time  always  brings  tleliverance,— into 
invisibilitv  for  evermore. 

Whereupon  dispersed  Feuillantism,  or  that  Party  which  loves 
Liberty  yet  not  more  than  Monarchy,  will  likewise  have  its  Festi- 
val :  Festival  of  Simonneau,  unfortunate  Mayor  of  Etampes,  who 
died  for  the  Law  ;  most  surely  for  the  Law,  though  Jacobinism 
disputes  ;  being  trampled  down  with  his  Red  Flag  in  the  not  about 
*  Newspapers  of  February,  March,  April,  1792  ;  lambe  d' Andre  Chenier 
wrla  Fete  des  Suisses :  &c.,'&c.  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xiii.  xiv.)> 


176 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


grains.  At  which  Festival  the  Public  again  assists,  ?<f;^applausiv€ 
not  we. 

On  the  whole.  Festivals  are  not  wanting;  beautiful  rainboMl 
spray  when  all  is  now  rushing  treble-quick  towards  its  Niagarj 
Fall.  National  repasts  there  are ;  countenanced  by  Mayor  Petior  { 
Saint-Antoine,  and  the  Strong  Ones  of  the  Halles  defiling  throug  i 
Jacobin  Club,  "  their  fehcity,"  according  to  Santerre,  "  not  perfei  \ 
otherwise  ; singing  many-voiced  their  ca-ira,  dancing  their  rona  \ 
fatriotique.  Among  whom  one  is  glad  to  discern  Saint-Huruec  \ 
expressly  '  in  white  hat/  the  Saint-Christopher  of  the  Carmagnol:  .i 
Nay  a  certain,  Tambour  or  National  Drummer,  having  just  bee  ] 
presented  with  a  Httle  daughter,  determines  to  ^  have  the  nev! 
Frenchwoman,  christened  on  Fatherland's  Altar  then  and  there  r 
Repast  once  over,  he  accordingly  has  her  christened  ;  Fauchet  th  i 
Te-Deum  Bishop  acting  in  chief,  Thuriot  and  honourable  person' j 
standing  gossips  :  by  the  name,  Petion-National-Pique  !  *  Doc  i 
this  remarkable  Citizeness,  now  past  the  meridian  of  life,  still  wall  i 
the  Earth  1  Or  did  she  die  perhaps  of  teething?  Universal  His  1 
tory  is  not  indifferent. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  HEREDITARY  REPRESENTATIVE.  ' 

And  yet  it  is  not  by  carmagnole-dances  and  singing  of  qa-ira}i 
that  the  work  can  be  done.  Duke  Brunswick  is  not  dancing  car- 
magnoles, but  has  his  drill  Serjeants  busy.  | 

On  the  Frontiers,  our  Armies,  be  it  treason  or  not,  behave  in  thai 
worst  way.  Troops  badly  commanded,  shall  we  say  ?  Or  troops! 
intrinsically  bad  Unappointed,  undisciplined,  mutinous  ;  that,  in] 
a  thirty-years  peace,  have  never  seen  fire  ?  In  any  case,  Lafayette's 
and  Rochambeau's  little  clutch,  which  they  made  at  Austrian 
Flanders,  has  prospered  as  badly  as  clutch  need  do  :  soldiers 
starting  at  their  own  shadow  ;  suddenly  shrieking,  "  07i  nous 
trahit^'  and  flying  off  in  wild  panic,  at  or  before  the  first  shot ; 
—managing  only  to  hang  some  two  or  three  Prisoners  they  had' 
picked  up,  and  massacre  their  own  Commander,  poor  Theobald 
Dillon,  driven  into  a  granary  by  them  in  the  Town  of  Lille. 

And  poor  Gou^ion  :  he  who  sat  shiftless  in  that  Insurrection  of  i 
Women  !  Gouvion  quitted  the  Legislative  Hall  and  Parliamentary 
duties,  in  disgust  and  despair,  when  those  Galley-slaves  of  Chateau- j 
Vieux  were  admitted  there.  He  said, "  Between  the  Austrians  and* 
the  Jacobins  there  is  nothing  but  a  soldiers  death  for  it +  and] 
so,  *  in  the  dark  stormy  night,'  he  has  flung  himself  into  the  throat 
of  the  Austrian  cannon,  and  perished  in  the  skirmish  at  Maubeuge  j 
on  the  ninth  of  June.    Whom  Legislative  Patriotism  shall  mourn, 

*  Pairiotc-Franc,ais  (Brissot's  Newspaper),  in  Hist.  Pari,  xiii,  451. 
T  'I'oulongeon,  ii.  149, 


THE  HEREDITARY  REPRESENTATIVE.  177 


prith  black  mortcloths  and  melody  in  the  Champ-de-Mars  :  many 
1  Patriot  shiftier,  truer  none.  Lafayette  himself  is  looking  alto- 
gether dubious  ;  in  place  of  beating  the  Austrians,  is  about  writing 
:o  denounce  the  Jacobins.  Rochambeau,  all  disconsolate,  quits 
;he  service  :  there  remains  only  Liickner,  the  babbling  old  Prussian 
Grenadier. 

Without  Armies,  without  Generals  !  And  the  Cimmerian  Night, 
to  gathered  itself ;  Brunswick  preparing  his  Proclammation  ;  just 
ibout  to  march  !  Let  a  Patriot  Ministry  and  Legislative  say,  what 
;n  these  circumstances  it  will  do  ?  Suppress  Internal  Enemies,  for 
3ne  thing,  answers  the  Patriot  Legislative  ;  and  proposes,  on  the 
24th  of  May,  its  Decree  for  the  Banishment  of  Priests.  Collect 
ilso  some  nucleus  of  determined  internal  friends,  adds  War- 
cninister  Servan  ;  and  proposes,  on  the  7th  of  June,  his  Camp  of 
fwenty-thousand.  Twenty-thousand  National  Volunteers  ;  Five 
:>ut  of  each  Canton  ;  picked  Patriots,  for  Roland  has  charge  of  the 
Interior  :  they  shall  assemble  here  in  Paris  ;  and  be  for  a  defence, 
:unningly  devised,  against  foreign  Austrians  and  domestic  Aus- 
trian Committee  alike.  So  much  can  a  Patriot  Ministry  and 
Legislative  do. 

Reasonable  and  cunningly  devised  as  such  Camp  may,  to  Servan 
md  Patriotism,  appear,  it  appears  not  so  to  Feuillantism ;  to  that 
Feuillant-Aristocrat  Staff  of  the  Paris  Guard  ;  a  Staff,  one  would 
jay  again,  which  will  need  to  be  dissolved.  These  men  see,  in 
:his  proposed  Camp  of  Servants,  an  offence  ;  and  even,  as  they 
pretend  to  say,  an  insult.  Petitions  there  come,  in  consequence, 
from  blue  Feuillants  in  epaulletes  ;  ill  received.  Nay,  in  the  end, 
.here  comes  one  Petition,  called  '  of  the  Eight  Thousand  National 
Guards  : '  so  many  names  are  on  it  ;  including  women  and 
:hildren.  Which  famed  Petition  of  the  Eight  Thousand  is  indeed 
-eceived  :  and  the  Petitioners,  all  under  arms,  are  admitted  to  the 
lonours  of  the  sitting,— if  honours  or  even  if  sitting  there  be  ;  for 
he  instant  their  bayonets  appear  at  the  one  door,  the  Assembly 
adjourns,'  and  begins  to  flow  out  at  the  other.''^ 
^  Also,  in  theie  same  days,  it  is  lamentable  to  see  how  National 
juards,  escorting  Fete  Dieu  or  Co7'pus-Christi  ceremonial,  do 
:ollar  and  smite  down  any  Patriot  that  does  not  uncover  as  the 
H:ostie  passes.  They  clap  their  bayonets  to  the  breast  of  Cattle- 
)utcher  Legendre,  a  known  Patriot  ever  since  the  Bastille  days  ; 
md  threaten  to  butcher  him  ;  though  he  sat  quite  respectfully,  he 
•ays,  in  his  Gig,  at  a  distance  of  fifty  paces,  waiting  till  the  thing 
vere  by.  Nay,  orthodox  females  were  shrieking  to  have  down  the 
Lanterne  on  him.f 

To  such  height  has  Feuillantism  gone  in  this  Corps.  For  indeed, 
ire  not  their  Officers  creatures  of  the  chief  Feuillant,  Lafayette.^ 
The  Court  too  has,  very  naturally,  been  tampering  with  them  ; 
dressing  them,  ever  since  that  dissolution  of  the  so-called  Con- 
titutional  Guard.  ^  Some  Battalions  are  altogether  ' petris,  kneaded 
full '  of  Feuillantism,  mere  Aristocrats  at  bottom  :  for  instance, 
he  Battalion  of  the  Filles-Saint-  Thomas^  made  up  of  your  Bankers, 

*  Monitaur^  Seance  du  lo  Jiiin  1792. 

t  Dibats  des  jacobins  (in  Hist.  Part,  xi>.  429). 


I7S 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


Stockbrokers,  and  other  Full -purses  of  the  Rue  Vivienne.  On  , 
worthy  old  F^riend  Weber,  Queen's  Foster-brother  Weber,  carrie  \ 
a  musket  in  that  Battalion, — one  may  judge  with  what  degree  c  ^ 
Patriotic  intention. 

Heedless  of  all  which,  or  rather  heedful  of  all  which,  the  Legi;  i 
lative,  backed  by  Patriot  France  and  the  feeling  of  Necessity  \ 
decrees  this  Camp  of  Twenty  thousand.     Decisive  though  cond , 
tional  Banishment  of  malign  Priests,  it  has  already  decreed.  ^ 

It  will  now  be  seen,  therefcie,  Whether  the  Hereditai] 
Representative  is  for  us  or  against  us  ?  Whethei-  or  not,  to  all  oti 
other  woes,  this  intolerablest  one  is  to  be  added  ;  which  renders  u 
not  a*  menaced  Nation  in  extreme  jeopardy  and  need,  but  , 
paralytic  Solecism  of  a  Nation  ;  sitting  wrapped  as  in  dea 
cerements,  of  a  Constitutional- Vesture  that  w^ere  no  other  than 
winding-sheet ;  our  right  hand  glued  to  our  left  :  to  wait  there 
writhing  and  wriggling,  unable  to  stir  from  the  spot,  till  in  Prussia; 
rope  we  mount  to  the  gallows  ?  Let  the  Hereditary  Represent? 
tive  consider  it  well  :  The  Decree  of  Priests  ?  The  Camp  c' 
Twenty  Thousand  ? — By  Heaven,  he  answers.  Veto  I  Veto  /- 
Strict  Roland  hands  in  his  Letter  to  the  King;  or  rather  it  wa 
Madame's  Letter,  who  wrote  it  all  at  a  sitting  ;  one  of  the  plainest 
spoken  Letters  ever  handed  in  to  any  King.  This  plain-spoke 
Letter  King  Louis  has  the  benefit  of  reading  overnight.  He  read; 
inwardly  digests  ;  and  next  morning,  the  whole  Patriot  Ministr 
finds  itself  turned  out.    It  is  the  13th  of  June  1792.^ 

Dumouriez  the  many  counselled,  he,  with  one  Duranthon,  callc; 
Minister  of  Justice,  does  indeed  linger  for  a  day  or  two  ;  in  rathe 
suspicious  circumstances  ;  speaks  with  the  Queen,  almost  weep' 
with  her  :  but  in  the  end,  he  too  sets  off  for  the  Army  ;  leaving 
what  Un-Patriot  or  Semi-Patriot  Ministry  and  Ministries  can  no> 
accept  the  helm,  to  accept  it.  Name  them  not  :  new  quick-chang 
ing  Phantasms,  which  shift  like  magic-lantern  figures  ;  mor 
spectral  than  ever  \ 

Unhappy  Queen,  unhappy.  Louis  !  The  two  Vetos  were  %\ 
natural  :  are  not  the  Priests  martyrs  ;  also  friends  t  This  Cam] 
of  Twenty  Thousand,  could  it  be  other  than  of  stormfullest  Sans 
culottes.^  Natural;  and  yet,  to  France,  unendurable.  Priest 
that  co-operate  with  Coblentz  must  go  elsewhither  with  thei 
martyrdom  :  stormful  Sansculottes,  these  and  no  other  kind  0 
creatures,  will  drive  back  the  Austrians.  If  thou,  prefer  th( 
Austrians,  then  for  the  love  of  Heaven  go  join  them.  If  not,  ji'ii 
frnnkly  with  what  will  oppose  them  to  the  death.  Middle  course  1 
none. 

0\\  alas,  what  extreme  course  was  tlierc  left  now,  for  a  man  In 
Louis Underhand  Royalists,  Ex-Minister  Bertrand-Molevi 
ICx-Constituent  Mrilouet,  and  all  manner  of  tmhelpful  individu 
advise  and  advise.  With  face  of  hope  turned  now  on  the  Li 
kuive  Assembly,  ond  now  on  Austria  and  Coblentz,  and  roi 
generally  on  the  Chaj)tcr  of  Chances,  an  ancient  Kingsliii' 
reeling  and  spinning,  one  knows  not  whitherwai'd^  on  the  flooc 
^ings. 

*  Madame  Roland,  ii.  115. 


PROCESSION  OF  THE  BLACK  BREECHES.  173 


CHAPTER  XII. 

PROCESSION  OF  THE  BLACK  BREECHES. 

j  But  is  there  a  thinking  man  in  France  who,  in  these  circum° 
stances,  can  persuade  himself  that  the  Constitution  will  march  ? 
Brunswick  is  stirring  ;  he,  in  few  days  now,  will  march.  Shall 
France  sit  still,  wrapped  in  dead  cerements  and  grave-clothes,  its 
right  hand  glued  to  its  left,  till  the  Brunswick  vSaint-Kartholomew 
arrive ;  till  France  be  as  Poland,  and  its  Rights  of  Man  become  a 

!  Prussian  Gibbet  ? 

!    Verily,  it   is  a  moment  frightful  for  all   men.  National 
Death  ;   or    else   some  preternatural   convulsive  outburst  of 
National  Life  ; — that  same,  dcEmonic  outburst  !    Patriots  whose 
audacity  has   limits    had,   in    truth,   better  retire    like  Bar- 
nave  ;    court   private    fehcity   at   Grenoble.      Patriots,  whose 
audacity  has  no   limits   must    sink  down    into  the   obscure  ; 
and,  daring  and  defying  all  things,  seek  salvation  in  stratagem,  in 
Plot  of  Insurrection.    Roland  and  young  Barbaroux  have  spread 
i  out  the  Map  of  France  before  them,  Barbaroux  says  ^  with  tears 
^bov  consider  what  Rivers,  what  Mountain  ranges  are  in  it  :  they 
retire  behind  this  Loire-stream,  defend  these  Auvergne  stone- 
.11)  rinths  ;  save  some  little  sacred  Territory  of  the  Free  ;  die  at 
» least  in  their  last  ditch.    Lafayette  indites  his  emphatic  Letter  to 
the  Legislative  against  Jacobinism     which  emphatic  Letter  will 
not  heal  the  unhealable. 

Forward,  ye  Patriots  whose  audacity  has  no  limits  ;  it  is  3^ou 
[  now  that  must  either  do  or  die  !    The  Sections  of  Paris  sit  in  deep 
; counsel;  send  out  Deputation  after  Deputation  to  the  Salle  de 
Manege,  to  petition  and  denounce.    Great  is  their  ire  against  ty- 
rannous Veto^  Ajtstrian  Cominittee,  and  the  combined  Cimmerian 
Kings.    What  boots  it  ?    Legislative  listens  to  the  ^  tocsin  in  our 
I  *  hearts     grants  us  honours  of  the  sitting,  sees  us  defile  with 
!  jingle  and  fanfaronade  ;  but  the  Camp  of  Twenty  Thousand,  the 
I  Priest- Decree,  be- vetoed  by  Majesty,  are  become  impossible  fcr 
i  Legislative.    Fiery  Isnard  says,  "  We  will  have  Equality,  should 

f'  we  descend  for  it  to  the  tomb."    Vergniaud  utters,  hypothetically, 
his  stern  Ezekiel-visions  of  the  fate  of  Anti-national  Kings.  But 
the  question  is  :  Will  hypothetic  prophecies,  will  jingle  and  fan- 
faronade demolish  the  Veto ;  or  will  the  Veto,  secure  in  its  Tui- 
'S  Chateau,  remain  undemolishable  by  these?  Barbaroux, 
ling  away  his  tears,  writes  to  the  Marseilles  Municipalitv,  that 
■  y  must  send  him  *  Six  hundred  men  who  know  how  to  die,  qui 
'  Sir,' cut  77wurir.''\    No  wet-eyed  message  this,  but  a  fire-eyed  one; 
—which  will  be  obeyed  ! 

Meanwhile  the  Twentieth  of  June  is  nigh,  anniversary  of  that 
world-famous  Oath  of  the  Tennis-Court  :  on  which  day,  it  is  said, 

*  Monitetir,  Seance  du  18  Juin  1792. 
5  t  Barbaroux,  p.  40. 

1:  ' 


38o 


PARLIAMENT  FIRST. 


certain  citizens  have  in  view  to  plant  a  Mai  or  Tree  of  Liberty,  in  ^ 
the  Tuileries  Terrace  of  the  Feuillants  ;  perhaps  also  to  petition  \ 
the  Legislative  and  Hereditary  Representative  about  these  Vetos  ;  j 
■ — with  such  demonstration,  jingle  and  evolution,  as  may  seem  | 
profitable  and  practicable.  Sections  have  gone  singly,  and  jingled  \ 
and  evolved  :  but  if  they  all  went,  or  great  part  of  them,  and  there  , 
planting  their  Mai  in  these  alarming  circumstances,  sounded  the  \ 
tocsin  in  their  hearts  ? 

Among  King's  Friends  there  can  be  but  one  'opinion  as  to  such  \ 
a  step  :  among  Nation's  Friends  there  may  be  two.  On  the  one  ' 
hand,  might  it  not  by  possibility  scare  away  these  unblessed  Vetos  ? ; 
Private  Patriots  and  even  Legislative  Deputies  may  have  each  his 
own  opinion,  or  own  no- opinion  :  but  the  hardest  task  falls  evi- 
dently on  Mayor  Petion  and  the  Municipals,  at  once  Patriots  and . 
Guardians  of  the  public  Tranquillity.  Hushing  the  matter  down, 
with  the  one  hand  ;  tickling  it  up  with  the  other  !  Mayor  Petion  \ 
and  Municipality  may  lean  this  way  ;  Department-Directory  with  \ 
Procureur- Syndic  Roederer  having  a  Feuillant  tendency,  may  lean  , 
that.  On  the  whole,  each  man  must  act  according  to  his  one  , 
opinion  or  to  his  two  opinions  ;  and  all  manner  of  influences, : 
official  representations  cross  one  another  in  the  foolishest  way.  i 
Perhaps  after  all,  the  Project,  desirable  and  yet  not  desirable,  will 
dissipate  itself,  being  run  athwart  by  so  many  complexities  ;  and 
coming  to  nothing 

Not  so  :  on  the  Twentieth  morning  of  June,  a  large  Tree  ol 
Liberty,  Lombardy  Poplar  by  kind,  lies  visibly  tied  on  its  car,  in 
the  Suburb- Antoine.    Suburb  Saint-Marceau  too,  in  the  uttermo 
South-East,  and  all  that  remote  Oriental  region,  Pikemen 
Pikewomen,  National  Guards,  and  the  unarmed  curious  are  gathei 
ing, — with  the  peaceablest  intentions  in  the  world.    A  tricolor 
Municipal  arrives  ;  speaks.    Tush,  it  is  all  peaceable,  we  tell  thee, 
in  the  way  of  Law  :  are  not  Petitions  allowable,  and  the  Patriotism 
of  Mais?    The  tricolor  Municipal  returns  without  effect  :  your 
Sansculottic  rills  continue  flowing,  combining  into  brooks  :  towards 
noontide,  led  by  tall  Santerre  in  blue  uniform,  by  tall  Saint- Huruge  i 
in  white  hat,  it  moves  Westward,  a  respectable  river,  or  complica- 
tion of  still-swelling  rivers.  \ 

What  Processions  have  we  not  seen:  Corptis-C  hristi  :}iXid  Le-i 
gendre  waiting  in  Gig;  Bones  of  Voltaire  with  bullock-chariots, 
and  goadsmen  in  Roman  Costume  ;  Feasts  of  Chateau- Vieux  and 
Simonneau  ;  Gouvion  Funcrnls,  Rosseau  Sham- Funerals,  and  the 
Baptism  of  P^tion-National-Pike  !  Nevertheless  this  Procession 
has  a  character  of  its  own.  Tricolor  ribands  streaming  aloft  from 
pike-heads;  ironshod  batons;  and  emblems  not  a  few;  among 
w:hich,  see  specially  these  two,  of  the  tragic  and  the  untragic  sort : 
a  Bull's  Heart  transfixed  with  iron,  bearing  this  epigraph,  '  Coeiir 
^  d^Aristocrate^  JKu'rXvtQVAX!':^  Heart;'  and,  more  striking  still,  pro- ^ 
perly  the  stiindard  of  the  host,  a  i)air  of  old  Black  Breeches  (silk,: 
they  say),  extended  on  cross-staff  high  overhead,  with  these  j 
memorable  words:  Trcinhles  lyrans,  voild  les  Sansculottes^^ 
*  Tremble  tyrants,  here  are  the  Sans-indispensables  ! '  Also,  the 
Procession  trails  two  cannons. 


PROCESSION  OF  THE  BLACK  BREECHES,  i8t 


Scarfed  tricolor  Municipals  do  now  again  meet  it,  in  the  Oiiai 
Saint-Bernard  ;  and  plead  earnestly,  having  called  halt.  Peaceable, 
ye  virtuous  tricolor  Municipals,  peaceable  are  we  as  the  sucking 
dove.  Behold  our  Tennis-Court  Mai.  Petition  is  legal  ;  and  as 
for  arms,  did  not  an  august  Legislative  receive  the  so-called  Eight 

i  Thousand  in  arms,  Feuillants  though  they  were.^  Our  Pikes,  are 
they  not  of  National  iron  ?    Law  is  our  father  and  mother,  whom 

I  we  will  not  dishonour  ;  but  Patriotism  is  our  own  soul.  Peaceable, 

i      virtuous  Municipals  ;— and  on  the  whole,  hmited  as  to  tim.e  ! 

'  Stop  we  cannot  ;  march  ye  with  us. — The  Black  Breeches  agitate 
themselves,  impatient  ;  the  cannon-wheels  grumble  :  the  many- 
footed  Host  tramps  on. 

How  it  reached  the  Salle  de  Manege,  like  an  ever-waxing  river  ; 
got  admittance,  after  debate  ;  read  its  Address  ;  and  defiled, 
dancing  and  ca-ira-'mg,  led  by  tall  sonorous  Santerre  and  tall 

:  sonorous  Saint- Lluruge  :  how  it  flowed,  not  now  a  waxing  river 
but  a  shut  Caspian  lake,  round  all  Precincts  of  the  Tuileries  ;  the 
front  Patriot  squeezed  by  the  rearward,  against  barred  iron  Grates, 

\  like  to  have  the  life  squeezed  out  of  him,  and  looking  too  into  the 

;  dread  thro;nt  of  cannon,  for  National  Battahons  stand  ranked 
within  :  how  tricolor  Municipals  ran  assiduous,  and  Royalists 
with  Tickets  of  Entry  ;  and  both  Majesties  sat  in  the  interior 
surrounded  by  men  in  black  :  all  this  the  human  mind  shall  fancy 

;  for  itself,  or  read  in  old  Newspapers,  and  Syndic  Roederer's 
Chronicle  of  Fifty  Days. 

I  Our  Mai  is  planted  ;  if  not  in  the  Feuillants  Terrace,  w^hither 
'  is  no  ingate,  then  in  the  Garden  of  the  Capuchins,  as  near  as  we 
could  get.  National  Assembly  has  adjourned  till  the  Evening 
Session  :  perhaps  this  shut  lake,  finding  no  ingate,  will  retire  to 
its  sources  again  ;  and  disappear  in  peace?  Alas,  not  yet  :  rear- 
ward still  presses  on  ;  rearward  knows  little  what  pressure  is  in 
the  front.  One  would  wish  at  all  events,  were  it  possible,  to  have 
a  word  with  his  Majesty  first ! 

The  shadows  fall  longer,  eastward  ;  it  is  four  o'clock :  will  his 
Majesty  not  come  out  ?  Hardly  he  !  In  that  case,  Commandant 
Santerre,  Cattle-butcher  Legendre,  Patriot  Huguenin  with  the 
tocsin  in  his  heart  ;  they,  and  others  of  authority,  will  enter  i7i, 
'  Petition  and  request  to  wearied  uncertain  National  Guard ; 
louder  and  louder  petition;  backed  by  the  rattle  of  our  tw^o 
cannons  !  The  reluctant  Grate  opens  :  endless  Sansculottic 
multitudes  flood  the  stairs ;  knock  at  the  wooden  guardian  of  your 
privacy.  Knocks,  in  such  case,  grow  strokes,  grow  smashings 
the  wooden  guardian  flies  in  shivers.  And  now  ensues  a  Scene 
over  which  the  world  has  long  wailed  ;  and  not  unjustly  ;  for  a 
sorrier  spectacle,  of  Incongruity  fronting  Incongruity,  and  as  it 
were  recognising  themselves  incongruous,  and  staring  stupidly  in 
each  other's  face,  the  world  seldom  saw. 

King  Louis,  his  door  being  beaten  on,  opens  it  ;    stands  with 
free  bosom;  asking,  "What  do  you  want?"     The  Sansculottic 
flood  recoils  awestruck  ;  returns  however,  the  rear  pressing  on  the 
front,  with  cries  of  "Veto!    Patriot  Ministers  !    Remove  Veto!" 
^  ^-^4^61,  &c.  &c.  (in  Hist,  Pari,  xv.  98-194). 


l82 


PARLIAM''^:!'  riRST, 


—which  things,  Louis  valiantly  ,.i  ^  this  is  not  the  time  to  do, 
nor  this  the  way  to  ask  him  to  do.  Honour  what  virtue  is  in  a 
man.  Louis  does  not  want  courage :  he  has  even  the  higher  kind 
called  moral  courage,  though  only  the  passive  half  of  that.  His 
few  National  Grenadiers  shuffle  back  with  him,  into  the  embrasure 
of  a  window :  there  he  stands,  with  unimpeachable  passivity,  amid 
the  shouldering  and  the  braying ;  a  spectacle  to  men.  They  hand 
him  a  Red  Cap  of  Liberty  ;  he  sets  it  quietly  on  his  head,  forgets 
it  there.  He  complains  of  thirst ;  half-drunk  Rascality  offers  him 
a  bottle,  he  drinks  of  it.  "  Sire,  do  not  fear,''  says  one  of  his  Gre- 
nadiers. "Fear?"  answers  Louis  :  " feel  then,"  putting  the  man's 
hand  on  his  heart.  So  stands  Majesty  in  Red  woollen  Cap  ; 
black  Sansculottism  weltering  round  him,  far  and  wide,  aimless, 
with  in-articulate  dissonance,  with  cries  of  Veto !  Patriot 
Ministers  ! " 

For  the  space  of  three  hours  or  more !  The  National  Assembly 
is  adjourned  ;  tricolor  Municipals  avail  almost  nothing  :  Mayor 
Petion  tarries  absent  ;  Authority  is  none.  The  Queen  with  her 
Children  and  Sister  Elizabeth,  in  tears  and  terror  not  for  them- 
selves only,  are  sitting  behind  barricaded  tables  and  Grenadiers 
in  an  inner  room.  The  Men  in  Black  have  all  wisely  disappeared. 
Blmd  lake  of  Sansculottism.  welters  stagnant  through  the  King's 
Chateau,  for  the  space  of  three  hours. 

Nevertheless  all  things  do  end.  Vergniaud  arrives  with  Legis- 
lative Deputation,  the  Evening  Session  having  now  opened. 
Mayor  Petion  has  arrived;  is  haranguing,  'lifted  on  the  shoulders 
'of  two  Grenadiers.'  In  this  uneasy  attitude  and  in  others,  at 
various  places  without  and  within.  Mayor  Petion  harangues ; 
many  men  harangue  :  finally  Commandant  Santerre  defiles ; 
passes  out,  with  his  Sansculottism,  by  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Chateau.  Passing  through  the  room  where  the  Queen,  with  an 
air  of  dignity  and  sorrowful  resignation,  sat  among  the  tables  and 
Grenadiers,  a  woman  offers  her  too  a  Red  Cap  ;  she  holds  it 
in  her  hand,  even  puts  it  on  the  little  Prince  Royal.  "Madame," 
said  Santerre,  "this  People  loves  you  more  than  you  think."*-— 
About  eight  o'clock  the  Royal  Family  fall  into  each  other's  arms 
amid  '  torrents  of  tears.'  Unhappy  Family  !  Who  would  not 
weep  for  it,  were  there  not  a  whole  world  to  be  wept  for 

Thus  has  the  Age  of  Chivalry  gone,  and  that  of  Hunger  come. 
Thus  does  all-needing  Sansculottism  look  in  the  face  of  its  AW, 
Regulator,  King  or  Ableman  ;  and  find  that  he  has  nothing  to 
give  it.  Thus  do  tl.o  two  Parties,  brouglU  face  to  face  after  loni 
centuries,  stare  stupidly  at  one  another,  This  ain  I;  but^  Good 
IIeave?iy  is  that  thou  ? — and  depart,  not  knowing  what  to  make  oi 
it.  And  yet,  Incongruities  having  recognised  themselves  to  bu 
incongruous,  something  must  be  made  of  it.  The  Fates  know  v/hai. 

This  is  the  world-famous  Twentieth  of  June,  more  worthy  to  be 
called  the  Procession  of  the  Black  Ih'ceches,  With  which,  what 
we  had  to  say  of  this  First  French  l^iennial  Parliament,  and  iU 
uroducts  and  activities,  may  perhaps  fitly  enough  terminate. 

*  Toulongeon,  ii.  ^^3;  Canipan,  ii.  c.  20. 


BOOK  SIXTH. 

THE  MARSEILLESE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EXECUTIVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  ACT. 

How  could  your  paralytic  National  Executive  be  put  'in  action/ 
In  any  measure,  by  such  a  Twentieth  of  June  as  this  ?  Quite  con- 
trariwise :  a  large  sympathy  for  Majesty  so  insulted  arises  every 
where ;  expresses  itself  in  Addresses,  Petitions,  '  Petition  of  the 
'Twenty  Thousand  inhabitants  of  Paris,'  and  such  like,  among  all 
Constitutional  persons  ;  a  decided  rallying  round  the  Throne. 

Of  which  rallying  it  was  thought  King  Louis  might  have  made 
something.  However,  he  does  make  nothing  of  it,  or  attempt  to 
make  ;  for  mdeed  his  views  are  lifted  beyond  domestic  sympathy 
and  rallying,  over  to  Coblentz  mainly  :  neither  in  itself  is  the  same 
sympathy  worth  much.  It  is  sympathy  of  men  who  believe  still 
that  the  Constitution  can  march.  Wherefore  the  old  discord  and, 
ferment,  of  Feuillant  sympathy  for  Royalty,  and  Jacobin  sympathy 
for  Fatherland,  acting  against  each  other  from  within  ;  with  terror 
of  Coblentz  and  Brunswick  acting  from  without  : — this  discord  and 
ferment  must  hold  on  its  course,  till  a  catastrophe  do  ripen  and 
come.  One  would  think,  especially  as  Brunswick  is  near  marching, 
such  catastrophe  cannot  now  be  distant.  Busy,  ye  Twenty-fi^^e 
French  Millions  ;  ye  i"oreign  Potentates,  miniitory  Emigrants, 
German  drill-serjeants  ;  each  do  what  his  hand  findeth  !  Thou, 
O  Reader,  at  such  safe  distance,  wilt  see  what  they  make  of  it 
among  them. 

Consider  therefore  this  pitiable  Twentieth  of  June  as  a  futility  ; 
no  catastrophe,  rather  a  calasJasis,  or  heightening.  Do  not  its 
Black  Breeches  wave  there,  in  the  Historical  Imagination,  like  a 
melancholy  flag  of  distress  ;  soliciting  help,  which  no  mortal  can 
give  ?  Soliciting  pity,  which  thou  wert  hard-hearted  not  to  give 
freely,  to  one  and  ail  !  Other  such  flags,  or  what  are  called 
Occurrences,  and  black  or  bright  symbolic  Phenomena;  will  flii 
through  the  Historical  Imagination  :  these,  one  after  one,  let  us 
note,  with  extreme  brevity. 


The  first  phenomenon  is  that  of  Lafayette  at  the  Bar  of  thQ 


i84 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


Assembly  ;  after  a  week  and  day.  Promptly,  on  hearing  of  this 
scandalous  Twentieth  of  June,  Lafayette  has  quitted  his  Command 
on  the  North  Frontier,  in  better  or  worse  order  ;  and  got  hither, 
on  the  28th,  to  repress  the  Jacobins  :  not  by  Letter  now  ;  but  by 
oral  Petition,  and  weight  of  character,  face  to  face.  The  august 
Assembly  finds  the  step  questionable  ;  invites  him  meanwhile  to 
the  honours  of  the  sitting.^  Other  honour,  or  advantage,  there 
unhappily  came  almost  none  ;  the  Galleries-  all  growling  ;  fiery 
Isnard  glooming  ;  sharp  Guadet  not  wanting  in  sarcasms. 

And  out  of  doors,  when  the  sitting  is  over,  Sieur  Resson,  keeper 
of  the  Patriot  Cafe  in  these  regions,  hears  in  the  street  a  hurly- 
burly  ;  steps  forth  to  look,  he  and  his  Patriot  customers  :  it  is 
Lafayette's  carriage,  with  a  tumultuous  escort  of  blue  Grenadiers, 
Cannoneers,  even  Officers  of  the  Line,  hurrahing  and  capering 
round  it.  They  make  a  pause  opposite  Sieur  Resson's  door  ;  wag 
their  plumes  at  him  ;  nay  shake  their  fists,  bellowing  A  bas  les 
Jacobins  J  but  happily  pass  on  without  onslaught.  They  pass  on, 
to  plant  a  Mai  before  the  GeneraFs  door,  and  bully  considerably. 
All  which  the  Sieur  Resson  cannot  but  report  with  sorrow,  that 
night,  in  the  Mother  Society.t  But  what  no  Sieur  Resson  nor 
Mother  Society  can  do  more  than  guess  is  this.  That  a  council  of 
rank  Feuillants,  your  unabolished  Staff  of  the  Guard  and  who 
else  has  status  and  weight,  is  in  these  very  moments  privily  de- 
liberating at  the  General's  :  Can  we  not  put  down  the  Jacobins  by 
force  Next  day,  a  Review  shall  be  held,  in  the  Tuileries 
Garden,  of  such  as  will  turn  out,  and  try.  Alas,  says  Toulongeon, 
hardly  a  hundred  turned  out.  Put  it  off  till  to-morrow,  then,  to 
give  better  warning.  On  the  morrow,  which  is  Saturday,  there 
turn  out  ^some  thirty  ; '  and  depart  shrugging  their  shoulders  !  J 
Lafayette  promptly  takes  carriage  again  ;  returns  musing  on  many 
things. 

The  dust  of  Paris  is  hardly  off  his  wheels,  the  summer  Sunday 
is  still  young,  when  Cordeliers  Jn  deputation  pluck  up  that  Mai  of 
his  :  before  sunset,  Patriots  have  burnt  him  in  effigy.  Louder 
doubt  and  louder  rises,  in  Section,  in  National  Assembly,  as  to  the 
legality  of  such  unbidden  Anti-jacobin  visit  on  the  part  of  a 
General :  doubt  swelling  and  spreading  all  over  France,  for  six 
weeks  or  so  :  with  endless  talk  about  usurping  soldiers,  about 
English  Monk,  nay  about  Cromwell  :  O  thou  poor  GrandisoU' 
Cromwell  ! — What  boots  it?  King  Louis  himself  looked  coldly  on 
the  enterprize  :  colossal  Hero  of  two  Worlds,  having  weighed  him- 
self in  the  balance,  finds  that  he  is  become  a  gossamer  Colossus, 
only  some  thirty  turning  out. 

In  a  like  sense,  and  with  a  like  issue,  works  our  Department- 
Directory  here  at  l^aris  ;  who,  on  the  6th  of  July,  take  upon  them 
to  suspend  Mayor  Petion  nnd  IVocurcur  Manuel  from  all  civic 
functions,  for  their  conduct,  replete,  as  is  alleged,  with  omissions 

*  Moniteur,  Seance  dii  28  Jiiin  1792. 

f  Ddbats  des  yacubi us  {H/sL  ParL  xv.  235). 

j  Toulongeon,  ii.  180.    hieealso  Dampraartin,  ii.  i6i. 


EXECUTIVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  ACT.  185 


tnd  commissions,  on  that  delicate  Twentieth  of  June.  Virtuous 
Petion  see  himself  a  kind  of  martyr,  or  pseudo-martyr,  threatened 
with  several  things  ;  drawls  out  due  heroical  lamentation  ;  to  which 
Patriot  Paris  and  Patriot  Legislative  duly  respond.  King  Louis  >. 
and  Mayor  Petion  have  already  had  an  interview  on  that  business 
of  the  Twentieth  ;  an  interview  and  dialogue,  distinguished  by 
frankness  on  both  sides  ending  on  King  Louis's  side  with  the 
words,  "  Taisez-voiis,  Hold  your  peace." 

For  the  rest,  this  of  suspending  our  Mayor  does  seem  a  mistimed 
measure.  By  ill  chance,  it  came  out  precisely  on  the  day  of  that 
famxous  Baiser  de  r amourette^  or  miraculous  reconciliatory  Delilah- 
Kiss,  which  we  spoke  of  long  ago.  Which  Delilah-Kiss  was 
thereby  quite  hindered  of  effect.  For  now  his  Majesty  has  to 
write,  almost  that  same  night,  asking  a  reconciled  Assembly  for 
advice  !  The  reconciled  Assembly  will  not  advise  ;  will  not 
interfere.  The  King  confirms  the  suspension  ;  then  perhaps,  but 
not  till  then  will  the  Assembly  interfere,  the  noise  of  Patriot  Paris 
getting  loud.  Whereby  your  Delilah- Kiss,  such  was  the  destiny  of 
Parliament  First,  becomes  a  Philistine  Battle  ! 

Nay  there  goes  a  word  that  as  many  as  Thirty  of  our  chief 
Patriot  Senators  are  to  be  clapped  in  prison,  by  mittimus  and  in- 
dictment of  Feuillant  Justices,  y^/^^i-  de  Paix  j  who  here  in  Paris 
were  well  capable  of  such  a  thing.  It  was  but  in  May  last  that 
Juge  de  Paix  Lariviere,  on  complaint  of  Bertrand-Moleville 
touching  that  Austrian  Committee^  made  bold  to  launch  his  mit- 
timus against  three  heads  of  the  Mountain,  Deputies  Bazire, 
Chabot,  Merlin,  the  Cordelier  Trio  ;  summoning  them  to  appear 
before  him^  and  shew  where  that  Austrian  Committee  was,  or  else 
suffer  the  consequences.  Which  mittimus  the  Trio,  on  their  side, 
made  bold  to  fling  in  the  fire  :  and  valiantly  pleaded  privilege 
of  Parliament.  So  that,  for  his  zeal  without  knowledge,  poor  Jus- 
tice Lariviere  now  sits  in  the  prison  of  Orleans,  waiting  trial 
from  the  Haute  Cotir  there.  Whose  example,  may  it  not  deter 
other  rash  Justices  ;  and  so  this  word  of  the  Thirty  arrestments 
continue  a  word  merely 

'  But  on  the  whole,  though  Lafayette  weighed  so  light,  and  has 
had  his  Mai  plucked  up.  Official  Feuillantism  falters  not  a  whit ; 
vbut  carries  its  head  high,  strong  in  the  letter  of  the  Law.  Feuil- 
lants  all  of  these  men  :  a  Feuillant  Directory  ;  founding  on  high 
character,  and  such  hke  ;  with  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucault  for 
President, — a  thing  which  may  prove  dangerous  for  him  !  Dim 
now  is  the  once  bright  Anglomania  of  these  admired  Noblemen. 
Duke  de  Liancourt  offers,  out  of  Normandy  where  he  is  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  not  only  to  receive  his  Majesty,  thinking  of  flight 
thither,  but  to  lend  him  money  to  enormous  amounts.  Sire,  it  iS 
not  a  Revolt,  it  is  a  Revolution  ;  and  truly  no  rose-water  one  I 
Worthier  Noblemen  were  not  in  France  nor' in  Europe  than  those 
two  :  but  the  Time  is  crooked,  quick-shifting,  perverse  ;  what 
Straightest  course  will  lead  to  any  goal,  in  it? 

Another  phasis  which  we  note,  in  these  early  July  days,  is  tha* 


i86  THE  MARSEILLESE. 


of  certain  thin  streaks  of  Federate  National  Volunteers  wending 
from  various  points  towards  Paris,  to  hold  a  new  Federation- 
Festival,  or  Feast  of  Pikes,  on  the  Fourteenth  there.  So  has  the 
^  National  Assembly  wished  it,  so  has  the  Nation  willed  it.  In  this 
way,  perhaps,  may  we  still  have  our  Patriot  Camp  in  spite  of  Veto, 
For  cannot  these  Federes.  having  celebrated  their  Feast  of  Pikes, 
march  on  to  Soissons  ;  and,  there  being  drilled  and  regimented, 
rush  to  the  Frontiers,  or  whither  we  like  1  Thus  were  the  one  Veto 
cunningly  eluded  ! 

As  indeed  the  other  Veto^  about  Priests,  is  also  like  to  be 
eluded  ;  and  without  much  cunning.  For  Provincial  Assemblies, 
in  Calvados  as  one  instance,  are  proceeding  on  their  own  strength 
to  judge  and  banish  Antinational  Priests.  Or  still  worse  without 
Provincial  Assembly,  a  desperate  People,  as  at  Bourdeaux,  can 
'  hang  two  of  them  on  the  Lanterne,'  on  the  way  towards  judg- 
ment.^ Pity  for  the  spoken  Veto^  when  it  cannot  become  an 
acted  one  ! 

It  is  true,  some  ghost  of  a  War-minister,  or  Home-minister,  for 
the  time  being,  ghost  whom  we  do  not  name,  does  write  to  Muni- 
cipalities and  King's  Commanders,  that  they  shall,  by  all  con- 
ceivable methods,  obstruct  this  Federation,  and  even  turn  back 
the  Federes  by  force  of  arms  :  a  message  which  scatters  mere 
doubt,  paralysis  and  confusion  ;  irritates  the  poor  Legislature ; 
reduces  the  Federes  as  we  see,  to  thin  streaks.  But  being  ques- 
tioned, this  ghost  and  the  other  ghosts,  What  it  is  then  that  they 
propose  to  do  for  saving  the  country  1 — they  answer.  That  they 
cannot  tell ;  that  indeed  they  for  their  part  have,  this  morning, 
resigned  in  a  body  ;  and  do  now  merely  respectfully  take  leave  of 
the  helm  altogether.  With  which  words  they  rapidly  walk  out  of 
the  Hall,  sortent  drusque7nent  de  la  salle,  the  '  Galleries  cheering 
^loudly,'  the  poor  Legislature  sitting  ^for  a  good  while  in 
*  silence  ! Thus  do  Cabinet-ministers  themselves,  in  extreme 
cases,  strike  work  ;  one  of  the  strangest  omens.  Other  complete 
Cabinet-ministry  there  will  not  be  ;  only  fragments,  and  these 
changeful,  which  never  get  completed  ;  spectral  Apparitions  that 
cannot  so  much  as  appear  !  King  Louis  writes  that  he  now  views 
this  Federation  Feast  with  approval  ;  and  will  himself  have  the 
pleasure  to  take  part  in  the  same. 

And  so  these  thin  streaks  of  Federes  wend  Parisward  through 
a  paralytic  France.  Thin  grim  streaks  ;  not  thick  joyful  ranks,  as 
of  old  to  the  first  Feast  of  Pikes  !  No  :  these  poor  Federates 
march  now  towards  Austria  and  Austrian  Committee,  towards 
jeopardy  and  forlorn  hope  ;  men  of  hard  fortune  and  temper,  not 
rich  in  the  world's  goods.  Municipalities,  paralyzed  by  War-min- 
isters, arc  shy  of  affording  cash  :  it  may  be,  your  poor  Federates 
cannot  arm  themselves,  cannot  march,  till  the  Daughter- ^Society 
of  the  place  open  her  pocket,  and  subscribe.  There  will  not  haye 
arrived,  at  the  set  day,  Three  thousand  of  them  in  all.  And  yet, 
thin  and  feeble  as  these  streaks  of  Federates  seem,  they  are  the 
only  thing  one  discerns  moving  with  any  clearness  of  aim,  in  this 
*  Hist,  Pari.  xvi.  259.  f  Moniteur,  Stance  du  Juiliot  179a* 


EXECUTIVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  ACT,  187 


strange  scene.  Angry  buz  and  simmer  ;  uncr.sy  tossing  and 
moaning  of  a  huge  France,  all  enchanted,  spell-bound  by  _un- 
marching  Constitution,  into  frightful  consciv)us  and  unconscious 
Magnetic-sleep;  which  frightful  Magnci ic-sleep  must  now  issue 
soon  in  one  of  two  things  :  Death  or  Madness  !  The  Federes 
carry  mostly  in  their  pocket  some  earnest  cry  and  Petition,  to 
have  the  '  National  Executive  put  in  action  ; '  or  a?  a  step  towards 
that,  to  have  the  King's  Decheance,  King's  Forfeiture,  or  at  least 
his  Suspension,  pronounced.  They  shall  be  welcome  to  the 
Legislative,  to  the  Mother  of  Patriotism ;  and  Paris  will  provide 
for  their  lodging. 

Decheance,  indeed  :  and,  what  next  ?  A  France  spell-free,  a 
Revolution  saved  ;  and  any  thing,  and  all  things  next  !  so  answer 
grimly  Danton  and  the  unlimited  Patriots,  down  deep  in  their 
subterranean  region  of  Plot,  whither  they  have  now  dived.  De- 
cheance^  answers  Brissot  with  the  limited  :  And  if  next  the  little 
Prince  Royal  were  crowned,  and  some  Regency  of  Girondins  and 
recalled  Patriot  Ministry  set  over  him  ?  Alas,  poor  Brissot ;  look- 
ing, as  indeed  poor  man  does  always,  on  the  nearest  morrow  as 
his  peaceable  promised  land  ;  deciding  what  must  reach  to  the 
world's  end,  yet  with  an  insight  that  reaches  not  beyond  his  own 
nose  !  Wiser  are  the  unlimited  subterranean  Patriots,  who  with 
light  for  the  hour  itself,  leave  the  rest  to  the  gods. 

Or  were  it  not,  as  we  now  stand,  the  probablest  issue  of  all, 
that  Brunswick,  in  Coblentz,  just  gathering  his  huge  limbs  towards 
him  to  rise,  might  arrive  first  ;  and  stop  both  Decheance^  and 
theorizing  on  it  ?  Brunswick  is  on  the  eve  of  marching  ;  with 
Eighty  Thousand,  they  say  ;  fell  Prussians,  Hessians,  feller  Emi- 
grants :  a  General  of  the  Great  Frederick,  with  such  an  Army. 
And  our  Armies  ?  And  our  Generals  ?  As  for  Lafayette,  on  whose 
late  visit  a  Committee  is  sitting  and  all  France  is  jarring  and  cen- 
suring, he  seems  readier  to  fight  tis  than  fight  Brunswick.  Liick- 
ner  and  Lafayette  pretend  to  be  interchanging  corps,  and  are 
making  movements  ;  which  Patriotism  cannot  understand.  This 
only  is  very  cl^ar,  that  their  corps  go  marching  and  shuttling,  in 
the  interior  of  the  country  ;  much  nearer  Paris  than  formerly  ! 
Liickner  has  ordered  Dumouriez  down  to  him  ;  down  from  Maulde, 
and  the  Fortified  Camp  there.  Which  order  the  many-counselled 
Dumouriez,  with  the  Austrians  hanging  close  on  him,  he  busy 
meanwhile  training  a  few  thousands  to  stand  fire  and  be  soldiers, 
declares  that,  come  of  it  what  will,  he  cannot  obey.^  Will  a  poor 
Legislative,  therefore,  sanction  Dumouriez  ;  who  applies  to  it, 
'  not  knowing  whether  there  is  any  War-ministry  1 '  Or  sanction 
Liickner  and  these  Lafayette  movements  ? 

The  poor  Legislative  knows  not  what  to  do.  It  decrees,  how- 
ever, that  the  Staff  of  the  Paris  Guard,  and  indeed  all  such  Staffs, 
for  they  are  Feuillants  mostly,  shall  be  broken  and  replaced.  It 
decrees  earnestly  in  what  manner  one  can  declare  that  the  Country 
is  in  Da7iger.  And  finally,  on  the  nth  of  July,  the  morrow  of  that 
day  when  the  Ministry  struck  work,  it  decrees  that  the  Country  be^ 
*  Dumouriez,  ii.  i,  5. 


|88 


THE  MARSEILLESB. 


with  all  despatch,  declared  in  Danger.  Whereupon  let  the  King 
sanction  ;  let  the  Municipality  take  measures  :  if  such  Declaration 
will  do  service,     need  not  fail. 

In  Danger,  truly,  if  ever  Country  was  1  Arise,  O  Country  ;  OE 
be  trodden  down  to  ignominious  ruin  !  Nay,  are  not  the  chances 
a  hundred  to  one  that  no  rising  of  the  Country  will  save  it  \ 
Brunswick,  the  Emigrants^  and  Feudal  Europe  drawing  nigh  ? 


CHAPTER  II. 

LET    US  MARCH. 

But  to  our  minds  the  notablest  of  all  these  moving  pheno* 
mena,  is  that  of  Barbaroux's  ^  Six  Hundred  Marseiltese  who  know 
'how  to  die.' 

Prompt  to  the  request  of  Barbaroux,  the  Marseilles  Munici- 
pality has  got  these  men  together  :  on  the  fifth  morning  of  July, 
the  Townhall  says,  "Marches,  abates  le  Tyran,  March,  strike 
down  the  Tyrant ;  "^and  they,  with  grim  appropriate  "  Marchons^^ 
are  marching.  Long  journey,  doubtful  errand  ;  Enfans  de  la 
Fatrie,  may  a  good  genius  guide  you  !  Their  own  wild  heart  and 
what  faith  it  has  w411  guide  them  :  and  is  not  that  the  monition  of 
some  genius,  better  or  worse  ?  Five  Hundred  and  Seventeen  able 
men,  with  Captains  of  fifties  and  tens  ;  well  armed  all,  musket  on 
shoulder  sabre  on  thigh  :  nay  they  drive  three  pieces  of  cannon  ; 
for  who  knows  what  obstacles  may  occur  ?  Municipahties  there 
are,  paralyzed  by  War-minister  ;  Commandants  with  orders  to 
stop  even  Federation  Volunteers  ;  good,  when  sour.d  arguments 
will  not  open  a  Town-gate,  if  you  ha\'e  a  petard  to  shi\'er  it ! 
They  have  left  their  sunny  Phocean  City  and  Sea-haven,  with  its 
bustle  and  its  bloom  :  the  thronging  Course,  with  higli-frondent 
Avenues,  pitchy  dockyards,  almond  and  olive  groves,  orange  trees 
on  house-tops,  and  white  glittering  bastides  that  crown  the  hills, 
are  all  behind  them.  They  wend  on  their  wild  way,  from  the  ex- 
tremity of  French  land,  through  unknown  cities,  toward  an  un- 
known destiny  ;  with  a  purpose  that  they  know. 

Much  wondering  at  this  phenomenon,  and  how,  in  a  peaceable 
trading  City,  so  many  householders  or  hearth-holders  do  severally 
fling  down  their  crafts  and  industrial  tools  ;  gird  themselves  with 
weapons  of  war,  and  set  out  on  a  journey  of  six  hundred  miles  to 
'strike  down  the  tyrant,— you  search  in  all  Historical  Books, 
Pamphlets,  and  Newspapers,  for  some  light  on  it  :  unhappily  with- 
out effect.  Rumour  and  Terror  precede  this  march  ;  which  still 
echo  on  you  ;  the  march  itself  an  unknown  thing.  Weber,  in  the 
back-stairs  of  the  Tuilcries,  has  understood  that  they  were 
(ialley-slaves  and  mere  scoundrels,  these  Marseillese  ;  that,  as 
they  marched  through  Lyons,  the  people  shut  their  shops  also 
*  Danipmartiii,  ii.  183. 


LET  US  MARCH. 


that  the  number  of  them  was  some  Four  Thousand.  Equally 
vague  is  Blanc  Gilli,  who  likewise  murmurs  about  Formats  and 
danger  of  plunder."^  Forqats  they  were  not  ;  neither  was  there 
plunder,  or  danger  of  it.  Men  of  regular  life,  or  of  the  best- 
filled  purse,  they  could  hardly  be  ;  the  one  thing  needful  in  them 
was  that  they  '  knew  how  to  die/  Friend  Dampmartin  saw  them, 
with  his  own  eyes,  march  '  gradually '  through  his  quarters  at 
Villefranche  in  the  Beaujolais  :  but  saw  in  the  vaguest  manner; 
being  indeed  preoccupied,  and  himself  minded  for  marching  just 
then — across  the  Rhine.  Deep  was  his  astonishment  to  think  of 
such  a  march,  without  appointment  or  arrangement,  station  or 
ration  :  for  the  rest  it  was  '  the  same  men  he  had  seen  formerly  ' 
in  the  troubles  of  the  South  ;  '  perfectly  civil  ; '  though  his  soldiers 
could  not  be  kept  from  talking  a  little  with  them.t 

So  vague  are  all  these  ;  Mo7iiteury  Histoire  Parlementaire  are 
as  good  as  silent  :  garrulous  History,  as  is  too  usual,  will  say 
nothing  where  you  most  wish  her  to  speak  !  If  enlightened 
Curiosity  ever  get  sight  of  the  Marseilles  Council-Books^  will  it 
not  perhaps  explore  this  strangest  of  Municipal  procedures  ;  and 
feel  called  to  fish  up  what  of  the  Biographies,  creditable  or  dis- 
creditable, of  these  Five  Hundred  and  Seventeen,  the  stream  of 
Time  has  not  yet  irrevocably  swallowed  ? 

As  it  is,  these  Marseillese  remain  inarticulate,  undistinguishable 
in  feature  ;  a  blackbrowed  Mass,  full  of  grim  fire,  who  wend  there, 
in  the  hot  sultry  weather  :  very  singular  to  contemplate.  They 
wend  ;  amid  the  infinitude  of  doubt  and  dim  peril  ;  they  not 
doubtful :  Fate  and  Feiidal  Europe,  having  decided,  come  girdling 
in  from  without  :  they,  having  also  decided,  do  march  within. 
Dusty  of  face,  with  frugal  refreshment,  they  plod  onwards  ;  un- 
weariable,  not  to  be  turned  aside.  Such  march  will  become 
famous.  The  Thought,  which  works  voiceless  in  this  blackbrowed 
mass,  an  inspired  Tyrtccan  Colonel,  Rouget  de  Lille  whom  the 
Earth  still  holds, J  has  translated  into  grim  melody  and  rhythm  ; 
into  his  Hymn  or  March  of  the  Marseillese :  luckiest  musical- 
composition  ever  promulgated.  The  soynd  of  which  will  make 
the  blood  tingle  in  men's  veins  ;  and  whole  Armies  and  Assem- 
blages will  sing  it,  with  eyes  weeping  and  burning,  with  hearts 
defiant  of  Death,  Despot  and  Devil. 

One  sees  well,  these  Marseillese  will  be  too  late  for  the  Federa- 
tion Feast.  In  fact,  it  is  not  Champ-de-Mars  Oaths  that  they  have 
in  view.  They  have  quite  another  feat  to  do  :  a  paralytic  National 
Executive  to  set  in  action.  They  must '  strike  down '  whatsoever 
*  Tyrant,'  or  Martyr- Faineant,  there  may  be  who  paralyzes  it ; 
strike  and  be  struck  ;  and  on  the  whole  prosper  and  know  how 
to  die. 

*  See  B^rbaroux,  Mimoires  (Note  in  p.  40,  41). 
f  Dampmartin,  ubi  suprdi.  X  1836. 


X90 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SOME  CONSOLATION  TO  MANKIND. 

Of  the  Federation  Feast  itself  we  shall  say  almost  nothing. 
There  are  Tents  pitched  in  the  Champ-de-Mars  ;  tent  for  National 
Assembly  ;  tent  for  Hereditary  Representative,— who  indeed  is 
there  too  early,  and  has  to  wait  long  in  it.  There  are  Eighty-three 
symbolical  Departmental  Trees-of- Liberty ;  trees  and  niais^now'^  : 
beautifullest  of  all  these  is  one  huge  mat]  hung  round  with  effete 
Scutcheons,  Emblazonries  and  Genealogy-books  ;  nay  better  still, 
with  Lawyers'-bags,  '  sacs  de  p?'ocedure  : '  which  shall  be  burnt. 
The  Thirty  seat-rows  of  that  famed  Slope  are  again  full ;  we  have 
a  bright  Sun  ;  and  all  is  marching,  streamering  and  blaring  :  but 
■what  avails  it  Virtuous  Mayor  Petion,  whom  Feuillantism  had 
suspended,  was  reinstated  only  last  night,  by  'Decree  of  the 
Assembly.  Men's  humour  is  of  the  sourest.  Men's  hats  have  on 
them,  written  in  chalk,  '  Vive  Petion and  even.  '  Petion  or  Death, 
'  Petion  ou  la  MortJ 

Poor  Louis,  who  has  waited  till  five  o'clock  before  the  Assembly 
would  arrive,  swears  the  National  Oath  this  time,  with  a  quilted 
cuirass  under  his  waistcoat  which  will  turn  pistol-bullets.*  Madame 
de  Stael,  from  that  Royal  Tent,  stretches  out  the  neck  in  a  kind 
of  agony,  lest  the  waving  multitudes  which  receive  him  may  not 
render  him  back  alive.  No  cry  of  Vive  le  Roi  salutes  the  ear  ; 
cries  only  of  Vive  Petionj  Petion  ou  la  Mort.  The  National 
Solemnity  is  as  it  were  huddled  by  ;  each  cowering  off  ahnost 
before  the  evolutions  are  gone  through.  The  very  Mai  with  its 
Scutcheons  and  Lawyers'-bags  is  forgotten,  stands  unburnt  ;  till 
'  certain  Patriot  Deputies,'  called  by  the  people,  set  a  torcii  to  it, 
by  way  of  voluntary  after-piece.  Sadder  Feast  of  Pikes  no  man 
ever  saw. 

Mayor  Petion,  named  on  hats,  is  at  his  zenith  in  this  Federa- 
tion ;  Lafayette  again  is  close  upon  his  nadir.  Why  dees  the 
storm  bell  of  Saint-Rocli  speak  out,  next  Saturday  ;  why  do  the 
citizens  shut  their  shops  ?t  It  is  Sections  defihng,  it  is  fear  of 
effervescence.  LegisLative  Committee,  long  deliberating  on  Lafay- 
ette and  that  Anti-jacobin  Visit  of  his,  reports,  this  day,  that  there 
is  '  7iot  ground  for  Accusation  ! '  Peace,  ye  Patriots,  nevertheless  ; 
and  let  that  tocsin  cease  :  the  Debate  is  not  finished,  nor  the 
Report  accepted  ;  but  Brissot,  Isnard  and  tlie  Mountain  will  sift 
it,  and  resift  it,  perhaps  for  some  three  weeks  longer. 

So  many  bells,  stormbells  and  noises  do  ring  ;— -scarcely  audible  ; 
one  drowning  the  other.  For  example  :  in  this  same  Lafayette 
tocsin,  of  Saturday,  was  there  not  withal  some  faint  bob-minor, 

*  CAmpan,  ii.  c.  20;  De  Staiil,  ii.  c.  ^. 
f  Moniteur,  Stance  du  21  Juillet  1792. 


SOME  CONSOLATION  TO  MANKIND,  191 


and  Deputation  of  Legislative,  ringing  the  Chevalier  Paul  Jones 
to  his  long  rest ;  tocsin  or  dirge  now  all  one  to  him  !  Not  ten 
days  hence  Patriot  Brissot,  beshouted  this  day  by  the  Patriot 
Galleries,  shall  find  himself  begroaned  by  them,  on  account  of  his 
limited  Patriotism  ;  nay  pelted  at  while  perorating,  and  ^  hit  with 
*two  prunes.'  It  is  a  distracted  empty-sounding  world  ;  of  bob- 
minors  and  bob-majors,  of  triumph  and  terror,  of  rise  and  fall  ! 

The  more  touching  is  this  other  Solemnity,  which  happens  on 
the  morrow  of  the  Lafayette  tocsin  :  Proclamation  that  the 
Country  is  in  Danger,  Not  till  the  present  Sunday  could  such 
Solemnity  be.  The  Legislative  decreed  it  almost  a  fortnight  ago  ; 
but  Royalty  and  the  ghost  of  a  Ministry  held  back  as  they  could. 
Now  however,  on  this  Sunday,  22nd  day  of  July  1792,  it  will  hold 
back  no  longer  ;  and  the  Solemnity  in  very  deed  is.  Touching  to 
behold  !  Municipality  and  Mayor  have  on  their  scarfs  ;  cannon- 
salvo  booms  alarm  from  the  Pont-Neuf,  and  single-gun  at  intervals 
all  day.  Guards  are  mounted,  scarfed  Notabilities,  Halberdiers, 
and  a  Cavalcade  ;  with  streamers,  emblematic  flags  ;  especially 
with  one  huge  Flag,  flapping  mournfully  :  Citoyens,  la  Patrie  est  en 
Danger,  They  roll  through  the  streets,  with  stern-sounding  music, 
and  slow  rattle  of  hoofs  :  pausing  at  set  stations,  and  with  doleful 
blast  of  trumpet,  singing  out  through  Herald's  throat,  what  the 
Flag  says  to  the  eye  :  "  Citizens,  the  Country  is  in  Danger  ! 

Is  there  a  man's  heart  that  hears  it  without  a  thrill  ?  The  many- 
voiced  responsive  hum  or  bellow  of  these  multitudes  is  not  of 
triumph  ;  and  yet  it  is  a  sound  deeper  than  triumph.  But  when 
the  long  Cavalcade  and'  Proclamation  ended  ;  and  our  huge  Flag 
was  fixed  on  the  Pont  Neuf,  another  nice  it  on  the  H6tel-de-Ville, 
to  wave  there  till  better  days  ;  and  each  Municipal  sat  in  the 
centre  of  his  Section,  in  a  Tent  raised  in  some  open  square,  Tent 
surmounted  with  flags  of  Patrie  en  danger^  and  topmost  of  all  a 
Pike  and  Bonnet  Rouge  ;  and,  on  two  drums  in  front  of  him^  there 
lay  a  plank-table,  and  on  this  an  open  Book,  and  a  Clerk  sat,  like 
recording-angel,  ready  to  write  the  Lists,  or  as  we  say  to  enlist  ! 
O,  then,  it  seems,  the  very  gods  might  have  looked  down  on  it. 
Young  Patriotism,  Culottic  and  Sansculottic,  rushes  forward 
emulous  :  That  is  my  name  ;  name,  blood,  and  life,  is  all  my 
Country's  ;  why  have  I  nothing  more  !  Youths  of  short  stature 
weep  that  they  are  below  size.  Old  men  come  forward,  a  son  in 
each  hand.  Mothers  themselves  will  grant  the  son  of  their 
travail ;  send  him,  though  with  tears.  And  the  multitude  bellows 
Vive  la  Patrie^  far  reverberating.  And  fire  flashes  in  the  eyes  of 
men  ; — and  at  eventide,  your  Municipal  returns  to  the  Townhall, 
followed  by  his  long  train  of  volunteer  Valour  ;  hands  in  his  List : 
says  proudly,  looking  round.  This  is  my  day's  hai-vest.t  They 
will  march,  on  the  morrow,  to  Soissons  ;  small  bundle  holding  all 
their  chattels. 

So,  with  Vive  la  Patrie^  Vive  la  Liberie^  stone  Paris  rever- 
berates like  Ocean  in  his  caves  ;  day  after  day,  Municipals  enlist- 

*  Hist.  Pari.  xvi.  185. 
+  Tabhau  dela  RdvoluUon,  §  Patrie  en  Danger. 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


ing  in  tricolor  Tent  ;  the  Flag  flapping  on  Pont  Neuf  and 
Townhall,  Citoyens,  la  Patrie  est  en  Dajtger,  Some  Ten  thousand 
fighters,  without  discipline  but  full  of  heart,  are  on  march  m  few 
days.  The  like  is  doing  in  every  Town  of  France.— Consider 
therefore  whether  the  Country  will  want  defenders,  had  we  but  a 
National  Executive  ?  Let  the  Sections  and  Primary  Assemblies, 
at  any  rate,  become  Permanent,  and  sit  continually  in  Paris,  and 
over  France,  by  Legislative  Decree  dated  Wednesday  the  25th.^ 

Mark  contrariwise  how,  in  these  very  hours,  dated  the  25th, 
Brunswick  shakes  himself  '  s'ebranle^  in  Coblentz  ;  and  takes  the 
road  !  Shakes  himself  indeed  ;  one  spoken  word  becomes  such 
a  shaking.  Successive,  simultaneous  dirl  of  thirty  thousand 
muskets  shouldered  ;  prance  and  jingle  of  ten-thousand  horse- 
men, fanfaronading  Emigrants  in  the  van  ;  drum,  ketde-drum  ; 
noise  of  weeping,  swearing  ;  and  the  immeasurable  lumbering 
clank  of  baggage-waggons  and  camp-kettles  that  groan  into 
motion  :  all  this  is  Brunswick  shaking  himself ;  not  without  all 
this  does  the  one  man  march,  '  covering  a  space  of  forty  miles.' 
Still  less  without  his  Manifesto,  dated,  as  we  say,  the  25th  ;  a 
State-Paper  worthy  of  attention  ! 

By  this  Document,  it  would  seem  great  things  are  in  store  for 
France.  The  universal  French  People  shall  now  have  permission 
to  rally  round  Brunswick  and  his  Emigrant  Seigneurs ;  tyranny  of 
a  Jacobin  Faction  shall  oppress  them  no  more  ;  but  they  shall 
return,  and  find  favour  with  their  own  good  King  ;  who,  by  Royal 
Declaration  (three  years  ago)  of  the  Twenty-third  of  June,  said 
that  he  would  himself  make  them  happy.  As  for  National 
Assembly,  and  other  Bodies  of  Men  invested  with  some  temporary 
shadow  of  authority,  they  are  charged  to  maintain  the  King's 
Cities  and  Strong  Places  intact,  till  Brunswick  arrive  to  take 
delivery  of  them.  Indeed,  quick  submission  may  extenuate  many 
things  ;  but  to  this  end  it  must  be  quick.  Any  National  Guard  or 
other  unmilitary  person  found  resisting  in  arms  shall  be  '  treated 
'  as  a  traitor  ; '  that  is  to  shy,  hanged  with  promptitude.  For  the 
rest,  if  Paris,  before  Brunswick  gets  thitker,  offer  any  insult  to  the 
King  :  or,  for  exam.ple,  suffer  a  faction  to  carry  the  King  away 
elsewhither  ;  in  that  case  Paris  shall  be  blasted  asunder  with 
cannon-shot  and  '  military  execution.'  Likewise  all  other  Cities, 
which  may  witness,  and  not  resist  to  the  uttermost,  such  forced- 
march  of  his  Majesty,  shall  be  blasted  asunder  ;  and  Paris  and 
every  City  of  them,  starting-place,  course  and  goal  of  said  sacrile- 
gious forced-march,  shall,  as  rubbish  and  smoking  ruin,  lie  therfl 
for  a  sign.  Such  vengeance  were  indeed  signal,  '  an  msigne  vc7u 
* geance:  — -O  Brunswick,  what  words  thou  writest  and  blusterest ! 
In  this  Paris,  as  in  old  Nineveh,  are  so  many  score  thousands  that 
know  not  the  right  hand  from  the  left,  and  also  much  cattle.  Shall 
the  very  milk-cows,  hard-living  cadgcrs'-asscs,  and  poor  little 
canary-birds  die  ? 

Nor  is   Royal  and   Imperial   Prussian- Austrian  Declaration 
*  MonUcur,  Seance  du  25  Juillet  1792. 


SUB  TERRANEAN. 


193 


wanting  :  setting  forth,  in  the  amplest  manner,  their  Sanssouci- 
Schonbrunn  version  of  this  whole  French  Revolution,  since  the 
first  beginning  of  it ;  and  with  what  grief  these  high  heads  have 
seen  such  things  done  under  the  Sun  :  however,  '  as  some  small 
*  consolation  to  mankind/"^  they  do  now  despatch  Brunswick  ; 
regardless  of  expense,  as  one  might  say,  of  sacrifices  on  their  own 
part ;  for  is  it  not  the  first  duty  to  console  men  ? 

Serene  Highnesses,  who  sit  there  protocolhng  and  manifesto- 
ing,  and  consohng  mankind  !  how  were  it  if,  for  once  in  the 
thousand  years,  your  parchments,  formularies,  and  reasons  of 
state  were  blown  to  the  four  winds  ;  and  Reality  Sans-indis- 
pensables  stared  you,  even  you,  in  the  face  ;  and  Mankind  said  for 
itself  what  the  thing  was  that  would  console  it  ? — 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SUBTERRANEAN. 

But  judge  if  there  was  comfort  in  this  to  the  Sections  all  sitting 
permanent;  deliberating  how  a  National  Executive  could  be  put 
m  action  ! 

High  rises  the  response,  not  of  cackhng  terror,  but  of  crowing 
counter-defiance,  and  Vive  la  Nation;  young  Valour  streaming 
towards  the  Frontiers  ;  Patrie  en  Danger  mutely  beckoning  on  the 
Pont  Neuf  Sections  are  busy,  in  their  permanent  Deep  ;  and 
down,  lower  still,  works  unlimited  Patriotism,  seeking  salvation  in 
plot.  Insurrection,  you  would  say,  becomes  once  more  the  sacredest 
of  duties  ?  Committee,  self-chosen,  is  sitting  at  the  Sign  of  the 
Golden  Sun  :  Journalist  Carra,  Camille  Desmoulins,  Aisatian 
Westermann  f!-iend  of  Danton,  American  Fournier  of  Martinique  ; 
— a  Committee  not  unknown  to  Mayor  Petion,  who,  as  an  official 
person,  must  sleep  with  one  eye  open.  Not  unknown  to  Procureur 
Manuel ;  least  of  ail  to  Procureur- Substitute  Danton  !  He. 
wrapped  in  darkness,  being  also  official,  bears  it  on  his  giant 
shoulder  ;  cloudy  invisible  Atlas  of  the  whole. 

Much  is  invisible  ;  the  very  Jacobins  have  their  reticences.  In- 
surrection is  to  be  :  but  when  ?  This  only  we  can  discern,  that 
such  Federes  as  are  not  yet  gone  to  Soissons,  as  indeed  are  not 
inchned  to  go  yet,  "  for  reasons,''  says  the  Jacobin  President, 
"  which  it  may  be  interesting  not  to  state,"  have  got  a  Central 
Com7nittee  sitting  close  by,  under  the  roof  of  the  Mother  Society 
herself.  Also,  what  in  such  ferment  and  danger  of  ettervescence  is 
surely  proper,  the  Forty-eight  Sections  have  got  their  Central  Com- 
mittee ;  intended  '  for  prompt  communication.'  To  which  Central 
Committee  the  Municipality,  anxious  to  have  it  at  hand,  could  not 
refuse  an  Apartment  in  the  Hotel-de-Vilie. 

Singular  City  !    For  overhead  of  all  this,  there  is  the  customary 

*  Annual  Registe)'  (1792),  p.  236. 
VOL.  II.  H 


X94  THE  MARSEILLESE. 


baking  and  brewing  ;  Labour  hammers  and  grinds.  Frilled  pro- 
menaders  saunter  under  the  trees  ;  white-muslin  promenaderess.  in 
green  parasol,  leaning  on  your  arm.  Dogs  dance,  and  shoeblacks 
pohsh,  on  that  Pont  Neuf  itself,  where  Fatherland  is  in  danger. 
So  much  goes  its  course  ;  and  yet  the  course  of  all  things  is  nigh 
altering  and  ending. 

Look  at  that  Tuileries  and  Tuileries  Garden.  Silent  all  as 
Sahara  ;  none  entering  save  by  ticket !  They  shut  their  Gates, 
after  the  Day  of  the  Black  Breeches  ;  a  thing  they  had  the  liberty 
to  do.  However,  the  National  Assembly  grumbled  something 
about  Terrace  of  the  Feuillants,  how  said  Terrace  lay  contiguous 
to  the  back  entrance  to  their  Salle,  and  was  partly  NationtU  Pro- 
perty ;  and  so  now  National  Justice  has  stretched  a  Tricolor 
Riband  athwart  it,  by  way  of  boundary-line,  respected  with  sple- 
netic strictness  by  all  Patriots.  It  hangs  there  that  Tricolor 
boundary-line  ;  carries  '  satirical  inscriptions  on  cards/  generally 
in  verse  ;  and  all  beyond  this  is  called  Coble^itz,  and  remains 
vacant;  silent,  as  a  fateful  Golgotha  ;  sunshine  and  umbrage  alter- 
nating on  it  in  vain.  Fateful  Circuit  ;  what  hope  can  dwell  m  it  ? 
Mysterious  Tickets  of  Entry  introduce  themselves  ;  speak  of  In- 
surrection very  imminent.  "Rivarol's  Staff  of  Genius  had  better 
purchase  blunderbusses  ;  Grenadier  bonnets,  red  Swiss  uniforms 
may  be  useful.  Insurrection  will  come  ;  but  likewise  will  it 
not  be  met  ?    Staved  off,  one  may  hope,  till  Brunswick  arrive  ? 

But  consider  withal  if  the  Bourne-stones  and  Portable  chairs 
remain  silent  ;  if  the  Herald's  College  of  Bill-- Stickers  sleep ! 
Louvet's  Sentinel  warns  gratis  on  all  walls  ;  Sulleau  is  busy  : 
People' s-FriendM.2iX^.\.  and  King  s  -  Friend 'Roy  om  croakand  counter- 
croak.  For  the  man  Marat,  though  long  hidden  since  that  Champ- 
de-Mars  Massacre,  is  still  ahve.  He  has  lain,  who  knows  m  what 
Cellars  ;  perhaps  in  Legendre's  ;  fed  by  a  steak  of  Legendre  s 
killing  :  but,  since  April,  the  bull-frog  voice  of  him  sounds  again  ; 
hoarsest  of  earthly  cries.  For  the  present,  black  terror  haunts 
him :  O  brave  Barbaroux  wilt  thou  not  smuggle  me  to  Marseilles, 
'  disguised  as  a  jockey? '  ^  In  Palais-Royal  and  all  pubhc  places, 
as  we  read,  there  is  sharp  activity  ;  private  individuals  harangumg 
that  Valour  may  enlist  :  haranguing  that  the  Executive  may  be 
put  in  action.  Royalist  journals  ought  to  be  solemnly  burnt  : 
argument  thereupon  ;  debates  which  generally  end  in  single-stick, 
coups  de  cannes.i  Or  think  of  this;  the  hour  midnight;  place 
Salle  de  Man^^e  ;  august  Assembly  just  adjournmg  :  '  Citi7.ens  ot 
both  sexes  enter  in  a  rush  exclaiming,  Ven(^eance  :  they  are  pot  son- 
ino:  our  Brothers f—h'^Vmz  brayed-glass  among  their  bread  at 
Soissons  !  Vergniaud  has  to  speak  soothing  words,  How  Com- 
missioners are  already  sent  to  investigate  this  brayed-glass  and 
do  what  is  needful  therein  :  till  the  rush  of  Citizens  makes  pro- 
found silence     and  goes  home  to  its  bed. 

Such  is  Paris  ;  the  heart  of  a  France  like  to  it.  Preternatural 
suspicion,  doubt,  disquietude,  nameless  anticipation,  from  shore  to 

f  Ncwspapers^Na^^^^       and  Documents  [llisi.  Purl  xv.  240;   xvi.  399). 


AT  DINNER. 


195 


sj^oj-e  :— and  those  black-browed  Marseillese,  marching,  dusty, 
unwearied,  through  the  midst  of  it  ;  not  doubtful  they.  Marching 
to  the  grim  music  of  their  hearts,  they  consume  continually  the 
lono-  road,  these  three  weeks  and  more  ;  heralded  by  Terror  and 
Rumour.  The  Brest  Federes  arrive  on  the  26th ;  through 
hurrahing  streets.  Determined  men  are  these  also,  bearing 
or  not  bearing  the  Sacred  Pikes  of  Chateau-Vieux  ;  and  on  the 
whole  decidedly  disinclined  for  Soissons  as  yet.  Surely  the 
Marseillese  Brethren  do  draw  nigher  all  days. 


CHAPTER  V. 

AT  DINNER. 

It  was  a  bright  day  for  Charenton,  that  29th  of  the  month, 
when  the  Marseillese  Brethren  actually  came  m  sight.  Bar- 
baroux,  Santerre  and  Patriots  have  gone  out  to  meet  the  grim 
Wayfarers.  Patriot  clasps  dusty  Patriot  to  his  bosom  ;  there  is 
footwashing  and  refection  :  '  dinner  of  twelve  hundred  covers  at 
'  the  Blue  Dial,  Cadran  Bleu ; '  and  deep  interior  consultation, 
that  one  wots  not  of."^  Consultation  indeed  which  comes  to 
little  ;  for  Santerre,  with  an  open  purse,  with  a  loud  voice,  has 
almost  no  head.  Here  however  v/e  repose  this  night  :  on  the 
morrow  is  public  entry  into  Paris. 

Of  which  pubhc  entry  the  Day-Historians,  Dturnahsts,  or 
Journalists  as  they  call  themselves,  have  preserved  record  enough. 
How  Saint-Antoine  male  and  female,  and  Pans  generally,  gave 
brotherly  welcome,  with  bravo  and  hand-clapping,^  m  crowded 
streets  ;  and  all  passed  in  the  peaceablest  manner  -—except  it 
might  be  our  Marseillese  pointed  out  here  and  there  a  riband- 
cockade,  and  beckoned  that  it  should  be  snatched  away,  and 
exchanged  for  a  wool  one  ;  which  was  done.  How  the  Mother 
Society  in  a  body  has  come  as  far  as  the  BastiUe-ground,  to 
embrace  you.  How  you  then  wend  onwards,  triumphant,  to  the 
Townhall,  to  be  embraced  by  Mayor  Petion  ;  to  put  down  your 
muskets  in  the  Barracks  of  Nouvelle  France,  not  far  off  ;—then 
towards  the  appointed  Tavern  in  the  Champs  Elysees  to  enjoy  a 
frugal  Patriot  repast.f  r^-  ^  c 

Of  all  which  the  indignant  Tuileries  may,  by  its  Tickets  ot 
Entry,  have  warning.  Red  Swiss  look  doubly  sharp  to  tneir 
Chateau-Grates  though  surely  there  is  no  danger?  Blue 
Grenadiers  of  the  Filles-Saint- Thomas  Section  are  on  duty  there 
this  day  :  men  of  Agio,  as  we  have  seen  ;  with  stuffed  purses, 
riband-cockades  ;  among  whorii  serves  Weber.  A  party  ot  these 
latter,  with  Captains,  with  sundry  Feuillant  Notabilities,  Moreau 
de  Saint-Mery  of  the  three  thousand  orders,  and  others,  have  been 
dining,  much  more  respectably,  in  a  Tavern  hard  by.    They  haviff 

*  Deux  Amis,  viii.  90-101. 
•fc.  Hist,  Pari,  xvi.  196.    See  Barbaroux,  p.  51-5. 

H  2 


196 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


dined,  and  are  now  drinking  Loyal- Patriotic  toasts  ;  while  the 
Marseillese,  A'^//,^?;^^?/- Patriotic  merely,  are  about  sitting  down  to 
their  frugal  covers  of  delf.  How  it  happened  remains  to  this  day 
undemonstrable  :  but  the  external  fact  is,  certain  of  these  Filles- 
Saint-Thomas  Grenadiers  do  issue  from  their  Tavern  ;  perhaps 
touched,  surely  not  yet  muddled  with  any  liquor  they  have  had  ; 
— issue  in  the  professed  intention  of  testifying  to  the  Marseillese, 
or  to  the  multitude  of  Paris  Patriots  who  stroll  in  these  spaces, 
That  they,  the  Filles-Saint-Thomas  men,  if  well  seen  into,  are  not 
a  whit  less  Patriotic  than  any  other  class  of  men  whatever. 

It  was  a  rash  errand!  For  how  can  the  strolling  multitudes 
credit  such  a  thing  ;  or  do  other  indeed  than  hoot  at  it,  provoking, 
and  provoked  ; — till  Grenadier  sabres  stir  in  the  scabbard,  and  a 
sharp  shriek  rises:  ''A  nous  Marseillais,  Help  Marseillese!" 
Quick  ^  as  lightning,  for  the  frugal  repast  is  not  yet  served,  that 
Marseillese  Tavern  flings  itself  open  :  by  door,  by  window  ; 
running,  bounding,  vault  ^  rth  the  Five  hundred  and  Seventeen 
undined  Pa-  ots  ;  and,  sabre  flashing  from  thigh,  are  on  the 
scene  of  controversy.  Will  ye  parley,  ye  Grenadier  Captains  and 
official  Persons  ;  '  with  faces  grown  suddenly  pale,'  the  Deponents 
say  ?^  Advisabler  were  instant  moderately  swift  retreat  !  The 
Filles-Saint-Thomas  retreat,  back  foremost ;  then,  alas,  face  fore- 
most, at  treble-  uick  time ;  the  Marseillese,  according  to  a 
Deponent,  "  clearing  the  :ences  and  ditches  after  them  like  lions  : 
Messieurs,  it  was  an  imposing  spectacle." 

Thus  they  retreat,  the  Marseillese  following.  Swift  and  swifter, 
towards  the  Tuileries  :  where  the  Drawbridge  receives  the  bulk  of 
the  fugitives  ;  and,  then  suddenly  drawn  up,  saves  them  ;  or  el*se 
the  green  mud  of  the  Ditch  does  it.  The  bulk  of  them  ;  not  all  ; 
ah,  no  !  Moreau  de  Saint-Mery  for  example,  being  too  fat,  could 
not  fly  fast  ;  he  got  a  stroke,  y7<:z/-stroke  only,  over  the  shoulder- 
blades,  and  fell  prone  ; — and  disappears  there  from  the  History  of 
the  Revolution.  Cuts  also  there  were,  pricks  in  the  posterior 
fleshy  parts  ;  much  rending  ot  skirts,  and  other  discrepant  waste. 
But  poor  Sub-lieutenant  Duhamel,  innocent  Change-broker,  what 
a  lot  for  him  !  Fie  turned  on  his  pursuer,  or  pursuers,  with  a 
pistol ;  he  fired  and  missed  ;  drew  a  second  pistol,  and  again  fired 
and  missed  ;  then  ran  :  unhappily  in  vain.  In  the  Rue  Saint- 
Florentin,  they  clutched  him  ;  thrust  him  through,  in  red  rage  ; 
that  was  the  end  of  the  New  Era,  and  of  all  Eras,  to  poor 
Duhamel. 

Pacific  readers  can  fancy  what  sort  of  grace-before-meat  this 
was  to  frugal  Patriotism,  Also  how  the  Battalion  of  the  Filles- 
Saint-Thomas  *  drew  out  in  arms,'  luckily  without  further  result  ; 
how  there  was  accusation  at  the  Bar  of  the  Assembly,  and 
counter-accusation  and  defence  ;  Marseillese  challenging  the  sen- 
tence of  free  jury  court, — which  never  got  to  a  decision.  We  ask 
rather.  What  the  upshot  of  all  these  distracted  wildly  accumula- 
ting things  may,  by  probability,  be  1  Some  upshot  ;  and  the  time 
draws  nigh  !    Busy  are  Central  Committees,  of  F^ddr^s  at  the 

*  Moniieur^  Seances  du  30,  du  31  Juillot  1792  [IlisL  Pari.  xvi.  197-310). 


AT  DINNER. 


197 


Jacobins  Church,  of  Sections  at  the  Townhall ;  Reunion  of  Carra, 
Camille  and  Company  at  the  Golden  Sun.  Busy  :  hke  submarine 
deities,  or  call  them  mud-gods,  working  there  in  the  deep  murk  of 
waters  :  till  the  thing  be  ready. 

And  how  your  National  Assembly,  like  a  ship  water-logged, 
helmless,  lies  tumbling  ;  the  Galleries,  of  shrill  Women,  of  Federes 
with  sabres,  bellowing  down  on  it,  not  unfrightful  ; — and  waits 
where  the  waves  of  chance  may  please  to  strand  it  ;  suspicious, 
nay  on  the  Left  side,  conscious,  what  submarine  Explosion  is 
meanwhile  a-charging  !  Petition  for  King's  Forfeiture  rises  often 
there  :  Petition  from  'Paris  Section,  from  Provincial  Patriot 
Towns  ;  From  Alengon,  Briangon,  and  '  the  Traders  at  the  Fair 
*of  Beaucaire.'  Or  what  of  these  On  the  3rd  of  August,  Mayor 
Petion  and  the  Municipality  come  petitioning  for  Forfeiture  :  they 
openly,  in  their  tricolor  Municipal  scarfs.  Forfeiture  is  what  all 
Patriots  now  want  and  expect.  All  Brissotins  want  Forfeiture  ; 
with  the  little  Prince  Royal  for  King,  and  us  for  Protector  ove^ 
him.  Emphatic  Federes  asks  the  Legislature  :  "  Can  you  save  us, 
or  not  ?  "  Forty-seven  Seconds  have  agreed  to  Forfeiture  ;  only 
that  of  the  Filles-Saint-Thomas  pretending  to  disagree.  Nay 
Section  Mauconseil  declares  Forfeiture  to  be,  properly  speaking, 
come  ;  Mauconseil  for  one  '  does  from  this  day,'  the  last  of  July, 
'  cease  allegiance  to  Louis,^  and  take  minute  of  the  same  before  all 
men.  A  thing  blamed  aloud  ;  but  which  will  be  praised  aloud  ; 
and  the  name  Mauconseil,  of  Ill-counsel,  be  thenceforth  changed 
to  Bonconseil^  of  Good-counsel. 

President  Danton,  in  the  Cordeliers  Section,  does  another 
thing  :  invites  all  Passive  Citizens  to  take  place  among  the  Active 
in  Section-business,  one  peril  threatening  ail.  Thus  he,  though  an 
official  person  ;  cloudy  Atlas  of  the  whole.  Likewise  he  man- 
ages to  have  that  blackbrowed  Battalion  of  Marseillese  shifted  to 
new  Barracks,  in  his  own  region  ot  the  remote  South-East.  Sleek 
Chaumette,  cruel  Billaud,  Deputy  Chabot  the  Disfrocked,  Hugue- 
nin  with  the  tocsin  in  his  heart,  will  welcome  them  there.  Where- 
fore, again  and  again  :  "  O  Legislators,  can  you  save  us  or  not  ? 
Poor  Legislators  ;  with  their  Legislature  water-logged,  volcanic 
Explosion  charging  under  it  !  Forfeiture  shall  be  debated  on  the 
ninth  day  of  August ;  that  miserable  business  of  Lafayette  may 
be  expected  to  terminate  on  the  eighth. 

Or  will  the  humane  Reader  glance  into  the  Levee-day  of  Sun- 
day the  fifth  ?  The  last  Levee  !  Not  for  a  long  time,  '  never,' 
says  Bertrand-Moleville,  had  a  Levee  been  so  brilliant,  at  least  so 
crowded.  A  sad  presaging  interest  sat  on  every  face  ;  Bertrand's 
own  eyes  were  filled  with  tears.  For,  indeed,  outside  of  that 
Tricolor  Riband  on  the  Feuillants  Terrace,  Legislature  is  debating, 
Sections  are  defiling,  all  Paris  is  astir  this  very  Sunday,  demand- 
ing Decheance.'^  Here,  however,  within  the  riband,  a  grand 
proposal  is  on  foot,  for  the  hundredth  time,  of  carrying  his 

Majesty  to  Rouen  and  the  Castle  of  Gaillon.    Swiss  at  Courbe- 
voye  are  in  readiness  ;  much  is  ready  ;  Majesty  himself  seems 
*  Hist,  ParL  xvi.  337-9. 


198 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


almost  ready.  Nevertheless,  for  the  hundredth  time,  Majesty, 
when  near  the  pomt  of  action,  draws  back ;  writes,  after  one  has 
waited,  palpitating,  an  endless  summer  day,  that  '  he  has  reason 
'to  believe  the  Insurrection  is  not  so  ripe  as  you  suppose* 
Whereat  Bertrand-Moleville  breaks  forth  '  into  extremity  at  one 
*of  spleen  and  despair,  d'humeur  et  de  desespoir.'* 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  STEEPLES  AT  MIDNIGHT. 

For,  in  truth,  the  Insurrection  is  just  about  ripe.  Thursday  is 
the  ninth  of  the  month  August ;  if  Forfeiture  be  not  pronounced 
by  the  Legislature  that  day,  we  must  pronounce  it  ourselves. 

Legislature  ?  A  poor  water-logged  Legislature  can  pronounce 
nothmg.  On  Wednesday  the  eighth,  after  endless  oratory  once 
again,  they  cannot  even  pronounce  Accusation  again  Lafayette  • 
but  absolve  him,— hear  it,  Patrotism  !— by  a  majority  of  two  to 
one.  Patriotism  hears  it ;  Patriotism,  hounded  on  by  Prussian 
Terror,  by  Preternatural  Suspicion,  roars  tumultuous  round  the 
Salle  de  Manege,  all  day  ;  ins.Jts  many  leading  Deputies,  of  the 
absolvent  Right-side  ;  nay  chases  them,  collars  them  with  loud 
menace  :  Deputy  Vaublanc,  and  others  of  the  like,  are  glad  to 
take  refuge  in  Guardhouses,  d  escape  by  the  back  window. 
And  so,  next  day,  there  is  infinite  co  laint ;  Letter  after  Letter 
from  insulted  Deputy ;  mere  complaint,  ^ebate  and  self-cancelling 
jargon  :  the  sun  of  Thursday  sets  like  the  others,  and  no  For- 
feiture pronounced.    Wherefore  in  fine.  To  your  tents,  O  Israel  ! 

The  Mother-Socie^.,  ceases  speaking  ;  groups  cease  haranguing: 
Patriots,  with  closed  lips  now,  '  take  one  another's  arm  walk  off, 
m  rows,  two  and  two,  at  a  brisk  business-pace  ;  and  vanish  afar 
m  the  obscure  places  of  the  East  f  Santerre  is  ready  ;  or  we 
will  make  him  ready.  Forty-seven  of  the  Forty-eight  Sections 
arp  ready ;  nay  Filles-Saint-Thomas  itself  turns  up  the  Jacobin 
side  of  it,  turns  down  llie  Feuillant  side  of  it,  and  is  ready  too. 
Let  the  unlimited  Patriot  look  to  his  weapon,  be  it  pike,  be  it  fire- 
lock ;  and  the  Brest  brethren,  above  all,  the  blackbrowed  Marseil- 
lese  prepare  themselves  for  the  extreme  hour  !  Syndic  Roederer 
knows,  and  laments  or  not  as  the  issue  may  turn,  that  '  five  thou- 
'  sand  ball-cartridges,  within  these  few  days,  have  been  distributed 
'to  Feder^s,  at  the  H6tel-de-Ville.'J 

And  ye  likewise,  gallant  gentlemen,  defenders  of  Royalty,  crowd 
ye  on  your  side  to  the  1  uileries.  Not  to  a  Levee  :  no,  to  a 
Couchee  ;  where  much  will  be  put  to  bed.  Your  Tickets  of  Entry 
are  needful  ;  ncedfiillcr  your  blunderbusses  !— iliey  come  and 
crowd,  like  gallant  men  who  also  know  how  to  die  :  old  Mailld  the 

*  Bertrand-Moleville,  Mdmoircs,  ii.  129. 
t  Deux  Amis,  viii.  129-88. 

j  Roederer  ^  la  Barre  (Stance  du  9  h<M  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xvi.  393), 


THE  STEEPLES  AT  MIDNIGHT, 


199 


Camp-Marshal  has  come,  his  eyes  gleaming  once  again,  though 
dimmed  by  the  rheum  of  almost  four-score  years.  Courage, 
Brothers !  We  have  a  thousand  red  Swiss  ;  men  stanch  of  heart, 
steadfast  as  the  granite  of  their  Alps.  National  Grenadiers  are 
^t  least  friends  of  Order  ;  Commandant  Mandat  breathes  loval 
ardour,  will  "answer  for  it  on  his  head."  Mandat  will,  and  his 
Staff;  for  the  Staff,  though  there  stands  a  doom  and  Decree  to 
that  effect,  is  happily  never  yet  dissolved. 

Commandant  Mandat  has  corresponded  with  Mayor  Petion ; 
carries  a  written  Order  from  him  these  three  days,  to  repel  force 
by  force.  A  squadron  on  the  Pont  Neuf  with  cannon  shall  turn 
back  these  Marseillese  coming  across  the  River  :  a  squadron  at 
the  Townhall  shall  cut  Saint- Antoine  in  two,  '  as  it  issues  from  '  the 

*  Arcade  Saint-Jean  ; '  drive  one  half  back  to  the  obscure  East,  drive 
the  other  half  forward  through  '  the  Wickets  of  the  Louvre.'  Squad- 
rons not  a  few,  and  mounted  squadrons  ;  squadrons  in  the  Palais 
Royal,  in  the  Place  Vendome  :  all  these  shall  charge,  at  the  right 
moment;  sweep  this  street,  and  then  sweep  that.  Some  new 
Twentieth  of  June  we  shall  have  ;  only  still  more  ineffectual  ? 
Or  probably  the  Insurrection  will  not  dare  to  rise  at  all  Mandates 
Squadrons,  Horse- Gendarmerie  and  blue  Guards  march,  clattering, 
tramping  ;  Mandates  Cannoneers  rumble.  Under  cloud  of  night  ; 
to  the  sound  of  his  gent^rale^  whkh  begins  drumming  when  men 
should  go  to  bed.    It  is  the  9th  night  of  August,  1792. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Forty-eight  Sections  correspond  by  swift 
messengers ;  are  choosing  each  their  '  three  Delegates  with  full 

*  powers.'  Syndic  Roederer,  Mayor  Petion  are  sent  for  to  the 
Tuileries  :  courageous  Legislators,  when  the  drum  beats  danger, 
should  repair  to  their  Salle.  Demoiselle  Theroigne  has  on  her 
grenadier-bonnet,  short-skirted  riding-habit ;  two  pistols  garnish 
her  small  waist,  and  sabre  hangs  in  baldric  by  her  side. 

Such  a  game  is  playing  in  this  Paris  Pandemonium,  or  City  of 
All  the  Devils  ! — And  yet  the  Night,  as  Mayor  Petion  walks  here 
in  the  Tuileries  Garden,  '  is  beautiful  and  calm  ; '  Orion  and  the 
Pleiades  glitter  down  quite  serene.  Petion  has  come  forth,  the 
*heat'  inside  was  so  oppressive. Indeed,  his  Majesty's  reception 
of  him  was  of  the  roughest ;  as  it  well  might  be.  And  now  there 
is  no  outgate  ;  Mandat's  blue  Squadrons  turn  you  back  at  every 
Grate  ;  nay  the  Filles-Saint-Thomas  Grenadiers  give  themselves 
liberties  of  tongue,  How  a  virtuous  Mayor  '  shall  pay  for  it,  if  there 

*  be  mischief,'  and  the  like  ;  though  others  again  are  full  of  civihty. 
Surely  if  any  man  in  France  is  in  straights  this  night,  it  is  Mayor 
Petion  :  bound,  under  pain  of  death,  one  may  say,  to  smile  dex- 
terously with  the  one  side  of  his  face,  and  weep  with  the  other  ; 
— death  if  he  do  it  not  dexterously  enough  !  Not  till  four  in  the 
morning  does  a  National  Assembly,  hearing  of  his  plight,  summon 
him  over  '  to  give  account  of  Paris  ; '  of  which  he  knows  nothing  : 
whereby  however  he  shall  get  home  to  bed,  and  only  his  gilt  coach 

*  Roederer,  Chroiiique  de  Qinquante  Jours :  R^cit  de  Pition,  Townhall 
Records,  &c.  (in  Hist.  Pari,  xvi.  399-466). 


200 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


be  left.  Scarcely  less  delicate  is  Syndic  Roederer's  task  ;  who 
must  wait  whether  he  will  lament  or  not,  till  he  see  the  issue. 
Janus  Bifrons,  or  Mr.  Fad7tg-both-ivays,  as  vernacular  Bunyan 
has  it !  They  walk  there,  in  the  meanwhile,  these  two  Januses, 
with  others  of  the  hke  double  conformation  ;  and  '  talk  of  in- 
'  different  m.atters.' 

Rcederer,  from  time  to  time,  steps  in  ;  to  listen,  to  speak  ;  to 
send  for  the  Department-Directory  itself,  he  their  Procureur  Syndic 
not  seeing  how  to  act.  The  Apartments  are  all  crowded  ;  some 
seven  hundred  gentlemen  in  black  elbowing,  bustling  ;  red  Swiss 
standing  like  rocks  ;  ghost,  or  partial-ghost  of  a  Ministry,  with 
Roederer  and  advisers,  hovering  round  their  Majesties  ;  old 
Marshall  Maille  kneeling  at  the  King's  feet,  to  say,  He  and  these 
gallant  gentlemen  are  come  to  die  for  him.  List  !  through  the 
placid  mid-night ;  clang  of  the  distant  stormbell  !  So,  in  very 
sooth  ;  steeple  after  steeple  ta^kes  up  the  wondrous  tale.  Black 
Courtiers  listen  at  the  windows,  opened  for  air  ;  discriminate  the 
steeple-bells  this  is  the  tocsin  of  Saint-Roch  ;  that  again,  is  it 
not  Saint- Jacques,  named  de  la  Boucherie  ?  Yes,  Messieurs  ! 
Or  even  Saint-Germain  I'Auxerrois,  hear  ye  //  not  t  The  same 
metal  that  rang  storm,  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  ;  but  by 
a  Majesty's  order  then  ;  on  Saint-Bartholomew  s  Eve  f— So  go  the 
steeple-bells  ;  which  Courtiers  can  discriminate.  Nay,  meseems, 
there  is  the  Townhall  itself ;  we  know  it  by  its  sound  !  YeS; 
Friends,  that  is  the  Townhall ;  discoursing  so^  to  the  Night. 
Miraculously ;  by  miraculous  metal-tongue  and  man's  arm : 
Marat  himself,  if  you  knew  it,  is  pulling  at  the  rope  there  !  Marat 
is  pulling  ;  Robespiere  lies  deep,  invisible  for  the  next  forty  hours  ; 
and  some  men  have  heart,  and  some  have  as  good  as  none,  and 
not  even  frenzy  will  give  them  any. 

What  struggling  confusfon,  as  the  issue  slowly  draws  on  ;  and 
the  doubtful  Hour,  with  pain  and  blind  struggle,  brings  forth  its 
Certainty,  never  to  be  abolished  ! — The  Full-power  Delegates, 
three  from  each  Section,  a  Hundred  and  forty-four  in  all,  got 
gathered  at  the  Townhall,  about  midnight.  Mandat's  Squadron, 
stationed  there,  did  not  hinder  their  entering  :  are  they  not  the 
'  Central  Committee  of  the  Sections  '  who  sit  here  usually  ;  though 
in  greater  number  to-night  They  are  there  :  presided  by  Con- 
fusion, Irresolution,  and  the  Clack  of  Tongues.  Swift  scouts  fly  ; 
Rumour  buzzes,  of  black  Courtiers,  red  Swiss,  of  Mandat  and  his 
Squadrons  that  shall  charge.  Better  put  off  the  Insurrection? 
Yes,  put  if  off.  Ha,  liark  !  Saint-Antoine  booming  out  eloquent 
tocsin,  of  its  own  accord  ! — Friends,  no  :  ye  cannot  put  oft'  the 
Insurrection  ;  but  must  put  it  on,  and  live  with  it,  or  die  with  it. 

Swift  now,  therefore  :  let  these  actual  Old  Municipals,  on  sight 
of  the  Full-powers,  and  mandate  of  the  Sovereign  elective  People, 
lay  down  their  functions  ;  and  this  New  Hundred  and  forty-four 
take  them  up  !  Will  ye  nill  ye,  worthy  Old  Municipals,  ye  must 
go.  Nay  is  it  not  a  happiness  for  many  a  Municipal  that  he  can 
wash  his  hands  of  such  a  business  ;  and  sit  there  paralyzed,  unac- 
*  Rcjederer,  ubi  bupra.  f  24th  August.  1572. 


THE  STEEPLES  Al  MIDNIGHT. 


20I 


countable,  till  the  Hour  do  bring  forth  ;  or  even  go  home  tc  his 
night's  rest  ?  Two  only  of  the  Old,  or  at  most  three,  we  retain 
Mayor  Petion,  for  the  present  walking  in  the  Tuileries  ;  Procureur 
Manuel ;  Procureur  Substitute  Danton,  invisible  Atlas  of  the 
whole.  And  so,  with  our  Hundred  and  forty-four,  among  whom 
are  a  Tocsin-Huguenin,  a  Billaud,  a  Chaumette ;  and  Editor- 
Talliens,  and  Fabre  d'Eglantines,  Sergents,  Panises  ;  and  in  brief, 
either  emergent,  or  else  emerged  and  full-blown,  the  entire  Flower 
of  unlimited  Patriotism  :  have  we  not,  as  by  magic,  made  a  New- 
Municipality  ;  ready  to  act  in  the  unlimited  manner  ;  and  declare 
itself  roundly,  '  in  a  State  of  Insurrection  !  '—-First  of  all,  then,  be 
Commandant  Mandat  sent  for,  v/ith  that  Mayor's-Order  of  his  ; 
also  let  the  New  Municipals  visit  those  Squadrons  that  were  to 
charge  ;  and  let  the  stormbell  ring  its  loudest ; — and,  on  the  whole. 
Forward,  ye  Hundred  and  forty-four;  retreat  is  now  none  for 
you  ! 

Reader,  fancy  not,  in  thy  languid  way,  that  Insurrection  is  easy. 
Insurrection  is  difficult  :  each  individual  uncertain  even  of  his 
next  neighbour  ;  totally  uncertain  of  his  distant  neighbours,  what 
strength  is  with  him,  what  strength  is  against  him  ;  certain  only 
that,  in  case  of  failure,  his  individual  portion  is  the  gallows  !  Eight 
hundred  thousand  heads,  and  in  each  of  them  a  separate  estimate 
of  these  uncertainties,  a  separate  theorem  of  action  conformable  to 
that  :  out  of  so  many  uncertainties,  does  the  certainty,  and  inevit- 
able net-result  never  to  be  abolished,  go  on,  at  all  moments,  body- 
ing itself  forth ;— leading  thee  also  towards  civic-crowns  or  an 
ignominious  noose. 

Could  the  Reader  take  an  Asmodeus'  Flight,  and  waving  open 
all  roofs  and  privacies,  look  down  from  the  Tower  of  Notre  Dame, 
what  a  Paris  were  it !  Of  treble-voice  whimperings  or  vehemence, 
of  bass-voice  growlings,  dubitations  ;  Courage  screwing  itself  to 
desperate  defiance ;  Cowardice  trembling  silent  within  barred 
doors  ;— and  all  round,  Dulness  calmly  snoring  ;  for  much  Dul- 
ness,  flung  on  its  mattresses,  always  sleeps.  O,  between  the 
clangour  of  these  high-storming  tocsins  and  that  snore  of  Dulness, 
what  a  gamut  :  of  trepidation,  excitation,  desperation  ;  and  above 
it  mere  Doubt,  Danger,  Atropos  and  Nox  ! 

Fighters  of  this  section  draw  out  ;  hear  that  the  next  Section 
does  not ;  and  thereupon  draw  in.  Saint-Antoine,  on  this  side  the 
River,  is  uncertain  of  Saint-Marceau  on  that.  Steady  only  is  the 
snore  of  Dulness,  are  the  Six  Hundred  Marseillese  that  know  how 
to  die  !  Mandat,  twice  summoned  to  the  Townhall,  has  not  come. 
Scouts  fly  incessant,  in  distracted  haste  ;  and  the  many-whispering 
voices  of  Rumour.  Theroigne  and  unofficial  Patriots  flit,  dim- 
visible,  exploratory,  far  and  wide  ;  like  Night-birds  on  the  wing. 
Of  Nationals  som.e  Three  thousand  have  foflovved  Mandat  and  his 
generale  ;  the  rest  foUov/  each  his  own  theorem  of  the  uncertainties: 
theorem,  that  one  should  march  rather  with  Saint-Antoine  ;  in- 
numerable theorems,  that  in  such  a  case  the  wholesomest  were 
sleep.  And  so  the  drums  beat,  in  made  fits,  and  the  stormbells 
*  Section  Document^  Townhall  Documents  {Hist.  ParL  ubi  supr^). 
VOL,  il.  H  * 


262 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


peal.  Saint- Antoine  itself  does  but  draw  out  and  draw  in  ;  Com» 
mandant  Santerre,  over  there,  cannot  believe  that  the  Marseillese 
and  Saint  Marceau  will  march.  Thou  laggard  sonorous  Beer-vat, 
with  the  loud  voice  and  timber  head,  is  it  time  now  to  palter  ? 
Alsatian  Westermann  clutches  him  by  the  throat  with  drawn 
sabre  :  whereupon  the  Timber-headed  iDelieves.  In  this  manner 
ivanes  the  slow  night ;  amid  fret,  uncertainty  and  tocsin ;  all  men's 
humour  rising  to  the  hysterical  pitch  ;  and  nothing  done. 

However,  Mandat,  on  the  third  summons,  does  come  ; — come, 
unguarded  ;  astonished  to  find  the  Municipality  new.  They  ques- 
tion him  straitly  on  that  Mayor's-Order  to  resist  force  by  force  ; 
on  that  strategic  scheme  of  cutting  Saint-Antoine  in  two  halves  : 
he  answers  what  he  can  :  they  think^  it  were  right  to  send  this 
strategic  National  Commandant  to  the  Abbaye  Prison,  and  let  a 
Court  of  Law  decide  on  him.  Alas,  a  Court  of  Law,  not  Book-Law 
but  primeval  Club- Law,  crowds  and  jostles  out  of  doors  ;  all  fretted 
to  the  hysterical  pitch  ;  cruel  as  Fear,  blind  as  the  Night  :  such 
Court  of  Law,  and  no  other,  clutches  poor  Mandat  from  his  con- 
stables ;  beats  him  down,  massacres  him,  on  the  steps  of  the 
Townhall.  Look  to  it,  ye  new  Municipals  ;  ye  People,  in  a  state 
of  Insurrection  !  Blood  is  shed,  blood  must  be  atiswered  for  ; — 
alas,  in  such  hysterical  humour,  more  blood  will  flow  :  for  it  is  as 
with  the  Tiger  in  that ;  he  has  only  to  begin. 

Seventeen  Individuals  have  been  seized  in  the  Champs  Ely  sees, 
by  exploratory  Patriotism  :  they  flitting  dim-visible,  by  it  flitting 
dim-visible.  Ye  have  pistols,  rapiers,  ye  Seventeen  1  One  of 
those  accursed  '  false  Patrols  ; '  that  go  marauding,  with  Anti- 
National  intent ;  seeking  what  they  can  spy,  what  they  can  spill 
The  Seventeen  are  carried  to  the  nearest  Guard-house  ;  eleven  of 
them  escape  by  back  passages.  "How  is  this?"  Demoiselle 
Theroigne  appears  at  the  front  entrance,  with  sabre,  pistols,  and  a 
train  ;  denounces  treasonous  connivance  ;  demands,  seizes,  the 
remaining  six,  that  the  justice  of  the  People  be  not  trifled  with. 
Of  which  six  two  more  escape  in  the  whirl  and  debate  of  the  Club- 
Law  Court  ;  the  last  unhappy  Four  are  massacred,  as  Mandat 
was  :  Two  Ex-Bodyguards  ;  one  dissipated  Abbe  ;  one  Royahst 
Pamphleteer,  Sulleau,  known  to  us  by  name.  Able  Editor,  and  wit 
of  all  work.  Poor  Sulleau  :  his  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  brisk 
Placard-Journals  (for  he  was  an  able  man)  come  to  Einis^  in  this 
manner ;  and  questionable  jesting  issues  suddenly  in  horrid 
earnest !  Such  doings  usher  in  the  dawn  of  the  Tenth  of 
August,  1792. 

Or  think  what  a  night  the  poor  National  Assembly  has  had  : 
sitting  there,  *  in  great  paucity,'  attempting  to  debate  ;— -quivering 
and  shivering  ;  pointing  towards  all  the  thirty-two  azimuths  at 
once,  as  the  magnet-needle  does  when  thunderstorm  is  in  the  air  ! 
If  the  Insurrection  come?  If  it  come,  and  fail?  Alas,  in  that 
case,  may  not  black  Courtiers  with  blunderbusses,  red  Swiss  with 
bayonets  rush  over,  flushed  with  victory,  and  ask  us  :  Thou  unde- 
finable,  waterlogged,  self-distractive,  self-destructive  Legistative, 
what  dost  thou  here  unsimkf—Oi^^wx^  the  poor  National  Guards, 


THE  STEEPLES  AT  MIDNIGHT  203 


bivouacking  '  in  temporary  tents '  there;  or  standing  ranked,  shifting 
from  leg  to  leg,  all  through  the  weary  night  ;  New  tricolor  Munici- 
pals ordering  one  thing,  old  Mandat  Captains  ordering  another  ! 
Procuerer  Manuel  has  ordered  the  cannons  to  be  withdrawn  from 
the  Pont  Neuf ;  none  ventured  to  disobey  him.  It  seemed  certain, 
then,  the  old  Staff  so  long  doomed  has  finally  been  dissolved,  in 
these  hours  ;  and  Mandat  is  not  our  Commandant  now,  but  San- 
terre?  Yes,  friends:  Santerre  henceforth, — surely  Mandat  no 
more  !  The  Squadrons  that  were  to  charge  see  nothing  certain, 
except  that  they  are  cold,  hungry,  worn  down  with  watching  ;  that 
it  were  sad  to  slay  French  brothers  ;  sadder  to  be  slain  by  them. 
Without  the  Tuileries  Circuit,  and  within  it,  sour  uncertain  humour 
sways  these  men  :  only  the  red  Swiss  stand  steadfast.  Them  there 
officers  refresh  now  with  a  slight  wetting  of  brandy  ;  wherein  the 
Nationals,  too  far  gone  for  brandy,  refuse  to  participate. 

King  Louis  meanwhile  had  laid  him  down  for  a  httle  sleep  :  his 
wig  when  he  reappeared  had  lost  the  powder  on  one  side.*  Old 
Marshal  Maille  and  the  gentlemen  in  black  rise  always  in  spirits, 
as  the  Insurrection  does  not  rise  :  there  goes  a  witty  saying  now, 
"  Le  tocsin  ne  rend pnsP  The  tocsin,  like  a  dry  milk-cow,  does  not 
yield.  For  the  rest,  could  one  not  proclaim  Martial  Law  ?  Not 
easily  ;  for  now,  it  seems,  Mayor  Petion  is  gone.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  Interim  Commandant,  poor  Mandat  being  off,  '  to  the 

*  H6tel-de-Ville,^  complains  that  so  many  Courtiers  in  black  en- 
cumber the  service,  are  an  eyesorrow  to  the  National  Guards.  To 
which  her  Majesty  answers  with  emphasis,  That  they  will  obey 
all,  will  suffer  all,  that  they  are  sure  men  these. 

And  so  the  yellow  lamplight  dies  out  in  the  gray  of  morning,  in 
the  King's  Palace,  over  such  a  scene.  Scene  of  jostling,  elbowing, 
of  confusion,  and  indeed  conclusion,  for  the  thing  is  about  to  end. 
Roederer  and  spectral  Ministers  jostle  in  the  press  ;  consult,  in 
side  cabinets,  with  one  or  with  both  Majesties.  Sister  Elizabeth 
takes  the  Queen  to  the  window  :  "  Sister,  see  what  a  beautiful  sun- 
rise," right  over  the  Jacobins  Church  and  that  quarter  !  How 
happy  if  the  tocsin  did  not  yield  !  But  Mandat  returns  not  ; 
Petion  is  gone  :  much  hangs  wavering  in  the  invisible  Balance. 
About  five  o'clock,  there  rises  from  the  Garden  a  kind  of  sound  ; 
as  of  a  shout  which  had  become  a  howl,  and  instead  of  Vive  le  Roi 
were  ending  in  Vive  la  Nation.  "  Mon  Dieii  I  "  ejaculates  a  spec- 
tral Minister,  "what  is  he  doing  down  there?"  For  it  is  his- 
Majesty,  gone  down  with  old  Marshal  Maille  to  review  the  troops; 
and  the  nearest  companies  of  them  answer  so.  Her  Majesty  bursts 
into  a  stream  of  tears.  Yet  on  stepping  from  the  cabinet  her  eyes 
are  dry  and  calm,  her  look  is  even  cheerful.    '  The  Austrian  lip, 

*  and  the  aquiliiie  nose,  fuller  than  usual,  gave  to  her  countenance,' 
says  Peltier, ;  '  something  of  Majesty,  which  they  that  did  not  see 

*  her  in  these  moments  cannot  well  have  an  idea  of'  O  thou 
Theresa's  Diuighter  ! 


j  *  Roederer,  ubi  supr^. 

I 


t  In  Toulongeon,  ii.  241. 


204 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


King* Louis  enters,  much  blown  with  the  fatigue  ;  but  for  the 
rest  with  his  old  air  of  indifference.  Of  all  hopes  now  surely  the 
joyfullest  were,  that  the  tocsin  did  not  yield. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  SWISS. 

Unhappy  Friends,  the  tocsin  does  yield,  has  yielded  !  Lo  ye, 
how  with  the  first  sun-rays  its  Ocean-tide,  of  pikes  and  fusils,  flows 
glittering  from  the  far  East ; — immeasurable  ;  born  of  the  Night  I 
They  march  there,  the  grim  host ;  Saint- Antoine  on  this  side  of 
the  River ;  Saint-Marceau  on  that,  the  black-browed  Marseillese' 
in  the  van.  With  hum,  and  grim  murmur,  far-heard ;  like  the 
Ocean-tide,  as  we  say  :  drawn  up,  as  if  by  Luna  and  Influences, 
from  the  great  Deep  of  \Vaters,  they  roll  gleaming  on;  no  King, 
Canute  or  Louis,  can  bid  them  roll  back  Wide-eddying  side- 
currents,  of  onlookers,  roll  hither  and  thither,  unarmed,  not  voice- 
less ;  they,  the  steel  host,  roll  on.  New- Commandant  Santerre,, 
indeed,  has  taken  seat  at  the  Townhall ;  rests  there,  in  his  half- ' 
way-house.  Alsatian  Westermann,  with  flashing  sabre,  does  not 
rest  ;  nor  the  Sections,  nor  the  Marseillese,  nor  Demoi^lle  The- ' 
roigne  ;  but  roll  continually  on. 

And  now,  where  are  Mandates  Squadrons  that  v»^ere  to  charge? 
Not  a  Squadron  of  them  stirs  :  or  they  stir  j  .  the  wrong  direction, 
out  of  the  way  ;  their  officers  glad  that  they  will  even  do  that.  It 
is  to  this  hour  uncertain  whether  the  Squadron  on  the  Pont  Neuf 
made  the  shadow  of  resistance,  or  did  not  m  ke  the  shadow  : 
enough,  the  blackbrowed  Marseillese,  and  Saint-Marceau  follow- 
ing them,  do  cross  without  let ;  do  cross,  in  sure  hope  now  of  Saint- 
Antoine  and  the  rest  ;  do  billow  on,  towards  the  Tuileries,  where 
their  errand  is.  The  Tuileries,  at  sound  of  them,  rustles  respon- 
sive :  the  red  Swiss  look  to  their  priming ;  Courtiers  in  black  draw 
their  blunderbusses,  rapiers,  poniards,  some  have  even  fire-shovels; 
every  man  his  weapon  of  war. 

Judge  if,  in  these  circumstances.  Syndic;  Roederer  felt  easy ! 
Will  the  kind  Heavens  open  no  middle-course  of  refuge  for  a  poor 
Syndic  who  halts  between  two  }  If  indeed  his  Majesty  would  con- 
sent to  go  over  to  the  Assembly  !  His  Majesty,  above  all  her 
Majesty,  cannot  agree  to  that.  Did  her  Majesty  answer  the  pro- 
posal with  a  "  Fi  done; did  she  say  even,  she  would  be  nailed  to 
the  walls  sooner?  Apparently  not.  It  is  written  also  that  she 
offered  the  King  a  pistol ;  saying,  Now  or  else  never  was  the  time 
to  shew  himself  Close  eye-witnesses  did  not  see  it,  nor  do  we. 
That  saw  only  that  she  was  quccnlikc,  quiet  ;  that  she  argued  not,  | 
upbraided  not,  with  the  Inexorable  ;  but,  like  Caesar  in  the  Capi- 
tol, wrap})cd  her  mantle,  as  it  beseems  Oueens  and  Sons  of  Adam  | 
to  do.  But  thou,  O  Louis  !  of  what  stuff  art  thou  at  all  ?  Is  there 
no  stroke  in  thee,  then,  for  Life  and  Crown?    The  silliest  hunted  | 


J  HE  SWISS. 


205 


deer  dies  not  so.  Art  thou  the  languidest  of  all  mortals  ;  or  the 
mildest-minded  ?    Thou  art  the  worst- starred. 

The  tide  advances  ;  Syndic  Roederer's  and  all  men's  straits  grow 
straiter  and  straiten  Fremescent  clangor  comes  from  the  armed 
Nationals  in  the  Court ;  far  and  wide  is  the  infinite  hubbub  of 
tongues.  What  counsel  ?  And  the  tide  is  now  nigh  !  Messen- 
gers, forerunners  speak  hastily  through  the  outer  Grates  ;  hold 
parley  sitting  astride  the  walls.  Syndic  Roederer  goes  out  and 
comes  in.  Cannoneers  ask  him  :  Are  we  to  fire  against  the  people  1 
King's  Ministers  ask  him  :  Shall  the  King's  House  be  forced  ? 
Syndic  Roederer  has  a  hard  game  to  play.  He  speaks  to  the  Can- 
noneers with  eloquence,  with  fervour  ;  such  fervour  as  a  man  can, 
who  has  to  blow  hot  and  cold  in  one  breath.  Hot  and  cold,  O 
Rcederer  ?  We,  for  our  part,  cannot  live  a7id  die  !  The  Cannoneers, 
by  way  of  answer,  fling  down  their  linstocks.-- Think  of  this 
answer,  O  King  Louis,  and  King's  Ministers  :  and  take  a  poor 
Syndic's  safe  middle-course,  towards  the  Salle  de  Manege.  King 
Louis  sits,  his  hands  leant  on  his  knees,  body  bent  forward  ;  gazes 
for  a  space  fixedly  on  Syndic  Rcederer  ;  then  answers,  looking 
over  his  shoulder  to  the  Queen  :  Marchons  /  They  march  ;  King 
Louis,  Queen,  Sister  Elizabeth,  the  two  royal  children  and 
governess  :  these,  with  Syndic  Roederer,  and  Omcials  of  the  De- 
partment ;  amid  a  double  rank  of  National  Guards.  The  men 
with  blunderbusses,  the  steady  red  Swiss  gaze  mournfully,  reproach- 
fully ;  but  hear  only  these  words  from  Syndic  Roederer  :  "  The 
King  is  going  to  the  Assembly  ;  make  way."  It  has  struck  eight, 
on  all  clocks,  some  minutes  ago  :  the  King  has  left  the  Tuileries 
—for  ever. 

O  ye  stanch  Swiss,  ye  gallant  gentlemen  in  black,  for  what  a 
cause  are  ye  to  spend  and  be  spent  !  Look  out  from  the  western 
windows,  ye  may  see  King  Louis  placidly  hold  on  his  w^ay  ;  the 
poor  little  Prince  Royal  '  sportfully  kicking  the  fallen  leaves.' 
Fremescent  multitude  on  the  Terrace  of  the  Feuillants  w^hirls 
parallel  to  him  ;  one  man  in  it,  very  noisy,  with  a  long  pole  :  will 
they  not  obstruct  the  outer  Staircase,  and  back-entrance  of  the 
Salle,  when  it  comes  to  that  ?  King's  Gui?.rds  can  go  no  further 
than  the  bottom  step  there.  Lo,  Deputation  of  Legislators  come 
out ;  he  of  the  long  pole  is  stilled  by  oratory  ;  Assembly's  Guards 
join  themselves  to  King's  Guards,  and  all  may  mount  in  this  case 
of  necessity ;  the  outer  Staircase  is  free,  or  passable.  See, 
Royalty  ascends  ;  a  blue  Grenadier  lifts  the  poor  little  Prince 
Royal  from  the  press;  Royalty  has  entered  in.  Royalty* has 
vanished  for  ever  from  your  eyes. — And  ye  ?  Left  standing  there, 
amid  the  yawning  abysses,  and  earthquake  of  Insurrection  ;  with- 
out course ;  without  command  :  if  ye  perish  it  must  be  as  more 
than  martyrs,  as  martyrs  who  are  now  w^ithout  a  cause  !  The 
black  Courtiers  disappear  mostly  ;  through  such  issues  as  they 
can.  The  poor  Swiss  know  not  how  to  act :  one  duty  only  is 
:  clear  to  them,  that  of  standing  by  their  post ;  and  they  will  per- 
j  form  that. 

But  the  glittering  steel  tide  has  arrived ;  it  beats  now  against 

I 


2o6 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


the  Chateau  barriers,  and  eastern  Courts  ;  irresistible,  loud-surging 
far  and  wide  ; —breaks  in,  fills  the  Court  of  the  Carrousel,  black- 
browed  Marseillese  in  the  van.  King  Louis  gone,  say  you  ;  over 
to  the  Assembly  !  Well  and  good  :  but  till  the  Assenribly  pronounce 
Forfeiture  of  him,  v/hat  boots  it  ?  Our  post  is  in  that  Chateau  or 
stronghold  of  his  ;  there  till  then  must  we  continue.  Think,  ye 
stanch  Swiss,  whether  it  were  good  that  grim  murder  began,  and 
brothers  blasted  one  another  in  pieces  for  a  stone  edifice  ?— Poor 
Swiss  !  they  know  not  how  to  act  :  from  the  southern  windows, 
some  fling  cartridges,  in  sign  of  brotherhood  ;  on  the  eastern  outer 
staircase,  and  within  through  long  stairs  and  corridors,  they  stand 
firm-ranked,  peaceable  and  yet  refusing  to  stir.  Westermann 
speaks  to  them  in  Alsatian  German  ;  Marseillese  plead,  in  hot 
Provencal  speech  and  pantomime  ;  stunning  hubbub  pleads  and 
threatens,  infinite,  around.  The  Swiss  stand  fast,  peaceable  and 
yet  immovable  ;  red  granite  pier  in  that  waste-flashing  sea  of 
steel. 

Who  can  help  the  inevitable  issue  ;  Marseillese  and  all  France, 
on  this  side  ;  granite  Swiss  on  that  ?  The  pantomime  grows 
hotter  and  hotter;  Marseillese  sabres  flourishmg  by  of 
action  ;  the  Swiss  brow  also  clouding  itself,,  the  S-^viss  tl^unis.^ 
bringing  its  firelock  to  the  cock.  And  hark  !  high-thundering  i^bovc; 
all  the  din,  three  Marseillese  cannon  from  the  Carrousel,  pointed 
by  a  gunner  of  bad  aim,  come  rattling  over  the  roofs  !  Ye  Swisr , 
therefore  :  Fire!  The  Swiss  fire;  by  volley,  by  platoon,  in  rolling- 
fire  :  Marseillese  men  not  a  few,  and  '  a  tall  man  that  was  loudc:- 
*  than  any,'  lie  silent,  smashed,  upon  the  pavement;-  not  a  fev/  Mar- 
seillese, after  the  long  dusty  m.arch,  have  m.ade  lialt  here.  The 
Carrousel  is  void  ;  the  black  tide  recoihng  ;  'fugitives  rushing  as 
'far  as  Saint- Antoine before  they  stop.'  The  Cannoneers  without 
linstock  have  squatted  invisible,  and  left  their  cannon  ;  which  the 
Swiss  seize. 

Think  what  a  volley  :  reverberating  doomful  to  the  four  corners 
of  Paris,  and  through  all  hearts  ;  hkc  the  clang  of  Bellona's 
thongs  !  The  blackbrowed  Marseillese,  rallying  on  the  ins-tant, 
have  become  black  Demons  that  know  how  to  die.  Nor  is  Brest 
behind-hand  ;  nor  Alsatian  Westermann  ;  Demoiselle  Theroigne 
is  Sybil  Theroigne  :  Vengeance  Vietoire,  07t  la  viort !  From  all 
Patriot  artillery,  great  and  small  ;  from  Feuillants  Terrace,  and  all 
terraces  and  .places  of  the  widespread  Insurrectionary  sea, 
there  roars  responsive  a  red  whirlwind.  Blue  Nationals,  rnnkcd 
in  the  Garden,  cannot  help  their  muskets  going  off,  a^;aiust 
Foreign  murderers.  For  there  is  a  sympathy  in  muskets,  in  heaped 
masses  of  men  :  nay,  are  not  Mankind,  in  whole,  like  tuned  strings, 
and  a  cunning  infinite  concordance  and  unity  ;  you  smite  one 
siring,  and  all  strings  will  begin  sounding,-  in  soft  sp)here-mclody, 
m  deafening  screech  of  madness  !  Mounted  Gendarmerie  gallof 
distracted  ;  are  fired  on  merely  as  a  thing  running  ;  gallopinp 
over  the  l^ont  Royal,  or  one  knows  not  wiiitlier.  The  brain  of 
Paris,  brain-fevered  in  the  centre  of  it  here,  has  gone  mad ;  what 
you  call,  taken  fire. 


THE  SWISS.  207 


Behold,  the  fire  slackens  not  ;  nor  does  the  Swiss  rollmg-fire 
slacken  from  within.  Nay  they  clutched  cannon,  as  we  saw  :  and 
now,  from  the  other  side,  they  clutch  three  pieces  more  ;  alas, 
cannon  without  hnstock ;  nor  will  the  steel-and-flint  answer, 
though  they  try  it  *  Had  it  chanced  to  answer  !  Patriot  on- 
lookers  have  their  misgivings;  one  strangest  Patriot;  onlooker 
thinks  that  the  Swiss,  had  they  a  commander,  would  beat.  Me  is 
a  man  not  unqualified  to  judge;  the  name  of  him  is  JNapoleon 
Buonaparte.t  And  onlookers,  and  women,  stand  gazing,  and  the 
witty  Dr.  Moore  of  Glasgow  among  them,  on  the  other  side  o  the 
River  :  cannon  rush  rumbhng  past  them  ;  pause  on  the  Pont 
Royal  ;  belch  out  their  iron  entrails  there,  against  the  luileries  ; 
and  at  everv  new  belch,  the  women  and  onlookers  shout  and  clap 
hands  J  City  of  all  the  Devils  !  In  remote  streets,  men  are 
drinking  breakfast-coffee  ;  following  their  affairs  ;  with  a  start 
now  and  then,  as  some  dull  echo  reverberates  a  note  louder.  And 
here  ^  Marseillese  fall  w^ounded  ;  but  Barbaroux  has  surgeons  ; 
Barbaroux  is  close  by,  managing,  though  underhand,  and  under 
cover  Marseillese  fall  death-struck;  hequeath  their  firelock, 
specify  in  which  pocket  are  the  cartridges  ;  and  die,  murmuring, 
"Revenge  me,  Revenge  thy  country!"  Brest  Federe  Officers 
galloping  in  red  coats,  are  shot  as  Swiss.  Lo  you,  the  Carrousel 
has  burst  into  flame  !— Paris  Pandemonium  !  Nay  the  poor  City, 
as  we  said,  is  in  fever-fit  and  convulsion  ;  such  crisis  has  lasted 
for  the  space  of  some  half  hour. 

But  what  is  this  that,  with  Legislative  Insignia,  ventures  through 
the  hubbub  and  death-hail,  from  the  back-entrance  of  the  Manege  ? 
Towards  the  Tuileries  and  Swdss  ;  written  Order  from  his  Majesty 
to  cease  firing  !  O  ye  hapless  Swiss,  why  was  there  no  order  not 
to  begin  it  ?  Gladly  would  the  Swiss  cease  firing  :  but  who  will 
bid  mad  Insurrection  cease  firing?  To  Insurrection  you  cannot 
speak  ;  neither  can  it,  hydra-headed,  hear.  The  dead  and  dying, 
by  the  hundred,  lie  all  around  ;  are  borne  bleeding  through  the 
streets,  towards  help  ;  the  sight  of  them,  like  a  torch  of  the  Funes 
kindling  Madness.  Patriot  Paris  roars  ;  as  the  bear  bereaved  ot 
her  whelps.  On,  ye  Patriots  :  vengeance  !  victory  or  death  . 
There  are  men  seen,  w^ho  rush  on,  armed  only  with  walking-sticks.§ 
Terror  and  Fury  rule  the  hour. 

The  Swiss,  pressed  on  from  without,  paralyzed  from  withm, 
have  ceased  to  shoot ;  but  not  to  be  shot.  What  shall  thev  do  ? 
Desperate  is  the  moment.  SheUer  or  instant  death  :  yet  How 
Where  ?  One  party  flies  out  by  the  Rue  de  \  Echelle  ;  is  destroyed 
utterly,  'en  entier:  A  second,  by  the  other  side,  throws  itself  into 
the  Garden  ;  '  hurrying  across  a  keen  fusillade  : '  rushes  suppliant 
into  the  National  Assembly  ;  finds  pity  and  refuge  m  the  back 
benches  there.    The  third,  and  largest,  darts  out  in  column,  three 

Deux  Amis,  viii.  179-88. 
t  See  Hist.  Pari.  (xvii.         Las  Cases,  &c.  n  •  ^ 

t  Moore,  Journal  during  a  Residence  in  France  (Dublin,  1793)^  20. 
§  Hist.  Pari,  ubi  supra.    Rapport  du  Capitaine  des  Canonttiers,  Rapp$ft 
dil  Commandant,  &c.  (Ibid:  xvii.  300-18). 


i 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


hundred  strong,  towards  the  Champs  Elysees  :  Ah,  could  we  but 
reach  Courbevoye,  where  other  Swiss  are  !  Wo  !  see,  in  such 
fusillade  the  column  '  soon  breaks  itself  by  diversity  of  opinion,' 
into  distracted  segments,  this  way  and  that ; — to  escape  in  holes,  \ 
to  die  fighting  from  street  to  street.  The  firing  and  murdering  | 
will  not  cease  ;  not  yet  for  long.  The  red  Porters  of  Hotels  are  j 
shot  at,  be  they  Suisse  by  nature,  or  Suisse  only  in  name.  The  | 
very  Firemen,  who  pump  and  labour  on  that  smoking  Carrousel  i 
are  shot  at ;  why  should  the  Carrousel  nol  burn  ?  Some  Swiss  j 
take  refuge  in  private  houses  ;  find  that  mercy  too  does  still  dwell  | 
in  the  heart  of  man.  The  brave  Marseillese  are  merciful,  late  so  j 
wroth  ;  and  labour  to  save.  Journalist  Gorsas  pleads  hard  with  j 
enfuriated  groups.  Clemence,  the  Wine-merchant,  stumbles  for-  I 
ward  to  the  Bar  of  the  Assembly,  a  rescued  Swiss  in  his  hand  \  j 
tells  passionately  how  he  rescued  him  with  pain  and  peril,  how  he  * 
will  henceforth  support  him,  being  childless  himself ;  and  falls  a  \ 
swoon  round  the  poor  Swiss's  neck  :  amid  plaudits.  But  the  mosf  '  ■ 
are  butchered,  and  even  mangled.  Fifty  (some  say  Fourscore)  | 
were  marched  as  prisoners,  by  National  Guards,  to  the  Hotel-de-  i 
Ville  :  the  ferocious  people  bursts  through  on  them,  in  the  Place  i 
de  Greve  ;  massacres  them  to  the  last  man.  '  O  Peuple^  envy  of  \ 
*  the  universe  ! '    Petcple,  in  mad  Gaelic  effervescence  ! 

Surely  few  things  in  the  history  of  carnage  are  painfuller.    W^hat,  j 
ineffaceable  red  streak,  flickering  so  sad  in  the  memory,  is  that,  of  i 
this  poor  column  of  red  Swiss  '  breaking  itself  in  the  confusion  ol ' 
'  opinions  ; '  dispersing,  into  blackness  and  death  !    Honour  to' 
you,  l^rave  men  ;   honourable  pity,  through  long  times !  Not; 
martyrs  were  ye ;  and  yet  almost  more.    He  was  no  King  of  yours,! 
this  Louis  ;  and  he  forsook  you  like  a  King  of  shreds  ajid  patches 
ye  were  but  sold  to  him  for  some  poor  sixpence  a-day  ;  yet  would ' 
ye  work  for  your  wages,  keep  your  plighted  word.    The  work  now 
was  to  die  ;  and  ye  did  it.    Honour  to  you,  O  Kinsmen  ;  and  may 
the  old  Deutsch  Biederheit  and  Tapferkeit,  and  Valour  which  is 
Wo7^th  and  T7uth^  be  they  Swiss,  be  they  Saxon,  fail  in  no  age! 
Not  bastards  ;  true-born  were  these  men  ;  sons  of  the  men  of 
Sempach,  of  Murten,  who  knelt,  but  not  to  thee,  O  Burgundy  !— 
Let  the  traveller,  as  he  passes  through  Lucerne,  turn  aside  to  look 
a  little  at  their  monumental  Lion  ;  not  for  Thorwaldsen's  sake 
alone.    Hewn  out  of  living  rock,  the  Figure  rests  there,  by  the  still 
Lake-waters,  in  lullaby  of  distant-tinkling  rance-des-vaches,  the 
granite  Mountains  dumbly  keeping  watch  all  round  ;  and^,  though 
inanimate,  speaks. 


CHAPTER  VHL 

CONS^riTUTlON  BURST  IN  PIECES. 

Thus  is  the  Tenth  of  August  won  and  lor,t.  Patriotism  reckon^! 
its  slain  by  thousand  on  thousand,  so  deadly  was  the  Swiss  fire 


CONSTITUTION  BURST  IN  PIECES. 


from  these  windows  ;  but  will  finally  reduce  them  to  some  Twelve 
hundred.  No  child's  play  was  it  ; — nor  is  it !  Till  two  in  the  after- 
noon the  massacring,  the  breaking  and  the  burning  has  not  ended  ; 
nor  the  loose  Bedlam  shut  itself  again. 

How  deluges  of  frantic  Sansculottism  roared  through  all  pas- 
sages of  this  Tuileries,  ruthless  in  vengeance,  how  the  Valets  were 
butchered,  hewn  down  ;  and  Dame  Campan  saw  the  Marseilles 
sabre  flash  over  her"  head,  but  the  Blackbrowed  said,  "  Va-t-en, 
Get  thee  gone,"  and  flung  her  from  him  unstruck      how  in  the 
cellars  wine-bottles  were  broken,  wine-butts  were  staved  in  and 
1  drunk ;  and,  upwards  to  the  very  garrets,  all  windows  tumbled  out 
I  their  precious  royal  furnitures  ;   and.  with  gold  mirrors,  velvet 
I  curtains,  down  of  ript  feather-beds,  and  dead  bodies  of  men,  the 
\  Tuileries  was  like  no  Garden  of  the  Earth  : — all  this  let  him  who 
i  has  a  taste  for  it  see  amply  in  Mercier,  in  acrid  Montgaiflard,  or 
Beaulieu  of  the  Deux  Amis,    A  hundred  and  eighty  bodies  of 
Swiss  lie  piled  there  ;  naked,  unremoved  till  the  second  day. 
Patriotism  has  torn  their  red  coats  into  snips  ;  and  marches  with 
I  themi  at  the  Pike's  point :  the  ghastly  bare  corpses  lie  there,  under 
the  sun  and  under  the  stars  ;  the  curious  of  both  sexes  crowding 
to  look.    Which  let  not  us  do.    Above  a  hundred  carts  heaped 
with  Dead  fare  towards  the  Cemetery  of  Sainte-Madeleine  :  be- 
wailed, bewept ;  for  all  had  kindred,  all  had  mothers,  if  not  here, 
then  there.    It  is  one  of  those  Carnage-fields,  such  as  you  read  of 
by  the  name  '  Glorious  Victory,'  brought  home  in  this  case  to  one's 
own  door. 

But  the  blackbrowed  Marseillese  have  struck  down  the  Tyrant 
of  the  Chateau.    He  is  struck  down  ;  low,  and  hardly  to  rise. 

!  What  a  moment  for  an  august  Legislative  was  that  when  the 
Hereditary  Representative  entered,  under  such  circumstances  ; 
and  the  Grenadier,  carrying  the  little  Prince  Royal  out  of  the 
Press,  set  him  down  on  the  Assembly-table  !    A  moment, — which 

;  one  had  to  smooth  off  with  oratory  ;  waiting  what  the  next  would 
bring  !  Louis  said  few  words  :  "  He  was  come  hither  to  prevent 
a  great  crime  ;   he  believed  himself  safer  nowhere  than  here. ' 

[  President  Vergniaud  answered  briefly,  in  vague  oratory  as  we  say^ 

\  about  "  defence  of  Constituted  Authorities,"  about  dying  at  our 

[  post.f    And  so  King  Louis  sat  him  down  ;  first  here,  then  there  ; 

I' for  a  difficulty  arose,  the  Constitution  not  permitting  us  to  debate 
while  the  King  is  present  :   finally  he  settles  himself  with  his 

I  Family  in  the  *  Loge  of  the  Logographe '  in  the  Reporter's-Box  of 
a  Journalist  :  which  is  beyond  the  enchanted  Constitutional  Cir- 

[  cuit,  separated  from  it  by  a  rail.    To  such  Lodge  of  the  Logo- 

!  graphe,  measuring  some  ten  feet  square,  with  a  small  closet  at 
the  entrance  of  it  behind,  is  the  King  of  broad  France  now 
limited  :  here  can  he  and  his  sit  pent,  under  the  eyes  of  the  world, 

1  or  retire  into  their  closet  at  intervals  ;  for  the  space  of  sixteen 
hours.    Such  quiet  peculiar  moment  has  the  Legislative  lived  to 

*  Campan,  ii,  c.  21.  f  MoJiiteu^,  Seance  du  10  Aout  1792. 


THE  MARSEILLESE. 


But  also  what  a  moment  was  that  other,  few  minutes  later,  when  1 
the  three  Marseiilese  cannon  went  off,  and  the  Swiss  rolling-fire  '> 
and  universal  thunder,  like  the  Crack  of  Doom,  began  to  rattle  !  . 
Honourable  Members  start  to  their  feet  ;  stray  bullets  singing 
epicedium  even  here,  shivering  in  with  window-glass  and  jingle.  . 
"  No,  this  is  our  post  ;  let  us  die  here  !"    They  sit  therefore,  like 
stone  Legislators.    But  may  not  the  Lodge  of  the  Logographc  be 
forced  from  bdiind  ?  '  Tear  down  the  railing  that  divides  it  from 
the  enclianted  Constitutional  Circuit !    l.^shers  tear  and  tug  ;  h'i: 
Majesty  himself  aiding  from  within  :   the   railing   gives   way : 
Majesty  and  Legislative  are  united  in  place,  unknown  Destin> 
hovering  over  both. 

Rattle,  and  again  rattle,  w^ent  the  thunder  ;  one  breathless  wide- 
eyed  messenger  rushing  in  after  another  :  King's  orders  to  the 
Swiss  went  out.  It  was  a  fearful  thunder;  but,  as  we  know,  ic 
ended.  Breathless  messengers,  fugitive  Swiss,  denunciatory 
Patriots,  trepidation  ;  finally  tripudiation  !— Before  four  o'clock 
much  has  come  and  gone. 

The  New  Municipals  have  come  and  gone ;  with  Three  Flags, 
Liberie^  Egaliie,  Patrie,  and  the  clang  of  vivats.    Vergniaud,  he 
who  as  President  few  hours  ago  talked  of  Dying  for  Constituted 
Authorities,  has  moved,  p   Committee-Reporter,  that  the  Heredi- 
tary Representatve  be  suspended;  that  a  National  Convention.  ^ 
do  forthwith  assemble  to  say  what  further!    An  able  Report  • 
whix:h  the  President  must  have  had  ready  in  his  pocket  ?    A  Pre-; 
sident,  in  such  cases,  must  have  much  ready,  and  yet  not  ready 
and  Janus-like  look  before  and  after.  \ 

King  Louis  listens  to  all;   retires  about  midnight  *  to  three 
Mittle  rooms  on  the  upper  floor  ; '  till  the  Luxembourg  be  prepared 
for  him,  and  '  the  safeguard  of  the  Nation.'    Safer  if  Brunswick 
were  once  here  !    Or,  alas,  not  so  safe  ?    Ye  hapless  discrowned 
heads  !    Crowds  came,  next  morning,  to  catch  a  gfimpse  of  them, 
in  their  three  upper  rooms.    Montgaillard  says  the  august  Cap- 
tives wore  an  air  of  cheerfulness,  even  of  gaiety  ;  that  the  Que 
and  Princess  Lamballe,  who  had  joined  her  over  night,  looked  o 
of  the  open  window,  ^  shook  powder  from  their  hair  on  the  people  . 
*  below,  and  laugi^ed.'*    He  is  an  acrid  distorted  man. 

For  the  rest,  one  may  guess  that  the  Legislative,  above  all  that 
the  New  Municipality  continues  busy.    Messengers,  Municipal  or 
Legislative,  and  swift  despatches  rush  off  to  all  corners  of  France  ; 
full  of  triumph,  blended  with  indignant  wail,  for  Twelve  hundred 
have  fallen.    France  sends  up  its  blended  shout  responsive  ;  the 
Tenth  of  August  shall  be  as  the  Fourteenth  of  July,  only  bloodier 
and  greater.    The  Court  has  conspired  t    Foot  Court  :  the  Con 
has  l)cen  vanquished  ;  nnd  will  have  both  the  scath  to  bear  ai 
the  scorn.    How  the  Statues  of  Kings  do  now  all  fall!  Bron/- 
Henri  himself,  though  he  wore  a  cockade  once,  jingles  down  froiii 
the  Pont  Neuf,  where  Patrie  floats  m  Dtuiger.    Much  more  does 
Louis  Fourteenth,  from  the  Place  Vend6me,  jingle  down  ;  and  i 
*  Montgaillard.  ii.  135-167.  1 


CONSTITUTION  BURST  IN  PIECES. 


211 


even  breaks  in  falling.  The  curious  can  remark,  written  on  his 
horse's  shoe  :  '  12  AoM  1692  ; '  a  Century  and  a  Day. 

The  Tenth  of  August  was  Friday.  The  week  is  not  done,  when 
our  old  Patriot  Ministry  is  recalled,  what  of  it  can  be  got  :  strict 
Roland,  Genevese  Claviere  ;  add  heavy  Monge  the  Mathema- 
tician, once  a  stone-hewer  ;  and,  for  Minister  of  Justice, — Danton 
'  led  hither,'  as  himself  says,  in  one  of  his  gigantic  figures,  *  through 
*  the  breach  of  Patriot  cannon  ! '  These,  under  Legislative  Com- 
mittees,  must  rule  the  wreck  as  they  can:  confusedly  enough  5 
with  an  old  Legislative  water-logged,  with  a  New  Municipality  so 
brisk.  But  National  Convention  will  get  itself  together  ;  and 
then  !  Without  delay,  however,  let  a  New  Jury-Court  and  Crimi- 
nal Tribunal  be  set  up  in  Paris,  to  try  the  crimes  and  conspiracies 
of  the  Tenth.  High  Court  of  Orleans  is  distant,  slow  :  the  blood 
of  the  Twelve  hundred  Patriots,  whatever  become  of  other  blood, 
shall  be  inquired  after.  Tremble,  ye  Criminals  and  Conspirators  ; 
the  Minister  of  Justice  is  Danton !  Robespierre  too,  after  the 
victory,  sits  in  the  New  Municipality;  insurrectionary  'impro- 
'  vised  Municipality,'  which  calls  itself  Council  General  of  the 
Commune. 

For  three  days  now,  Louis  and  his  Family  have  heard  the  Legis- 
lative Debates  in  the  Lodge  of  the  Logographe j  and  retired 
nightly  to  their  small  upper  rooms.  The  Luxembourg  and  safe- 
guard of  the  Nation  could  not  be  got  ready  :  nay,  it  seems  the 
Luxembourg  has  too  many  cellars  and  issues  ;  no  Municipality  can 
undertake  to  watch  it.  The  compact  Prison  of  the  Temple,  not 
so  elegant  indeed,  were  mucTi  safer.  To  the  Temple,  therefore  ! 
On  Monday,  13th  day  of  August  1792,  in  Mayor  Petion's  carriage, 
Louis  and  his  sad  suspended  Household,  fare  thither  ;  all  Paris 
out  to  look  at  them.  As  they  pass  through  the  Place  Vendome 
Louis  Fourteenth's  Statue  lies  broken  on  the  ground.  Petion  is 
afraid  tlie  Queen's  looks  may  be  thought  scornful,  and  produce 
provocation  ;  she  casts  down  her  eyes,  and  does  not  look  at  all. 
The  ^  press  is  prodigious,'  but  quiet  :  here  and  there,  it  shouts  Vive 
la  Nation;  but  for  most  part  gazes  in  silence.  French  Royalty' 
vanishes  within  the  gates  of  the  Temple  :  these  old  peaked  Towers, 
like  peaked  Extinguisher  or  Bonsoir^  do  cover  it  up  ; — from  which 
same  Towers,  poor  Jacques  Molay  and  his  Templars  were  burnt 
out,,  by  French  Royalty,  five  centuries  since.  Such  are  the  turns 
of  Fate  below.  Foreign  Ambassadors,  English  Lord  Gower  have 
all  demanded  passports  ;  are  driving  indignantly  towards  their 
respective  homes. 

So,  then,  the  Constitution  is  over  ?  For  ever  and  a  day  !  Gone 
is  that  wonder  of  the  Universe  ;  First  biennial  Parliament,  water- 
logged, waits  only  till  the  Convention  come  ;  and  will  then  sink  to 
endless  depths. 

One  can  guess  the  silent  rage  of  Old-Constituents,  Constitution- 
builders,  extinct  Feuillants,  men  who  thought  the  Constitution 
would  march  !  Lafayette  rises  to  the  altitude  of  the  situation  ;  at 
the  head  of  his  Army.    Legislative  Commissioners  are  posting 


THE  MARSEILLESE, 


towards  him  and  it,  on  the  Northern  Frontier,  to  congratulate  and 
perorate  :  he  orders  the  MunicipaHty  of  Sedan  to  arrest  these 
Commissioners,  and  keep  them  strictly  in  ward  as  Rebels,  till  he 
say  further.    The  Sedan  Municipals  obey. 

The  Sedan  Municipals  obey  :  but  the  Soldiers  of  the  Lafayette 
Army  The  Soldiers  of  the  Lafayette  Army  have,  as  all  Soldiers 
have,  a  kind  of  dim  feeling  that  they  themselves  are  Sansculottes 
in  buff  belts  ;  that  the  victory  of  the  Tenth  of  Aug^ust  is  also  a 
victory  for  them.  They  will  not  rise  and  follow  Lafayette  to  Paris  ; 
they  will  rise  and  send  him  thither  !  On  the  i8th,  which  is  but 
next  Saturday,  Lafayette,  with  some  two  or  three  indignant  Staff- 
officers,  one  of  whom  is  Old- Constituent  Alexandre  de  Lameth, 
having  first  put  his  Lines  in  v/hat  order  he  could, — rides  swiftly 
over  the  Marches,  towards  Holland.  Rides,  alas,  swiftly  into  the 
claws  of  Austrians  '  He,  long-wavering,  trembling  on  the  verga 
of  the  horizon,  has  set,  in  Olmutz  Dungeons  ;  this  History  knows^ 
him  no  more.  Adieu,  thou  Hero  of  two  worlds  ;  thinnest,  but  com- 
pact honour- worthy  man  !  Through  long  rough  night  of  captivity, 
through  other  tumults,  triumphs  and  changes,  thou  wilt  swing  well, 
^fast-anchored  to  the  Washington  Formula;'  and  be  the  Hero 
and  Perfect-character,  were  it  only  of  one  idea.  The  Sedan 
Municipals  repent  and  protest ;  the  Soldiers  shout  Vzve  la  Nation. 
Dumouriez  Polymetis,  from  his  Camp  at  Maulde^  sees  himself 
made  Commander  in  Chief. 

And,  O  Brunswick  !  what  sort  of  ^  military  execution '  wiH 
Paris  merit  now  1  Forward,  ye  well-drilled  exterminatory  men  ; 
with  your  artillery- waggons,  and  camp- kettles  jingling.  Forward,, 
tall  chivalrous  King  of  Prussia  ;  fanfaronading  Emigra  nts  and 
war-god  Broglie,  ^  for  some  consolation  to  mankind/  which  verily 
is  not  without  need  of  some. 


END  OF  THE  SECOND  VOLUME, 


THE  GUILLOTINE 


%xt\^^ii^'^'^po\kl  fie  mvm  mh  tmmer  auiuiber ; 
^iafur  fud)te  \)od}  nur  ^eber  am  ©nbe  fixr  jt^. 
SBtaft  bu  ^tele  befret'n,  jo  t^ag'  e§  ^ielen  bienen. 
SKie  gefa^rli^  ba§  jet;  U)Ulft  bu  e§  tt)tffen?  ^erjuc^'§  I 

©  0  e  t  ^  e. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL  m. 


BOOK  I 


September. 

CHAP. 

I.  The  Improvised  Commune 
II.  Danton  ..... 

III.  Dumouriez       .  ^  . 

IV.  September  in  Paris 

V.  A  Trilogy  .... 
VI.  The  Circular  .... 
VII.  September  in  Argonne 
VIIT.  Exeunt     .      o      .      .  . 


S 
13 
16 

IQ 

25 
30 
36 
43 


I.  The  Deliberative  . 
II.  The  Executive.- 

III.  Discrowned 

IV.  The  Lose  pays 

V.  Stretching  of  Formulas 

VI.  At  the  Bar 

^"11.  The  Tf£ree  Votings  . 

III.  Place  de  la  Revolution 


BOOK  II. 
Regicide, 


49 

61 
63 
67 
72 

77 


BOOK  III. 
The  Girondins. 


I.  Cau/se  and  Effect  . 
II.  CuIottic  and  Sansculottic 

III.  Ge  owing  shrill 

IV.  Faifherland  in  Danger  . 

V.  Sa^  SCULOTTISM  ACCOUTRED 

TiA  Traitor 
INj^^  ight 


VI. 
II. 
■ill 


IX, 


InTi  )eath-Grips 
E>;  U'nct  , 


82 
86 
90 
93 
99 
102 
105 
107 
III 


4 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  IV. 
Terror. 

I.  Charlotte  Corday   no 

II.  In  Civil  War   122 

III.  Retreat  of  the  Eleven   124 

IV.  O  Nature   "-^ 

V.  Sword  of  Sharpness       ,      .      .      •      •      •  Lii 

VI.  Risen  against  Tyrants  .      .      .      .      •      •  ' 

VII.  Marie- Antoinette   130 

VIII.  The  Twenty-two   ^   139 


BOOK  V. 
Terror  the  Oeder  of  the  Day. 


I.  Rushing  down  . 
II.  Death 

III.  Destruction 

IV.  Carmagnole  complete 
V.  Like  a  Thunder-Cloud 

VI.  Do  THY  Duty  , 
VII.  Flame-Picture  . 


142 

H5 
150 
156 
161 
164 
16$ 


BOOK  VI. 

Thermidor. 

I.  The  Gods  are  athirst  . 
II.  Danton,  No  weakness  . 

III.  The  Tumbrils  .... 

IV.  MUMBO-JUMBO  .... 

V.  The  Pr'isons  .... 
VI.  To  finish  the  Terror  . 
VII.  Go  down  to     ...  • 


BOOK  VII. 


VENDIilMI  Al  RE. 


I.  Decadent  . 
II.  La  Cap.arus 

III.  QUIBEKON  . 

IV.  Lion  not  dead . 
V.  Lion  sprawling  its  last 

VI.  Grilled  Herrings  . 
VIL  The  Whiff  of  Grapeshot 


THE 


FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


Vol.  III.— The  Guillotine. 


BOOK  FIRST. 

SEPTEMBER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  TTVIPROVISED  COMMUNE. 

Yf.  liave  roused  her,  then,  ye  Emigrants  and  Despots  of  the 
world  ;  France  is  roused  ;  Long  have  ye  been  lecturing  and  tutor- 
ing this  poor  Nation,  like  cruel  uncalled-for  pedagogues,  shaking 
over  her  your  ferulas  of  fire  and  steel  :  it  is  long  that  ye  have 
pricked  and  fillipped  and  affirighted  her,  there  as  she  sat  helpless 
in  her  dead  cerements  of  a  Constitution,  you  gathering  in  on  her 
from  all  lands,  with  your  armaments  and  plots,  your  invadings  and 
truculent  bullvings  ;— and  lo  now,  ye  have  pricked  her  to  the 
quick,  and  she  is  up,  and  her  blood  is  up.  The  dead  cerementQ 
are  rent  into  cobwebs,  and  she  fronts  you  in  that  terrible  strength 
of  Nature,  which  no  man  has  measured,  which  goes  dovm  to 
;  Madness  and  Tophet :  see  now  how  ye  will  deal  with  her  ! 

This  month  of  September,  1792,  which  has  become  one  of  the 
memorable  months  of  History,  presents  itself  under  two  most 
diverse  aspects  ;  all  of  black  on  the  one  side,  all  of  bright  on  the 
.  other.  Whatsoever  is  cruel  in  the  panic  frenzy  of  Twenty-five 
million  men,  whatsoever  is  great  in  the  simultaneous  death-, 
defiance  of  Twenty-five  million  men,  stand  here  in  abrupt  contrast, 
near  by  one  another.  As  indeed  is  usual  when  a  man,  how  much 
more  when  a  Nation  of  men,  is  hurled  suddenly  beyond  the  hmits. 
For  Nature,  as  green  as  she  looks,  rests  everywhere  on  dread 
foundations,  were  we  farther  down  ;  and  Pan,  to  whose  music  the 
Nymphs  dance,  has  a  cr}'  in  him  that  can  ckive  all  men  distracted. 
Very  frightful  it  is  when  a  Nation,  rending  asunder  its  Constitti* 


6  SEPTEMBER. 


tions  and  Regulations  which  were  grown  dead  cerements  for  it,  I 
becomes  /r^/^i^cendental  ;  and  must  now  seek  its  wild  way  through  j 
the  New,  Chaotic, — where  Force  is  not  yet  distinguished  into  \ 
Bidden  and  Forbidden,  but  Crime  and  Virtue  welter  unseparated,  i 
—in  that  domain  of  what  is  called  the  Passions  ;  of  what  we  call  ! 
the  Miracles  and  the  Portents  !     It  is  thus  that,  for  some  three  \ 
years  to  come,  we  are  lo  contemplate  France,  in  this  final  Third  ^ 
Volume  of  our  History.    Sansculottism  reigning  in  all  its  grandeur  • 
and  in  all  its  hideousness  :  the  Gospel  (Go'''s-Message)  of  Man's  ' 
Rights,  Man's  mights  or  strengths,  once  more  preached  irrefragably  ! 
abroad  ;  along  with  this,  and  still  louder  for  the  time,  the  fear- 
fullest  Devil's-Message  of  Man's  weaknesses  and  sins  ;— and  all  ; 
on  such  a  scale,  and  under  such  aspect  :  cloudy  '  death-birth  of  a  \ 
^  world  ; '  huge  smoke-cloud,  streaked  with  rays  as  of  heaven  on 
one  side  ;  girt  on  the  other  as  with  hell-fire  !     Flistory  tells  us  . 
many  things  :  but  for  the  last  thousand  years  and   nore,  what  \ 
thing  has  she  told  us  of  a  sor^  hke  this  ?    Wind:  therefore  let  us  > 
two,'0  Reader,  dwell  on  willingly,  for  a  little ;  and  from  its  endless 
significance  endeavour  to  extract  what  may,  in  present  circum- 
stances, be  adapted  for  us.  ^  , 
It  is  unfortunate,  though  very  natural,  that  the  history  of  this  . 
Period  has  so  generally  been  written  in  hysterics.    Exaggeration  ^ 
abounds,  execration,  wailing  ;  and,  on  the  v/hole,  darkness.  But 
thus  too,  wher  foul  old  Rome  had  to  be  swept  from  the  Earth,  and  \ 
those  Northmen,  and  other  horrid  sons  of  N  tare,  came  in,  < 
'swallowing  formulas'  as  the  French  now  do,  foul  old  Rome  , 
screamed  execrativel    her  loudest  ;  so  that,  the  true  shape  of  ; 
many  things  is  lost  for  us.    Attila's  Huns  had  arms  of  such  length  \ 
that  they  could  lift  i  stone  without  stooping.    Into  the  body  of  the 
poor  Tatars  execrativc  Roman  Histor.  intercalated  an  alphabetic  I 
letter  ;   and  so  they  con  Inue  ^artars,  of  fell  Tartarean  nature,  to  . 
this  day.    Here,  in  like  manner,  search  as  we  wiil  in  these  multi- 
form innumerable  French  Records,  darkness  too  frequently  covers,  \ 
or  sheer  distraction  bewilders.     One  finds  it  difficult  to  imagine 
that  the  Sun  shone  in  this  September  month,  as  he  docs  in  others. 
Nevertheless  it  is  an  indisput  ble  lact  that  the  Sun  did  shine;  and 
there  was  weather  and  work,— nay,  as  to  that,  very  bad  weather 
for  harvest  work  I    An  unlucky  Editor  may  do  his  utmost ;  arid 
after  all,  require  allowances. 

He  had  been  a  wise  Frenchman,  who,  looking,  close  at  hand,  on 
this  waste  aspect  of  a  France  all  stirring  and  whirling,  in  wnys  new, 
4mtried,  had  been  able  to  discern  where  the  cardinal  movement 
lay  ;  which  tendency  it  was  that  had  the  rule  and  primary  direc- 
tion of  it  then  1  But  at  forty-four  years'  distance,  it  is  different. 
To  all  men  now,  two  cardinal  movements  or  grand  tendencies,  in 
»hc  September  whirl,  have  become  discernible  enough  :  that 
stormfiil  effluence  towards  the  Fionncrs  ;  that  frantic  crowding 
towards  Townhouses  and  Council-ball--,  in  the  interior.  Wih' 
France  dashes,  in  desperate  death-defiance,  towards  the  P>ontier: 
to  defend  itself  from  foreign  Despots  \  crowds  towards  Townhall 


THU  IMPROVISED  COMMUNE. 


and  Election  Committee- rooms,  to  defend  itself  from  domestic 
Aristocrats.  Let  the  Reader  conceive  well  these  two  cardinal 
movements  ;  and  what  side-currents  and  endless  vortexes  might 
depend  on  these.  He  shall  judge  too,  whether  m  such  sudden 
wreckage  of  all  old  Authorities,  such  a  pair  of  cardinal  move- 
ments, half-frantic  in  th-nselves,  could  be  of  soft  nature?  As  m 
dry  Sahara,  when  the  winc>  waken,  and  lift  and  winnow  the  im- 
mensity of  sand  !  The  air  itself  (Travellers  say)  is  a  dim  sand-air; 
and  dimloomini?  through  it,  the  wonderfuilest  uncertain  colonnades 
of  Sand-PiUars"  rush  whirling  from  this  side  and  from  that,  like  so 
many  mad  Spinning-Dervishes,  of  a  hundred  feet  in  stature  ;  and 
dance  their  huge  Desert- waltz  th^re  !—  ■.  u 

Nevertheless  in  ail  human  movements,  were  they  but  a  aay  old, 
there  is  order,  or  the  beginning  of  order.  Consider  two  things  in 
this  Sahara- waltz  of  the  French  Twenty-five  millions  ;  or  rather 
one  thing,  and  one  hope  of  a  thing  :  the  Commune  (Municipality) 
of  Paris;  which  is  already  here  ;  the  xNational  Convention,  which 
shall  in  few  weeks  be  h<:re.  The  Insurrectionary  Commune, 
which  improvising  itself  on  the  eve  of  the  Tenth  of  August,  worked 
this  ever-memorable  Deliverance  by  explosion,  must  needs  rule 
over  it  —till  the  Convention  meet.  This  Commune,  which  they 
may  well  call  a  spontaneous  or  '  improvised'  Comm.une,  is,  tor  the 
present,  sovereign  of  France.  The  Legislative,  deriving  its 
authority  from  the  Old,  how  can  it  now  have  authority  when  the 
Old  is  exploded  by  insurrectio  n.  ?  As  a  floating  piece  of  wreck, 
certain  things,  persons  ana  interests  may  still  cleave  to  it  ;  volun- 
teer defenders,  riflemen  "  pikemen  in  green  uniform,  or  red  night- 
cap (of  bonnet  mige)..  defile  before  it  daily,  just  on  the  wing 
towards  Brunswick  ;  with  the  brandishing  ot  arms  ;  a  ways  wth 
\  some  touch  of  Leonidas-eloquence,  often  with  a  fire  of  daring  that 
threatens  to  outherod  Herod, -  the  Galleries,  '  especially  he 
'  Ladies,  never  done  with  applaudmg.'*  Addresses  of  this  or  the 
like  sort  can  be  received  and  answered,  m  the  hearing  ot  all 
France  ■  the  Salle  de  Manege  is  still  useful  as  a  place  of  proclama- 
tion For  which  use,  indeed,  it  now  chiefly  serves.  Vergniaud 
delivers  spirit-stirring  orations  ;  bin  always  ^i'^^.f  P^P'^^^'^^^f 
only,  looking  towards  the  coming  Convention.  Le  o'^-r  me^OTV 
perish,"  cries  Vergniaud,  "  but  let  France  be  free!  "-whereupon 
they  ail  start  to  their  feet,  shouting  responsive  :  '  Yes,  3^^  A . 
notre  mdnioire,  pourvu  que  la  Irancc  soit  libre !  t  Uistiockea 
Chabot  abjures  Heaven  that  at  least  we  may  "have  done  « .th 
Kings;"  and  fast  as  powder  under  spark,  we  all  blaze  up  once 
more,  and  with  waved  hats  shout  and  swear  :  "Yes,  ^^'^^.^'^"^ 
plus  de  roi!  "  X    All  which,  as  a  method  of  proclamation,  is  very 

'^"For'the  rest,  that  our  busy  Brissots,  rigorous  Rolands,  men  who 
once  had  authority  and  now  have  less  and  less  :  men  who  love 
law,  and  will  have  even  an  Explosion  explode  itseli,  as  tar  a» 
possible,  according  to  rule,  do  find  this  state  of  matters  most  un- 
official unsatisfactory,— is  not  to  be  demea.  Complaints  .are 
*  Moore's  Journal,  i.  85.      t  J^"''  '''^''l-        467-      *  ""d.  xvu.  437. 


SEPTEMBER, 


made  ;  attempts  are  made  :  but  without  effect.  The  attempts 
even  recoil  ;  and  must  be  desisted  from,  for  fear  of  worse  :  the 
sceptre  is  departed  from  this  Legislative  once  and  always.  A 
poor  Legislative,  so  hard  was  fate,  had  let  itself  be  hand-gyved, 
nailed  to  the  rock  like  an  Andromeda,  and  could  only  wail  there 
to  the  Earth  and  Heavens ;  miraculously  a  wmged  Perseus  (or 
Improvised  Commune)  has  dawned  out  of  the  void  Blue,  and  cut 
her  loose  :  but  whether  now  is  it  she,  with  her  softness  and 
musical  speech,  or  is  it  he,  with  his  hardness  and  sharp  falchion 
and  cegis,  that  shall  have  casting-vote?  Melodious  agreeineiit 
of  vote  ;  this  were  the  rule  !  But  if  otherwise,  and  votes  diverge, 
then  surely  Andromeda's  part  is  to  weep —if  possible,  tears  of 
gratitude  alone.  .  ^ 

Be  content,  O  France,  with  this  Improvised  Commune,  such  as 
It  is  1  It  has  the  implements,  and  has  the  hands  :  the  time  is  not 
long  On  Sunday  the  twenty- sixth  of  August,  our  Primary 
Assembhes  shall  meet,  begin  electing  of  Electors  ;  on  Sunday  the 
second  of  September  (may  the  day  prove  lucky  !)  the  Electors 
shall  begin  electing  Deputies  ;  and  so  an  all-heahng  National 
Convention  will  come  together.  No  7narc  d' argent,  or  distinction 
of  Active  and  Passive,  now  insults  the  French  Patriot :  but  there 
is  universal  suffrage,  unlimited  liberty  to  choose.  Old-constituents, 
Present-Legislators,  all  France  is  ehgible.  Nay,  it  may  be  said, 
the  flower  of  all  the  Universe  {de  rUnivers)  is  eligible;  for  in 
these  very  days  we,  by  act  of  Assembly,  '  naturalise '  the  chief 
Foreign  Friends  of  humanity  :  Priestley,  burnt  out  for  us  in 
Birmingham  ;  Klopstock,  a  genius  of  all  countries ;  Jeremy 
Bentham,  useful  Jurisconsult  ;  distinguished  Pame,  the  reDelhous 
Needleman  ;— some  of  whom  may  be  chosen.  As  is  most  fit  ;  for 
a  Convention  of  this  kind.  In  a  word.  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty 
five  unshackled  sovereigns,  admired  of  the  universe,  shall  reolace  ^ 
this  hapless  impotency  of  a  Legislative,— out  of  which,  it  is  likely,  ^ 
the  best  members,  and  the  Mountain  in  mass,  may  be  re-elected. 
Roland  is  getting  ready  the  Salle  des  Cent  Suisses,  as  preliminary 
rendezvous  for  them  :  in  that  void  Palace  of  the  Tuileries,  now- 
void  and  National,  and  not  a  Palace,  but  a  Caravansera. 

As  for  the  Spontaneous  Commune,  one  may  say  that  there  never 
was  on  Earth  a  stranger  Town- Council.  Administration,  not  of  a  , 
^>-reat  City  but  of  a  great  Kingdom  in  a  state  of  revolt  and  frenzy, 
this  is  the  task  that  has  fallen  to  it.  Enrolhng,  provisioning, 
judging  ;  devising,  deciding,  doing,  endeavouring  to  do  :  one  won- 
ders the  human  brain  did  not  give  way  under  all  this,  and  reel. 
But  happily  human  brains  have  such  a  talent  of  taking  up  simply 
what  they  can  carry,  and  ignoring  all  the  rest ;  leaving  all  the  rest, 
as  if  it  were  not  there  !  Whereby  somewhat  is  verily  shifted  for  ; 
and  much  shifts  for  itself.  This  Improvised  Commune  walks 
along,  nothing  doubting  ;  promptly  making  front,  without  fear  or 
flurry,  at  what  moment  soever,  to  the  wants  of  the  moment.  Were 
the  world  on  fire,  one  improvised  tricolor  Municipal  has  but  oik 
life  to  lose.  They  are  the  elixir  and  chosen-men  ot  Sansculotte 
Patriotism  ;  promoted  to  the  forlorn-hope ;  unspeakable  victor. 


THE  IMPROVISED  COMMUNE. 


9 


or  a  high  gallows,  this  is  their  meed.  They  sit  there,  in  the  Town- 
hall,  these  astonishing  tricolor  Municipals  ;  in  Council  General ; 
in  Committee  of  Watchfulness  {dc  Surveillance,  which  will  even 
become  de  Salut  Public,  of  Public  Salvation),  or  what  other  Com- 
mittees and  Sub-committees  are  needful  managing  infinite  Cor- 
respondence ;  passing  infinite  Decrees  :  one  hears  of  a  Decree 
being  '  the  ninety-eighth  of  the  day/  Ready  1  is  the  word.  They 
carry  loaded  pistols  in  their  pocket ;  also  some  improvised  lun- 
cheon by  way  of  meal.  Or  indeed,  by  and  by,  traiieurs  contract 
for  the  supply  of  repasts,  to  be  eaten  on  the  spot,— too  lavishly,  as 
it  was  afterwards  grumbled.  Thus  they  :  girt  in  their  tricolor 
sashes  ;  Municipal  note-paper  in  the  one  hand,  fire-arms  in  the 
other.  They  have  their  Agents  out  all  over  France  ;  speaking  in 
townhouses,  market-places,  highways  and  byways  ;  agitating, 
urging  to  arm ;  ail  hearts  tingling  to  hear.  Great  is  the  fire  of 
Anti-Aristocrat  eloquence  :  nay  some,  as  Bibliopolic  Momoro, 
seem  to  hint  afar  off  at  something  which  smells  of  Agrarian  Lav7, 
and  a  surgery  of  the  overswoln  dropsical  ^  strong-box  itself ; — 
whereat  indeed  the  bold  Bookseller  runs  risk  of  being  hanged, 
and  Ex-Constituent  Buzot  has  to  smuggle  him  off.^ 

Governing  Persons,  were  they  never  so  insignificant  intrinsic- 
ally, hnve  for  most  part  plenty  of  Memoir-writers ;  ar_d  the  curious, 
in  r iter-times,,  can  learn  minutely  their  goings  out  and  comings  in : 
which,  as  men  always  Icve  to  know  their  fellow-men  in  singular 
situations,  is  a  comfort,  of  its  kind.  Not  so,  with  these  Govern- 
ing Persons,  now  in  the  Townhall !  And  yet  what  most  original 
fellow-man,  of  the  Governing  sort,  high-chancellor,  king,  kaiser, 
secretary  of  the  home  or  the  foreign  department,  ever  shewed 
such  a  phr.sis  as  Clerk  Tallien,  Procureur  Manuel,  future  Procu- 
reur  Chaumette,  here  in  this  Sand-waltz  of  the  Twenty-five  mil- 
lions, now  do  ?  O  brother  mortals, — thou  Advocate  Panis,  friend 
ot  Danton,  kinsman  of  Santerre  ;  Engraver  Sergent,  since  called 
Agate  Sergent ;  thou  Huguenin,  with  the  tocsin  in  thy  heart !  But, 
as  Horace  says,  they  wanted  the  sacred  memoir- writer  {sacra 
vate)  ;  and  we  know  them  not.  Men  bragged  of  August  and  its 
doings,  publishing  them  in  high  places  ;  but  of  this  September 
none  now  or  afterwards  would  brag.  The  September  world  re- 
mains dark,  fulig  mous,  as  J-<a  pland  witch-midnight ;— from  which, 
indeed,  very  strange  shapes  will  evolve  themselves. 

Understand  this,  however  :  that  incorruptible  Robespierre  is 
not  wanting,  now  when  the  brunt  of  battle  is  past  ;  in  a  stealthy 
way  the  sea-green  man  sits  there,  his  feline  eyes  excellent  in  the 
twilight.  Also  understand  this  other,  a  single  fact  .vcirth  many : 
that  Marat  is  not  only  there,  but  has  a  seat  of  honour  assigned 
him,  a  tribune  particuliere.  How  changed  for  Marat  ;  lifted  from 
his  dark  cellar  into  this  luminous  '  peculiar  tribune  ! '  All  dogs 
have  their  day  ;  even  rabid  dogs.  Sorrowful,  incurable  Philoc- 
tetes  Marat ;  without  whom  Troy  cannot  be  taken  !  Hither,  as  a 
main  element  of  the  Governing  Power,  has  Marat  been  raised. 
Royalist  types,  for  we  have  '  suppressed '  innumerable  DurOsoys, 
Mdmoires  de  Buz&t  (Paris,  1823),  p.  88. 


10 


SEPTEMBER, 


Royous,  and  eyen  clapt  them  in  prison,-- Royalist  types  replace 
the  worn  types  often  snatched  from  a  People's -Friend  in  old  ill 
days.  In  our  ^peculiar  tribune '  we  Avrite  and  redact:  Piaciirds, 
of  due  monitory  terror  •  Amis-iiii-Pcuplc  (now  under  the  name  of 
Journal  de  la  Pspublig:ss) ;  and  Git  obeyed  of  men.  *  Maraf/  says 
one,  '  is  the  conscience  of  the  H  tel-de-Ville.'  Keepe7'^  as  some 
call  it,  of  the  Sovereign's  Conscience  which  surely,  in  such 
hands,  will  not  lie  hid  in  a  napkin  \ 

Two  great  movements,  as  we  said,  agitate  this  distracted  Na- 
tional mind  :  a  rushing  against  domestic  Traitors,  a  rushing 
against  foreign  Despots.  Mad  movements  both,  restrainable  by 
no  known  rule  ;  strongest  passions  of  human  nature  driving  them 
on :  love,  hatred ;  vengeful  sorrow,  braggart  Nationality  also 
vengeful,-— and  pale  Panic  over  ail  !  Twelve  Hundred  slain  Pa- 
triots, do  they  not,  from  their  dark  catacombs  there,  in  Death's 
dumb-shew,  plead  (O  ye  Legislators)  for  vengeance?  Such  was 
the  destructive  rage  of  these  Aristocrats  on  the  ever-memorable 
Tenth.  Nay,  apart  from  vengeance,  and  with  an  eye  to  Public 
Salvation  only,  are  there  not  still,  in  this  Paris  (in  round  numbers) 
'  thirty  thousand  Aristocrats.'  of  the  most  mahgnant  humiour ; 
driven  now  to  their  lasc  trump-card  ?— Be  patient,  ye  Patriots  :  our 
New  High  Court,  '  Tribunal  .  f  the  Seventeenth,'  sits  ,  each  Sec- 
tion has  sent  Four  Jurymen  •  and  Dantcn,  extinguishing  impr  per 
judges,  improper  practices  wheresoever  found,  is  '  the  same  man 
you  have  known  at  the  Cordeliers.'  With  such  a  Minister  of 
Justice  shall  net  Justice  be  done? — Let  it  be  swift  then,  answer- 
universal  Patriotism  ;  swift  and  sure  I — 

One  would  hope,  this  Tribunal  of  the  Seventeenth  is  swifter  th,-  ; 
most.  Already  on  the  21st,  v/hile  our  Court  is  but  four  days  old, 
Collenot  d'Angremontj  '  the  Royal  enhster'  (crimp,  embaucheuT), 
dies  by  torch-light.  For,  lo,  the  great  GuiUoii7ie,  wondrous  to 
behold,  now  stands  there  ;  the  Doctor's  Idea  has  become  Oak  and 
Iron  ;  the  hug  cyclopean  axe  '  falls  in  its  grooves  like  the  ram  of 
'  the  Pile-engine/  swiftly  snuffing  out  the  light  of  men  ? '  '  Mais 
^  voiis^  Gualches,  what'  have  you  invented  ? '  This  ?—  Poor  old 
Laporte,  Intendant  of  the  Civil  List,  follows  next;  quietly,  the 
mild  old  man.  Then  Durosoy,  Royalist  Placarder,  '  cashier  of  all 
'  all  the  Anti-Revolutionists  ol  the  interior  : '  he  went  rejoicing  ; 
said  that  a  Royalist  like  him  ought  to  die,  of  all  days  on  this  day, 
the  25th  or  Saint  Louis's  Day.  All  these  have  been  tried,  cast, — 
the  Galleries  shouting  approval  ;  and  handed  over  to  the  Realised 
Idea,  within  a  week.  Besides  those  whom  we  havG  acquitted,  the 
Galleries  murmuring,  and  have  dismissed  ;  or  even  have  person- 
ally guarded  back  to  Prison,  as  the  Galleries  took  to  howling, 
and  even  to  menacing  and  elbowing."^  Languid  this  Tribunal  is 
not. 

Nor  does  the  other  movemont  slacken  ;  the  rushing  against 
foreign  Despots.  Strong  forces  shall  meet  in  death-grip  ;  drilled 
Europe  against  mad  nndrilled  France  ;  and  singular  conclusions 

*  Moore's  Joitnial.  i.  151^-168.. 


THE  IMPROVISED  COMMUNE. 


II 


will  be  tried. — Conceive  therefore,  in  some  faint  degree,-  the  tumult 
that  whirls  in  this  France,  in  this  Paris  !  Placards  from  Section, 
from  Commune,  from  Legislative,  from  the  individual  Patriot, 
flame  monitory  on  all  walls.  Flags  of  Danger  to  Fatherland  wave 
at  the^Hotel-de-Ville  ;  on  the  Pont  Neuf — over  the  prostrate  Statues 
of  Kings.  There  is  universal  enlisting,  urging  to  enlist  ;  there  is 
tearful-boastful  leave-taking ;  irregular  marching  on  the  Great 
North-Eastern  Road.  Marseillese  sing  their  wild  To  Arms^  in 
chorus  ;  which  now  all  men,  all  women  and  children  have  learnt, 
and  sing  chorally,  in  Theatres,  Boulevards,  Streets  ;  and  the  heart 
burns  in  every  bosom  :  Aux  Arm€s  /  Marchons  I — Or  think  how 
your  Aristocrats  are  skulking  into  covert ;  how  Bertrand-Moleville 
lies  hidden  in  some  garret  '  in  Aubry-le-boucher  Street,  with  a  poor 
*  surgeon  who  had  known  me  ; '  Dame  de  Stael  has  secreted  her 
Narbonne,  not  knowing  what  in  the  world  to  make  of  him.  The 
Barriers  are  sometimes  open,  oftenest  shut  ;  no  passports  to  be 
had  ;  Townhall  Emissaries,  with  the  eyes  and  claws  of  falcons, 
flitting  watchful  on  all  points  of  your  horizon  !  In  two  Avords  : 
Tribunal  of  the  Seventeenth,  busy  under  howling  Galleries ; 
Prussian  Brunswick,  *  over  a  space  of  forty  miles,'  with  his  war- 
tumbrils,  and  sleeping  thunders,  and  Briarean  *  sixty-six  thousand^"^ 
right-hands, — coming,  coming  ! 

O  Heavens,  in  these  latter  days  of  August,  he  is  come  !  Duro- 
soy  was  not  yet  guillotined  when  news  had  come  that  the  Prussians 
were  harrying  and  ravaging  about  Metz  ;  in  some  four  days  more, 
one  hears' that  Longwi,  our  first  strong-place  on  the  borders,  is 
fallen  '  in  fifteen  hours.'  Quick,  therefore,  O  ye  improvised  Muni- 
cipals ;  quick,  and  ever  quicker ! — The  improvised  Municipals 
make  front  to  this  also.  Enrolment  urges  itself ;  and  clothing, 
and  arming.  Our  very  officers  have  now  ^  wool  epaulettes  ; '  for  it 
is  the  reign  of  Equality,  and  also  of  Necessity.  Neither  do  men 
now  monsieur  and ^/r  one  another  ;  citoyen  (citizen)  were  suitabler ; 
we  even  say  thou^  as  *the  free  peoples  of  Antiquity  did  : '  so  have 
Journals  and  the  Improvised  Commune  suggested  ;  which  shall  be 
'  well. 

Infinitely  better,  meantime,  could  we  suggest,  where  arms  are  to 
be  found.  For  the  present,  our  Citoyens  chant  chorally  To  A7^?ns; 
and  have  no  arms  !  Arms  are  searched  for  ;  passionately  ;  there 
is  joy  over  any  musket.  Moreover,  entrenchments  shall  be  made 
round  Paris  :  on  the  slopes  of  Montmartre  men  dig  and  shovel ; 
though  even  the  simple  suspect  this  to  be  desperate.  They  dig  ; 
Tricolour  sashes  speak  encouragement  and  well-speed-ye.  Nay 
finally  '  twelve  Members  of  the  Legislative  go  daily,'  not  to  en- 
courage only,  but  to  bear  a  hand,  and  delve  :  it  was  decreed  with 
acclamation.    Arms  shall  either  be  provided  ;  or  else  the  inge- 

^  nuity  of  man  crack  itself,  and  become  fatuity.  Lean  Beaumarchais, 
thinking  to  serve  the  Fatherland,  and  do  a  stroke  of  trade,  in 
the  old  way,  has  commissioned  sixty  thousand  stand  of  good  arms 
out  of  Holland  :  would  to  Heaven,  for  Fatherland's  sake  and  his, 
they  were  come  !    Meanwhile  railings  are  torn  up  ;  hammered 

,  ^  *  See  Toulongeon,  Hist,  de  France,  ii.  c.  5. 

I 


12 


SEPTEMBER. 


into  pikes  :  chains  themselves  shall  be  welded  together,  into  pikes. 
The  very  coffins  of  the  dead  are  raised  ;  for  melting  into  balls. 
All  Church-bells  must  down  into  the  furnace  to  make  cannon  ; 
all  Church-plate  into  the  mint  to  make  monc}'.  Also  behold  the 
fair  swan-bevies  of  Citoyennes  that  have  aiigh  ed  in  Churches^  and 
sit  there  with  swan-neck,— sewing  tents  and  regimentals  !  Nor 
are  Patriotic  Gifts  wanting,  from  those  that  have  aught  left ;  nor 
stingily  given  :  the  fair  Villaumes,  mother  and  daughter,  Milliners 
in  the  Rue  St.-Martin,  give  '  a  silver  thimble,  and  a  coin  of  fifteen 
'  sous  (sevenpence  halfpenny),'  with  other  similar  effects  ;  and  offer, 
at  least  the  mother  does,  to  mount  guard.  Men  who  have  not 
even  a  thimble,  give  a  thimbleful,— were  it  but  of  invention.  One 
Citoyen  has  wrought  out  the  scheme  of  a  wooden  cannon  ;  which 
France  shall  exclusively  profit  by,  in  the  first  instance.  It  is  to  be 
made  of  staves^  by  the  coopers  ;— of  almost  boundless  calibre,  but 
uncertain  as  to  strength  !  Thus  they  :  hammering,  scheming, 
stitching,  founding,  v/ith  all  their  heart  and  with  all_  their  soul. 
Two  bells  only  are  to  remain  in  each  Parish,— for  tocsin  and  other 
purposes. 

But  mark  also,  precisely  while  the  Prussian  batteries  were  play- 
ing their  briskest  at  Longwi  in  the  North-East,  and  our  dastardly 
Lavergne  saw  nothing  for  it  but  surrender,— south-westward,  in 
remote,  patriarchal  La  Vendee,  that  sour  ferment  about  Nonjuring 
Priests,  after  long  working,  is  ripe,  and  explodes  :  at  the  wrong 
moment  for  us  !  And  so  we  have  '  eight  thousand  Peasants  at 
'  Chatillon-sur-Sevre,'  who  will  not  be  ballotted  for  soldiers  ;  will 
not  have  their  Curates  molested.  To  whom  Bonchamps,  Laroche- 
jaquelins,  and  Seigneurs  enough,  of  a  Royalist  turn,  will  join 
themselves  ;  with  Stofflets  and  Charettes  ;  with  Heroes  and  Chouan 
Smugglers  ;  and  the  loyal  warmth  of  a  simple  people,  blown  into 
flame  and  fury  by  theological  and  seignorial  behows  !  So  that 
there  shall  be  fighting  from  behind  ditches,  death-volleys  bursting 
out  of  thickets  and  ravines  of  rivers  ;  huts  burning,  feet  of  the 
pitiful  women  hurrying  to  refuge  with  their  children  on  their  back  ; 
seedfields  fallow,  whitened  with  human  bones  eighty  thousand, 
'  of  all  ages,  ranks,  sexes,  flying  at  once  across  the  Loire,'  with 
wail  borne  far  on  the  winds  :  and,  in  brief,  for  years  coming,  such 
a  suite  of  scenes  as  glorious  war  has  not  offered  in  these  late  ages, 
not  since  our  Albigenses  and  Crusadings  were  over,— save  indeed 
some  chance  Palatinate,  or  so,  we  might  have  to  '  burn/  by  way  o{ 
exception.  The  '  eight  thousand  at  Chatillon '  will  be  got  dis- 
pelled for  the  moment ;  the  fire  scattered,  not  extinguished.  To 
the  dints  and  bruises  of  outward  battle  there  is  to  be  added  hence- 
forth a  deadlier  internal  gangrene. 

This  rising  in  La  Vendee  reports  itself  at  Paris  on  Wednesday 
the  29th  of  August  ;  just  as  we  had  got  our  Electors  elected  ;  and, 
in  spite  of  Tenuis  wick's  and  Longwi's  teeth,  were  hopini,^  still  to 
have  a  National  Convention,  if  it  pleased  Heaven.  But  indeed, 
otherwise,  this  Wednesday  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  notablest 
Paris  had  yet  seen  :  gloomy  tidings  come  successively,  like  Job's 


DANTON. 


13 


messengers  ;  are  met  by  gloomy  answers.  Of  Sardinia  rising  to 
invade  the  South-East,  and  Spain  threatening  the  South,  we  do 
not  speak.  But  are  not  the  Prussians  masters  of  Longwi  (treacher- 
ously yielded,  one  would  say)  ;  and  preparing  to  besiege  Verdum  ? 
Clairfait  and  his  Austrians  are  encompassing  Thionville  ;  darken- 
ing the  North.  Not  Metz-land  now,  but  the  Clermontais  is  getting 
harried  ;  flying  hulans  and  huzzars  have  been  seen  on  the  Chalons 
Road,  almost  as  far  as  Sainte-Menehould.  Heart,  ye  Patriots  ;  if 
ye  lose  heart,  ye  lose  all  ! 

It  is  not  without  a  dramatic  emotion  that  one  reads  in  the  Par- 
liamentary Debates  of  this  Wednesday  evening   '  past  seven 

*  o'clock,'  the  scene  with  the  military  fugitives  from  Longwi. 
Wayworn,  dusty,  disheartened,  these  poor  men  enter  the  Legisla- 
tive, about  sunset  or  after  ;  give  the  most  pathetic  detail  of  the 
frightful  pass  they  were  in  : — Prussians  billowing  round  by  the 
myriad,  voicanically  spouting  fire  for  fifteen  hour^  :  wc,  scattered 
sparse  on  the  ramparts,  hardly  a  cannoneer  to  ^  vc  guns;  our 
dastard  Commandant  Laverp^ne  no  where  shew.r:;  face;  the 
priming  would  not  catch  ;  there  was  no  pcv/der  in  the  bombs, — 
what  could  we  do  1  "  Moiirir  !  Die  !  ^  answer  prompt  voices 
and  the  dusty  fugitives  must  shrink  elsewhither  for  comfort— Yes. 
Mourir,  that  is  now  the  word.  Be  Longwi  a  proverb  and  a  hissing 
among  French  strong-places  :  let  it  (says  the  Legislative)  be  obh- 
terated  rather,  from  the  shamed  face  of  the  Earth  and  so  there 
has  gone  forth  Decree,  that  Longwi  shall,  were  the  Prussians  once 
out  of  it,  '  be  rased,'  and  exist  only  as  ploughed  ground. 

Nor  are  the  Jacobins  milder  ;  as  how  could  they,  the  flower  of 
Patriotism  ?  Poor  Dame  Lavergne,  wife  of  the  poor  Comman- 
dant, took  her  parasol  one  evening,  and  escorted  by  her  Father 
came  over  to  the  Hall  of  the  mighty  Mother  ;  and  '  reads  a  memoir 

*  tending  to  justify  the  Commandant  of  Longvvi.'  Lafarge,  Pre- 
sident, makes  answer  :  "  Citoyenne,  the  Nation  will  judge  Lavergne  • 
the  Jacobins  are  bound  to  tell  him  the  truth.  He  would  have 
ended  his  course  there  {termine  sa  carriere)^  if  he  had  loved  the 
honour  of  his  country."t 


CHAPTER  II. 

DANTON. 

But  better  than  raising  of  Longwi,  or  rebuking  poor  dusty 
soldiers  or  soldiers'  wives,  Danton  had  come  over,  last  night,  and 
,  demanded  a  Decree  to  search  for  arms,  since  they  were  not  yielded 
\  voluntarily.  Let  '  Domiciliary  visits,'  with  rigour  of  authority,  be 
made  to  this  end.  To  search  for  arms  ;  foi  horses, — Aristocratism 
rolls  in  its  carriage,  while  Patriotism  cannot  trail  its  cannon.  To 
search  generally  for  munitions  of  w\r^  '  in  the  houses  of  persons 


*  Hist,  Pari.  xvii.  148. 


t  Ibid.  xix.  300. 


SEPTEMBER. 


*  suspect/— and  even,  if  it  seem  proper,  to  seize  and  imprison  the 
suspect  persons  theniseives  1  In  the  Prisons,  their  plots  will  be 
harmless  ;  in  the  Prisons,  they  will  be  as  hostages  for  us,  and  not 
without  use.  This  Decree  the  energetic  Minister  of  Justice  de- 
manded, last  night,  and  got  ;  and  this  same  night  it  is  to  be 
executed  ;  it  is  being  executed,  at  the  moment  when  these  dusty 
soldiers  get  saluted  with  Motirir.  Tw^o  thousand  stand  of  arms, 
as  they  count,  are  foraged  in  this  way  ;  and  some  four  hundred 
head  of  new  Prisoners  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  such  a  terror  and  damp 
is  struck  through  the  Aristocrat  heart,  as  all  but  Patriotism,  and 
even  Patriotism  were  it  out  of  this  agony,  might  pity.  Yes, 
Messieurs  1  if  Brunswick  blast  Paris  to  ashes,  he  probably  will 
blast  the  Prisons  of  Paris  too  :  pale  Terror,  if  we  have  got  it,  we 
will  also  give  it,  and  the  depth  of  horrors  that  lie  in  it ;  the  same 
leaky  bottom,  in  these  wild  waters,  bears  us  all.  ^  ^ 

-  One  can  judge  what  stir  ttiere  was  now  among  the  thirty 
thousand  Royahsts  how  the  Plotters,  or  the  accused  of  Plotting, 
shrank  each  closer  into  his  lurking-place,~like  Bertrand  Moleville, 
looking  eager  towards  Longwi,  lioping  the  weather  would  keep 
fair.  Or  how  thev  dressed  themselves  in  valet's  clothes,  like 
Narbonne,  and  'got  to  England  as  Dr.  Bollmans  famulus  how 
Dame  de  Stael  bestirred  herself,  pleading  with  Manuel  as  a  Sister 
in  Literature,  pleading  even  with  Clerk  Tallien  ;  a  pray  to  name- 
less chagrins  l"^'  Royahst  Peltier,,  the  Pamphleteer,  gives  a  toucn- 
ing  Narrative  (not  deficient  in  height  of  colouring)  of  the  terrors 
of%hat  night.  From  five  in  the  afternoon,  a  great  City  is  struck 
suddenly  silent ;  except  for  the  beating  of  drums,  for  the  tramp  of 
marching  feet;  and  ever  and  anon  the  dread  thunder  of  the 
knocker  at  some  door,  a  Tricolor  Commissioner  v/ith  his  blue 
Guards  {black-gwTixd.^  !)  arriving.  All  Streets  are  vacant,  says 
Peltier  ;  beset  by  Guards  ..t  each  end  :  all  Citizens  are  ordered  to 
be  within  doors.  On  the  River  float  sentinal  barges,  lest  we  escape 
by  water  :  the  Barriers  hermetically  closed.  Frightful  !  The  sun 
shines;  serenely  westering,  in  smokeless  mackerel-sky  :  Pans  is 
as  if  sleeping,  as  if  dead  :— Paris  is  holding  its  breath,  to  see  what 
stroke  will  fall  on  it.  :^^oor  Peltier!  Acts  of  Apostles,  and  all 
jocundity  of  Leading-Articles,  are  goneout,and  it  is  become  oitter 
earnest  instead ;  polished  satire  changed  now  into  coarse  pike-points 
(hammered  out  of  raihng)  ;  all  logic  -educed  to  this  one  primitive 
thesis,  A-.  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  !— Peltier,  dolctuUy 
aware  of  it,  ducks  low ;  escapes  unscathed  to  England  ;  to  urge  there 
the  inky  '  -r  anew  ;  to  have  Trial  by  Jury,  in  due  season,  and 
deliverance  by  young  Whig  eloquence,  world-celebrated  for  a  day.. 

Of  '  thirty  thousand,'  naturally,  great  multitudes  were  left  un- 
molested :  but,  as  we  said,  some  four  hundred,  designated  as 
'  uersons  suspect,'  were  seized  ;  and  an  unspeakable  terror  fell  on 
all.  Wo  to  him  who  is  guilty  of  Plotting,  of  Anticivism,  Royalism, 
Feuillantism  ;  who,  guilty  or  not  guilty,  has  an  enemy  in  his 
Section  to  call  him  guilty  !  Poor  old  M.  de  Cazotte  is  seized,  his 
young  loved  Daughter  with  him,  refusing  to  quit  him.  Why,  U 
*  DeStatil,  Considerations  sur  la  RdvulutioHt  ii.  67-81. 


DAN  TON, 


Cazotte,  wouldst  thou  quit  romancing^  and  Diable  Ajnoureux,  for 
such  reahty  as  this  ?  Poor  old  M.  de  Sombreuil,  he  of  the  Btvalides, 
is  seized  :  a  m^n  seen  askance,  by  Patriotism  ever  since  the  Bastille 
days  :  whom  also  a  fond  Daughter  will  not  quit.  With  young 
tears  hardly  suppressed,  and  old  wavering  weakness  rousing  itself 
once  more— O  my  brothers,  O  my  sisters  ! 

The  famed  and  named  go;  the  nameless,  if  they  have  an 
accuser.  Necklace  Lamotte's  Husband  is  in  these  Prisons  {phe 
long  since  squelched  on  the  London  Pavements)  ;  but  gets 
delivered.  Gross  de  Morande,  of  the  Courier  de  P  Eur  ope, hohH^s 
distractedly  to  and  fro  there  :  but  they  let  him  hobble  out;  on 
right  nimble  crutches  ; — his  hour  not  being  yet  come.  Advocate 
Maton  de  la  Varenne,  very  weak  in  health,  is  snatched  off  from 
mother  and  kin  ;' Tricolor  Rossignol  (journeyman  goldsmith  and 
scoundrel  lately,  a  risen  man  now)  remembers  an  old  Pleading  of 
Maton's  !  Jourgniac  de  Saint-Meard  goes  ;  the  brisk  frank 
soldier  :  he  was  m  the  Mutiny  of  Nancy,  in  that  '  effervescent 
*  Regiment  du  Roi,' — on  the  wrong  side.  Saddest  of  all  :  Abbe 
Sicard  goes  ;  a  Priest  who  could  not  take  the  Oath,  but  who  could 
teach  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  :  in  his  Section  one  man,  he  say&,had  a 
grudge  at  him  ;  one  man,  at  the  fit  hour,  launches  an  arrest  against 
him  ;  which  hits.  In  the  Arsenal  quarter,  there  are  dumb  hearts 
making  wail,  with  signs,  with  wild  gestures  ;  he  their  miraculous 
healer  and  speech-bringer  is  rapt  away. 

What  with  the  arrestments  on  this  night  of  the  Twenty-ninth, 
what  with  those  that  have  gone  on  n\ore  or  less,  day  and  night, 
ever  since  the  Tenth,  one  may  fancy  what  the  Prisons  now  were. 
Crowding  and  Confusion  ;  jostle,  hurry,  vehemence  and  terror  ! 
Of  the  poor  Queen's  Friends,  who  had  followed  her  to  the  Temple 
and  been  committed  elsewhither  to  Prison,  some,  as  Governess  de 
Tourzelle,  are  to  be  let  go  :  one,  the  poor  Princess  de  Lamballe,  is 
not  let  go  ;  but  waits  in  the  strong-rooms  of  La  Force  there^  what 
will  betide  further. 

Among  so  many  hundreds  whom  the  launched  arrest  hits,  who 
are  rolled  of  toTownhall  or  Section-hall,  to  prehminary  Houses  of 
Detention,  and  hurled  in  thither,  as  into  cattle-pens,  we  must 
mention  one  other  :  Caron  de  Beaumarchais,  Author  of  Figaro; 
vanquisher  of  Maupeou  Parlemehts  and  Goezman  helldogs  ;  once 
numbered  among  the  demigods  ;  and  now —  ?  \Vc  left  hmi  in  his 
culminant  state  ;  what  dreadful  decline  is  this,  when  we  again 
catch  a  glimpse  of  hmi  !  "At  midnight'  (it  was  but  the  I2ih  of 
August  yet),  'the  servant,  in  his  shin,'  with  wide-staring  eyes, 
enters  your  room  : — Monsieur,  rise  ;  all  the  people  are  come  to 
seek  you  ;  they  are  knocking,  like  to  break  in  the  door  !  '  And 

*  they  were  in  fact  knocking  in  a  terrible  manner  {dime  fai^o^i 

*  terrible).    I  '.hng  on  my  coat,  forgetting  even  the  waistcoat,  no- 

*  thing  on  my  feet  but  shppers  ;  and  say  to  him' — And //e-,  alas, 
aiiswcrs  mere  negatory  incoherences,  panic  interjections.  And 
through  the  shutters  and  crevices,  in  front  or  rearward,  the  dull 
street  lamps  disclose  only  streetfuls  of  haggard  countenances  ,* 


16 


SEPTEMBER. 


clamorous,  bristling  with  pikes  :  and  you  rush  distracted  for  an 
outlet,  finding  none  ; — and  have  to  take  refuge  in  the  crockery- 
press,  down  stairs  ;  and  stand  there,  palpitating  in  that  imperfect 
costume,  lights  dancing  past  your  key-hole,  tramp  of  feet  over- 
head, and  the  tumult  of  Satan,  '  for  four  hours  and  more  ! '  And 
old  ladies,  of  the  quarter,  started  up  (as  we  hear  next  morning)  ; 
rang  for  their  Bonnes  and  cordial-drops,  with  shrill  interjections  : 
and  old  gentlemen,  in  their  shirts,  '  leapt  garden-walls ;  ^  flying, 
while  none  pursued  ;  one  of  whom  unfortunately  broke  his  leg."^ 
Those  sixty  thousand  stand  of  Dutch  arms  (which  never  arrive)^ 
and  the  bold  stroke  of  trade,  have  turned  out  so  ill ! — 

Beaumarchais  escaped  for  this  time  ;  but  not  for  the  next  time, 
ten  days  after.  On  the  evening  of  the  Twenty-ninth  he  i"^  still  in 
that  chaos  of  the  Prisons,  in  saddest,  wrestling  condition  ;  unable 
to  get  justice,  even  to  get  audience  ;  ^  Panis  scratching  his  head ' 
when  you  speak  to  him,  and  making  off.  Nevertheless  let  the 
lover  of  Figaro  know  that  Procureur  Manuel,  a  Brother  in  Litera- 
ture, found  him,  and  delivered  him  once  more.  But  how  the  lean 
demigod,  now  shorn  of  his  splendour,  had  to  lurk  in  barns,  to 
roam  over  harrowed  helds,  panting  for  life  ;  and  to  wait  under 
eavesdrops,  and  sit  in  darkness  '  on  the  Boulevard  amid  paving- 
stones  and  boulders,'  longing  for  one  word  of  any  Minister,  or 
Minister's  Clerk,  about  those  accursed  Dutch  muskets,  and  getting 
none, — with  heart  fuming  in  spleen,  and  terror,  and  suppressed 
canine-madness  :  alas,  how  the  swift  sharp  hound,  once  fit  to  be 
Diana's,  breaks  his  old  teeth  now,  gnawing  mere  whinstones  ;  and 
must  '  fly  to  England  and,  returning  from  England,  must  creep 
into  the  corner,  and  he  quiet,  toothless  (moneyless), — all  this  let 
the  lover  of  Figaro  fancy,  and  weep  for.  We  here,  without  weep- 
ing, not  without  sadness,  wave  the  withered  tough  fellow-mortal 
our  farewell.  His  Figaro  has  returned  to  the  French  stage  ;  nay 
is,  at  this  day,  sometimes  named  the  best  piece  there.  And  indeed, 
so  long  as  Man's  Life  can  ground  itself  only  on  artificiality  and 
aridity  ;  each  new  Revolt  and  Change  of  Dynasty  turning  up  only 
a  new  stratum  of  dry  rubbishy  and  no  soil  yet  coming  to  view, — 
may  it  not  be  good  to  protest  against  such  a  Life,  in  many  ways, 
and  even  in  the  Figaro  way  ? 


CHAPTER  III. 

DUMOURIEZ. 

Such  are  the  last  days  of  August,  1792  ;  days  gloomy,  disas- 
trous, and  of  evil  omen.    What  will  become  of  this  poor  France? 
Dumouriez  rode  frcun  the  Camp  of  Maulde,  eastward  to  Sedan 
on  Tuesday  last,  the  28th  of  the  month  ;  reviewed  that  so-calle 
Army  left  forlorn  there  by  Lafayette  :  the  forlorn  soldiers  gloome 

•  Beftumarchais'  Narrative,  Mdmoircs  siir  les  Prisons  (Pans,  1823),  i.  lyg-ga 

\ 


DUMOURIEZ. 


17 


on  him  ;  were  heard  growhng  on  him,  "  This  is  one  of  them,  ce 
h—e  la^  that  made  War  be  declared.""^  Unpromising  Army  !  Re- 
cruits flow  in,  filtering  through  Depot  after  Depot  ;  but  recruits 
merely  :  in  want  of  all  ;  happy  if  they  have  so  much  as  arms. 
And  Longwi  has  fallen  basely  ;  and  Brunswick,  and  the  Prussian 
King,  with  his  sixty  thousand,  will  beleaguer  Verdun  ;  and  Clair- 
fait  and  Austrians  press  deeper  in,  over  .the  Northern  marches: 

*  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand '  as  fear  counts,  ^  eighty  thousand ' 
as  the  returns  shew,  do  hem  us  in  ;  Cimmerian  Europe  behind 
them.    There  is  Castries-and-Broglie  chivalry  ;  Royalist  foot  '  in 

*  red  facing  and  nankeen  trousers  ; '  breathing  death  and  the 
gallows. 

And,  lo,  finally!  at  Verdun  on  Sunday  the  2d  of  September 
I "02,  Brunswick  is  here.  With  his  King  and  sixty  thousand, 
glittering  over  the  heights,  from  beyond  the  winding  Meuse  River, 
he  looks  down  on  us,  on  our  ^  high  citadel '  and  all  our  confec- 
tionery-ovens (for  we  are  celebrated  for  confectionery)  ;  has  sent 
courteous  summons,  in  order  to  spare  the  effusion  of  blood  ! — 
Resist  him  to  the  death  ?  Every  day  of  retardation  precious  ? 
How,  O  General  Beaurepaire  (asks  the  amazed  Municipality) 
shall  we  resist  him  1  We,  the  Verdun  Municipals,  see  no  resist- 
ance possible.  Has  he  not  sixty  thousand,  and  artillery  without 
end  ?  Retardation,  Patriotism  is  good  ;  but  so  likewise  is  peace- 
able baking  of  pastry,  and  sleeping  in  whole  skin. — Hapless 
Beaurepaire  stretches  out  his  hands,  and  pleads  passionately,  in 
the  name  of  country,  honour,  of  Heaven  and  of  Earth  :  to  no  pur- 
pose.  The  Municipals  have,  by  law,  the  power  of  ordering  it  ;— 
with  an  Army  ofhcered  by  F;oyalism  or  Crypto-Royalism,  such  a 
Law  seemed  needful  :  and  they  order  it,  as  pacific  Pastrycooks, 
not  as  heroic  Patriots  would, — To  surrender  !  Beaurepaire 
strides  home,  with  long  steps  :  his  valet,  entering  the  room,  sees 
him  '  writing  eagerly,'  and  withdraws.  His  valet  hears  then,  in  a 
few  minutes,  the  report  of  a  pistol  :  Beaurepaire  is  lying  dead  ; 
his  eager  writing  had  been  a  brief  suicidal  farewell.  In  this 
manner  died  Beaurepaire,  wept  of  France  ;  buried  in  the  Pan- 
theon, with  honourable  pension  to  his  Widow,  and  for  Epitaph 
these  words,  He  chose  Death  rather  than  yield  to  Despots.  The 
Prussians,  descending  from  the  heights,  are  peaceable  masters  of 
Verdun. 

And  so  Brunswick  advances,  from  stage  to  stage  :  who  shall 
now  stay  him,  —covering  forty  miles  of  country  ?  Foragers  fly 
far  ;  the  villages  of  the  North-East  are  harried  ;  your  Hessian 
forager  has  only  ^  three  sous  a  day  the  very  Emigrants,  it  is  said, 
will  take  silver-plate, — by  way  of  revenge.  Clermont,  Sainte- 
Menehould,  Varennes  especially,  ye  Towns  of  the  Night  of  Spurs; 
tremble  ye  !  Procureur  Sausse  and  the  Magistracy  of  X'arennes 
have  fled  ;  brave  Boniface  Le  Blanc  of  the  Bras  cVOr  is  to  the 
woods  :  Mrs.  Le  Blanc,  a  young  woman  fair  to  look  upon,  with  her 
young  infant,  has  to  live  in  greenwood,  like  a  beautiful  Bessy  Bell 
of  Song,  her  bower  thatched  with  rushes  ; — catching  premature 
*  Dumouriez,  Mdmvir&s^  ii.  383. 


l8 


SEPTEMBER. 


rheumatism."^  Clermont  may  ring  the  tocsin  now,  and  illuminate 
itself!  Clermont  lies  at  the  foot  of  its  Cow  (or  VacJu,  so  they 
name  that  Mountain),  a  prey  to  the  Hessian  spoiler  :  its  fair 
women,  fdrer  than  most,  are  robbed  :  not  of  life,  or  what  is 
dearer,  yet  :i  all  that  is  cheaper  and  portable  ;  for  Necessity,  on 
three  half-pence  a-day,  has  no  law.  At  Saint-Menehould,  the 
enemy  ha^  been  expected  more  than  once, — our  Nationals  all 
turning  cut  in  arms  ;  but  was  not  yet  seen.  Post-master  Drouet, 
he  is  not  in  the  woods,  but  minding  his  Election  ;  and  wih  sit  in 
the  Convention,  notable  King-taker,  and  bold  Old- Dragoon  as  he  is. 

Thus  on  the  North-East  all  roams  and  runs  ;  and  on  a  set  day, 
the  date  of  which  irrecoverable  by  History,  Brunswick  'has 
engaged  to  dine  in  Paris,^ — the  Powers  willing.  And  at  Paris,  in 
the  centre,  it  is  as  we  saw  ;  and  in  La  Vendee,  South- West,  it  is  as 
we  saw  ;  and  Sardinia  is  in  the  South-East,  and  Spain  is  in  the 
South,  and  Clairfait  with  Austria  and  sieged  Thionville  is  in  the 
North ; — and  all  France  leaps  distracted,  like  the  vv^innowed 
Sahara  waltzing  in  sand-colonnades  !  More  desperate  posture  no 
country  ever  stood  in.  A  country,  one  would  say,  which  the 
Majesty  of  Prussia  (if  it  so  pleased  him)  might  partition,  and  clip 
in  pieces,  like  a  Poland  ;  flinging  the  remainder  to  poor  brother 
Louis, — with  directions  to  keep  it  quiet,  or  else  we  will  keep  it  for 
him  ! 

Or  perhaps  the  Upper  Powers,  minded  that  a  new  Chapter  in 
Universal  History  shall  begin  here  and  not  farther  on,  may  have 
orderec  it  all  otherwise  ?  In  that  case,  Brunswick  will  not  dine 
in  Paris  on  the  set  d:.y  ;  nor,  indeed,  one  knows  not  when  ! — 
Verily,  amid  this  wreckage,  where  poor  France  seems  grinding 
itself  dov.  :i  to  dust  and  bottomless  ruin,  who  knows  what  miracu- 
lous sahent-point  of  Deliverance  and  New-Hfe  may  have  already 
come  into  existence  there  ;  and  be  already  working  there,  though 
as  yet  human  eye  discern  it  not  !  On  the  night  of  that  same 
twenty-eighth  of  August,  the  unpromising  Review-day  in  Sedan, 
Dumouriez  assembles  a  Council  of  War  at  his  lodgings  there.  He 
spreads  out  the  map  of  this  forlorn,  war-district  :  Prussians  here, 
Austrians  there  ;  triumphant  both,  with  broad  highway,  and  little 
hinderance,  all  the  way  to  Paris  ;  we,  scattered  helpless,  here  and 
here  :  what  to  advise  ?  The  Generals,  strangers  to  Dumouriez,  look 
blank  enough  ;  know  not  well  what  to  advise, — if  it  be  not  retreating, 
and  retreatingtill  our  recruits  accumulate  ;  till  perhaps  the  chapter  of 
chances  turn  up  some  leaf  for  us  ;  or  Paris,at  all  events, be  saci^ed  at 
the  latestday  possible.  The  Many-counselled,  who  Mias  not  closed  an 
'eye for  three  nights,'  listens  with  httle  speech  to  these  long  cheerless 
speeches  ;  merely  watching  the  speaker  that  he  may  know  him  • 
then  wishes  them  all  good-night ; — but  beckons  a  certain  young 
Thouvenot,  the  fire  of  whose  looks  had  pleased  him,  to  wait  a 
moment.  Thouvenot  waits  :  Viold,^  says  Polymetis,  pointing  to 
the  map  !  That  is  the  Forest  of  Argonne,  that  long  stripe  ol 
rocky  Mountain  and  wild  Wood  ;  forty  miles  long  ;  with  but  five, 
or  say  even  three  practirai)lo  Passes  through  it  :  this,  for  they 

*  Helen  Maria  Williams,  Jxiin  ji-oin  l'raf/j;e  (London,  i79r-93),  iii.  96.  v 


SEPTEMBER  IN  PARIS. 


have  forgotten  it,  might  one  not  still  seize,  though  Clairfait  sits  so 
uio-h?  Once  seized;— the  Champagne  called  the  Hungry  (or 
worse,  Champagne  Poidlleuse)  on  their  side  of  it  ;  the  fat  Three 
Bishoprics,  and  willing  France,  on  ours  ;  and  the  Equmox-vams 
not  far      this  Argonne  'might  be  the  Thermopylae  of  Frauce  !'-^ 

O  brisk  Dumouriez  Polymetis  with  thy  teeming  head,  may  the 
gods  grant  it !— Polymetis,  at  any  rate,  folds  his  map  together,  and 
flings  himself  on  bed  ;  resolved  to  try,  on  the  morrow  morning. 
With  astucity,  with  swiftness,  with  audacity  1  One  had  need  to  be 
a  lion-fox,  and  have  luck  on  one's  side. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SEPTEMBER  IN  PARIS 

At  Paris,  by  lying  Rumour  which  proved  prophetic  and  veridi- 
cal, the  fall  of  Verdun  was  known  some  hours  before  it  happened. 
It  is  Sunday  the  second  of  September  ;  handiwork  hinders  not 
the  speculations  of  the  mind.  Verdun  gone  (though  some  still 
deny  it)  ;  the  Prussians  in  full  march,  with  gallows-ropes,  with 
fire  and  faggot  !  Thirty  thousand  Aristocrats  within  our  own 
walls  ;  and  but  the  merest  quarter-tithe  of  them  yet  put  in  Prison  ! 
Nay  there  goes  a  w^ord  that  even  these  will  revolt.  Sieur  Jean 
Julien,  wagoner  of  Vaugirard,+  being  set  in  the  Pillory  last  Friday, 
took  all  at  once  to  crying.  That  he  would  be  well  revenged  ere 
long  ;  that  the  King's  Friends  in  Prison  would  burst  out  ;  force 
the  Temple,  set  the  King  on  horseback  ;  and,  joined  by  the  un- 
imprisoned,  ride  roughshod  over  us  all.  This  the  unfortunate 
wagoner  of  Vaugirard  did  bawl,  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  :  when 
snatched  off  to  the  Townhall,  he  persisted  in  it,  still  bawling  ; 
yesternight,  when  they  guillotined  him,  he  died  with  the  froth  of  it 
on  his  hps.!  For  a  man's  mind,  padlocked  to  the  Pillory,  may 
go  mad  ;  and  all  men's  minds  may  go  mad  ;  and  '  beheve  him,' 
as  the  frenetic  will  do,  '  because  it  is  impossible.' 

So  that  apparently  the  knot  of  the  crisis,  and  last  agony  of 
France  is  come  ?  Make  front  to  this,  thou  Improvised  Commune, 
strong  Danton,  whatsoever  m^an  is  strong  !  Readers  can  judge 
whether  the  Flag  of  Country  in  Danger  flapped  soothing  or  dis- 
tractively  on  the  souls  of  men,  that  day. 

But  the  Improvised  Commune,  but  strong  Danton  is  not  want- 
ing, each  after  his  kind.  Huge  Placards  are  getting  plastered  to 
the  walls  ;  at  two  o'clock  the  storm-bell  shall  be  sounded,  the 
alarm-cannon  fired  ;  all  Paris  shall  rush  to  the  Champ-dc-Mars, 
:ind  have  itself  enrolled.  Unarmed,  truly,  and  undrilled  ;  but 
desperate,  in  the  strength  of  frenzy.  Haste,  ye  men  ;  ye  very 
women,  offer  to  mount  guard  and  shoulder  the  brown  musket: 
weak  clucking-hens,  in  a  state  of  desperation,  will  fly  at  the  muzzle 

*  Dumouriez,  ii.  391 .       \  Moore,  i.  176.      %  ^i^^-  P^^^-  4^9- 


20 


SEPTEMBER. 


of  the  mastiff;  and  even  conquer  him, — by  vehemence  of 
character  !  Terror  itself,  when  once  grown  transcendental,  be- 
comes a  kind  of  courage  ;  as  frost  sufficiently  intense,  according 
to  Poet  Milton,  will  hirn. — Danton,  the  other  night,  in  the  Legis- 
lative Committee  of  General  Defence,  when  the  other  Ministers 
and  Legislators  had  all  opined,  said.  It  would  not  do  to  quit  Paris, 
and  fly  to  Saumur  ;  that  they  must  abide  by  Paris  ;  and  take  such 
attitude  as  would  put  their  enemies  in  {ear —/aire  ^peur ;  sl  word 
of  his  which  has  been  often  repeated,  and  reprinted — in  italics."^ 

At  two  of  the  clock,  Beaurepaire,  as  we  saw,  has  shot  himself  at 
Verdun  ;  and  over  Europe,  mortals  are  going  in  for  afternoon  ser- 
mon. But  at  Paris,  all  steeples  are  clangouring  not  for  sermon  ; 
the  alarm-gun  booming  from  minute  to  minute  ;  Champ- de- Mars 
and  Fatherland's  Altar  boiling  with  desperate  terror-courage  : 
what  a  miserere  going  up  to  Heaven  from  this  once  Capital  of  the 
Most  Christian  King  !  The  Legislative  sits  in  alternate  awe  and 
effervescence  ;  Vergniaud  proposing  that  Twelve  shall  go  and  dig 
personally  on  Montmartre  ;  which  is  decreed  by  acclaim. 

But  better  than  digging  personally  with  acclaim,  see  Danton 
enter  ; — the  black  brows  clouded,  the  colossus-figure  tramping 
heavy  ;  grim  energy  looking  from  all  features  of  the  rugged  man  ! 
Strong  is  that  grim  Son  of  France,  and  Son  of  Earth  ;  a  Reality 
and  not  a  Formula  he  too  ;  and  surely  now  if  ever,  being  hurled 
low  enough,  it  is  on  the  Earth  and  on  Realities  that  he  rests. 
^^Legislators  so  speaks  the  stentor- voice,  as  the  Newspapers  yet 
preserve  it  for  us,  "  it  is  not  the  alarm-cannon  that  you  hear  :  ic  is 
the  pas -de-charge  against  our  enemies.  To  conquer  them,  to  hurl 
them  back,  what  do  we  require  ?  // nous faut  de  Paudace,  et  encore 
de  Vaudace^  et  toujotirs  de  Vaudace^  To  dare,  and  again  to  dare,  and 
without  end  to  dare  !  ^'f — Right  so,  thou  brawny  Titan  ;  there  is 
nothing  left  for  thee  but  that.  Old  men,  who  heard  it,  will  still 
tell  you  how  the  reverberating  voice  made  all  hearts  swell,  in  that 
moment ;  and  braced  them  to  the  sticking-place  ;  and  thrilled 
abroad  over  France,  like  electric  virtue,  as  a  word  spoken  in 
season. 

But  the  Commune,  enrolhng  in  the  Champ-de-Mars  ?  But  the 
Committee  of  Watchfulness,  become  nov/  Committee  of  Pubhc 
vSalvation  ;  whose  conscience  is  Marat  ?  The  Commune  enrolling 
enrolls  many  ;  provides  Tents  for  them  in  that  Mars'-Field,  that 
they  may  march  with  dawn  on  the  morrow :  praise  to  this  part  of 
the  Commune  !  To  Marat  and  the  Committee  of  Watchfulne^^ 
not  praise  ; — not  even  blame,  such  as  could  be  meted  out  in  these 
insufficient  dialects  of  ours  ;  expressive  silence  rather !  Lone 
Marat,  the  man  forbid,  meditating  long  in  his  Cellars  of  refuge,  on 
his  Stylites  Pillar,  could  see  salvation  in  one  thing  only  :  in  the 
fall  of  '  two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  Aristocrat  heads.'  With 
so  many  score  of  Naples  Bravoes,  each  a  dirk  in  his  right-hand,  a 
muff  on  his  left,  he  would  traverse  France,  and  do  it.  But  the 
world  laughed,  mocking  the  severe-benevolence  of  a  People's- 

*  Diof^raphie  dca  Ministrcs  y^ruxc^lles,  1826),  p.  96, 
t  Moniteur  (in  Hist^  Purl.x\'\\.  347). 


SEPTEMBER  IN  PARIS.  2i 


Friend  •  and  his  idea  could  not  become  an  action,  but  only  afixed- 
idpa.  Lo,  now,  however,  he  has  come  down  from  his  Styhtcs 
Pillar,  to  a  Tribune  particulicre ;  here  now,  without  the  dirks, 
without  the  mup  at  least,  were  it  not  grown  possible,--now  in  the 
knot  of  the  crisis,  when  salvation  or  destruction  hangs  m  the 

^^The  Ice-Tower  of  Avignon  was  noised  of  sufficiently,  and  lives 
in  all  memories  ;  but  the  authors  were  not  punished  :  nay  we  saw 
Tourdan  Coupe-tete,  borne  on  men's  shoulders,  like  a  copper  i^or- 
tent  '  traversing  the  cities  of  the  South.'— What  phantasms,  squalid- 
horrid,  shaking  their  dirk  and  muff,  may  dance  through  the  bram 
of  a  Marat,  in  this  dizzy  pealing  of  tocsin-miserere,  and  universal 
frenzy,  seek  not  to  guess,  O  Reader  !  Nor  what  the  cruel  Lillaud 
^in  his  short  brown  coat  was  thinking  nor  Sergent^  not  yet  y^^^T?/^- 
Sergent ;  nor  Panis  the  confident  of  Danton  ;— nor,  m  a  word,  how 
gloomy  Orcus  does  breed  in  her  gloomy  womb,  and  fashion  her 
monsters,  and  prodigies  of 'Events,  which  thou  seest  her  visibly 
bear  '  Terror  is  on  these  streets  of  Paris  ;  terror  and  rage,  tears 
and  frenzy  :  tocsin-miserere  pealing  through  the  air  ;  fierce  des- 
peration rushing  to  battle ;  mothers,  with  streaming  eyes  and  wild 
hearts,  sending  forth  their  sons  to  die.  '  Carnage-horses  are 
'  seized  by  the  bridle,'  that  they  may  draw  cannon  ;  the  traces  cut, 
^the  carriages  left  standing.'  In  such  tocsin-miserere,  and  murky 
bewilderment  of  Frenzv,  are  not  Murder,  Ate,  and  all  Furies  near 
at  hand  ?  On  slight  hint,  who  knows  on  how  slight,  may  not 
Murder  come  ;  and,  with  her  snaky-sparlding  head,  illuminate  this 

How  it  was  and  went,  what  part  might  be  premeditated,  what 
was  improvised  and  accidental,  man  will  never  know,  tih  the  great 
Day  of  Judgment  make  it  known.  But  with  a  Marat  for  keeper  ot 
the  Sovereign's  Conscience— And  we  know  what  the  ultiina  ratio 
of  Sovereigns,  when  they  are  driven  to  it,  is  !  In  this  Pans  there 
are  as  wicked  men,  say  a  hundred  or  more,  as  exist  m  all  the 
Earth  :  to  be  hired,  and  set  on  ;  to  set  on,  of  their  own  accord, 
unhired.— And  yet  we  will  remark  that  premeditation  itself  is  not 
performance,  is  not  surety  of  performance  ;  that  it  is  perhaps,  at 
most,  surety  of  lettins;  whosoever  wills  perform.  From  the  purpose 
of  crime  to  the  act  of  crime  there  is  an  abyss  ;  wonderful  to  think 
of.  The  finger  hes  on  the  pistol ;  but  the  man  is  not  yet  a  mur- 
derer :  nay,  his  whole  nature  staggering  at  such  consummation  is 
there  not  a  confused  pause  rather,— one'  last  instant  of  possibility 
for  him?  Not  yet  a  murderer  ;  it  is  at  the  mercy  of  right  triHes 
whether  the  most  fixed  idea  may  not  yet  become  unfixed.  One 
slight  twitch  of  a  muscle,  the  death  flash  bursts  ;  and  he  is  it,  and 
will  for  Eternity  be  it  ;— and  Earth  has  become  a  penal  Tartarus 
for  him  ;  his  horizon  girdled  now  not  with  golden  hope,  but  with 
red  flames  of  remorse  ;  voices  from  the  depths  of  Nature  sounding, 
Wo,  wo  on  him  1  ,       •        r  i 

Of  such  stufTare  we  all  made  ;  on  such  powaer-mmes  of  bottom- 
.  less  guilt  and  criminality,  '  if  God  restrained  not '  as  is  well  said,— 
does  the  purest  of  us  walk.    There  are  depths  in  man  that  go  the 


SEPTEMJ-ii,K 


length  of  lowest  Hell,  there  are  heiglits  that  reach  highest 
Heaven  for  are  not  both  Heaven  and  Hell  made  out  of  him, 
made  by  him,  everlasting  Miracle  and  Mvstery  as  he  is  ?— But 
looking  on  this  Champ-de-Mars,  with  its  tent-buildings,  and  frantic 
enrolments;  on  this  murky-simmering  Paris,  with  its  crammed 
Prisons  ^(supposed  about  to  burst),  with  its  tocsin-miserere,  its 
mothers'  tears,  and  soldiers'  farewell  shoutings,— the  pious  soul 
might  have  prayed,  that  day,  that  God's  grace  would  restrain,  andi 
greatly  restrain  ;  lest  on  slight  best  or  hint,  Madness,  Horror  and' 
Murder  rose,  and  this  Sabbath-day  of  September  became  a  Day 
black  in  the  Annals  of  Men.— 

The  tocsin  is  pealing  its  loudest,  the  clocks  inaudiblv  striking: 
Three,  when  poor  Abbe  Sicard,  with  some  thirty  other  Nonjurant 
Priests,  in  six  carriages,  fare  along  the  streets,  from  their  pre- 
Iimmary  House  of  Detention  at  the  Townhall,  westward  towards' 
the  Prison  of  the  Abbaye.    Carriages  enough  rtand  deserted  on' 
the  streets  ;  these  six  move  on, — through  angry  multitudes,  curs- 
ing as  they  move.    Accursed  Aristocrat^ Tartuffes,  this  is  the  pass, 
ye  have  brought  us  to  !    And  now  ye  will  break  the  Prisons,  and 
set  Capet  Veto  on  horseback  to  ride  over  us  t    Out  upon  vou  ■ 
Priests  of  Beelzebub  and  Moloch  ;  of  Tartu ffery,  Mammon,  and' 
the  Prussian  Gallows,— which  ye  nam.e  Mother-Church  and  God  !? 
Such  reproaches  have  the  poor  Nonjuranls  to  endure,  and  worse;! 
spoken  in  on  them  by  frantic  Patriots,  who  mount  even  on  the' 
carriage-steps  ;  the  very  Guards  hardly  refraining.    Pull  up  your  < 
carriage-bhnds  !— No  !  answers  Patriotism,  clapping  its  horny  paw  ' 
on  the  carriage-blind,  and  crushing  it  down  again.    Patience  in  ' 
oppression  has  limits  :  we  are  close  on  the  Abbaye,  it  has  lasted 
long  :  a  poor  Nonjurant,  of  quicker  temper,  smites  the  horny  paw 
with  his  cane  ;  nay,  finding  solacement  in  it,  smiter  the  uniicmpt 
head,  sharply  and  again  more  sharply,  twice  -ver,— seen  clearly  of 
us  and  of  the  world.    It  is  the  last  that  we  see  clearly.    Alas,  next 
moment,  the  carriages  are  locked  and  bloc'  .cd  in  endless  raging 
tumults  ;  in  yells  deaf  to  the  cry  for  mercy,  which  answer  the^ciy 
for  mercy  with  sabre-thrusts  through  the  heart."^     The  thirty, 
Priests  are  torn  out,  are  massacred  about  the  Prison-Gate,  one 
after  one,— only  the  poor  Abbe  Sicard,  whom  one  Moton  a  watch- 
maker knowing  him,  heroically  tried  to  save,  and  secrete  in  the 
Prison,  escapes  to  tell ;— and  it  is  Night  and  Orcus,  and  Murder's 
snaky-sparkling  head  has  risen  in  the  murk  I— 

From  Sunday  afternoon  (exclusive  of  intervals,  and  pauses  not 
final)  till  T  hursday  evening,  there  follow  consecutively  a  Hundred 
Hours.  Which  hundred  hours  are  to  be  reckoned  with  the  hours 
of  the  P.arthojomew  Butchery,  of  the  Armagnac  Massacres, 
Sicilian  Vespers,  or  whatsoever  is  savagest  in  the  annals  of  this 
world.  Horrible  th(^  hour  v/hen  man's  soul,  in  its  paroxysm, 
spurns  asunder  tlic       ricrs  and  rules  ;  and  shews  what  dens  and 

*  F^l^mhesi  (anagram  for  Mohee  Fils),  La  V^riti  tout  entiere,  si^r  les  vrais 
auteurs  de  la  journtfe  du  2  Sepiemtre  179a  (reprinted  in  Hist.  Pari,  xviii, 
156-181),  p.  167. 


SEPTEMBER  LN  PARIS. 


23 


iiepths  are  in  it  !  For  Night  and  Orcus,  as  we  say,  as  was  long 
prophesied,  have  burse  forth,  here  in  this  Paris,  from  their  sub- 
terranean imprisonment  .  hideous,  dim,  confused  ;  which  it  is 
painful  to  look  on ;  and  yet  which  cannot,  and  indeed  which  should 
not,  be  forgotten. 

The  Reader^  who  looks  earnestly  through  this  dim  Phantasma- 
gory  of  the  Pit,  will  discern  few  fixed  certain  objects  ;  and  yet  still 
a  few.  He  will  observe,  in  this  Abbaye  Prison,  the  sudden 
massacre  of  the  Priests  being  once  ever,;  strange  Court  of 
Justice,  or  call  it  Court   of  Revenge  Wild-Justice,  '^r/iftly 

fashion  itself,  and  take  seat  round  a  table,  with  :hc  Prison-Regis- 
ters spread  before  it ; — Stanislas  Maillard^  Bastile-hero,  famed 
Leader  of  the  Menads,  presiding.  O  Stanislas,  one  hoped  to 
meet  thee  elsewhere  than  here  ;  thou  shifC;,  Riding- Usher,  with  an 
inkling  of  Law  !  This  work  also  thou  hadst  to  do  ;  and  then — to 
depart  for  ever  from  our  eyes.  At  La  Forcc^  at  the  Chdtelet,  the 
Condergerie,  the  like  Court  forms  itself^  with  the  like  accompani- 
ments :  the  thing  that  one  man  does  other  men  can  do.  There 
are  some  Seve:i  Prisoi.-  't.  Paris,  full  of  Aristocrats  with  con- 
spiracies ;--nay  nc.  even  Bicetre  and  vS'(^/^6'/r/6V^  shall  escape,  with 
their  Forgers  of  Assignats  .  and  there  are  seventy  times  seven 
hundred  Patriot  hearts  in  a  state  of  frenzy.  Scoundrel  hearts  also 
there  are  ;  as  perfect,  say,  as  the  Earth  holdS; — if  such  are  needed. 
To  whom,  in  this  mood,  law  is  as  no-law  ;  and  killing,  by  what 
name  soever  called,  is  but  work  to  be  done. 

So  sit  these  sudden  Courts  of  Wild-Justice,  with  the  Prison- 
Registers  before  them  ;  unwonted  wild  tumult  howling  all  round  : 
the  Prisoners  in  dread  expect?aicy  within.  Swift  :  a  name  is 
called  ;  bolts  jingle,  a  Prisoner  is  there.  A  few  questions  are  put ; 
swifdy  this  sudden  Jury  decides  :  Royahst  Plotter  or  not  ?  Clearly 
not  ;  in  that  case,  Let  the  Prisoner  be  enlarged  with  Vive  la 
JSlation.  Probably  yea  ;  then  still,  Let  the  Prisoner  be  enlarged, 
but  without  Vive  la  Nation;  or  else  it  may  run.  Let  the  Prisoner 
be  conducted  to  La  Force.  At  La  Force  again  their  forrnula  is. 
Let  the  Prisoner  be  conducted  to  the  Abbaye.—"  To  La  Force 
then  ! Volunteer  bailiffs  seize  the  doomed  man  ;  he  is  at  the 
outer  gate  ;  '  enlarged,'  or  '  conducted,'— not  into  La  Force,  but 
into  a  howling  sea  ;  forth,  under  an  arch  of  wild  sabres,  axes  and 
pikes  ;  and  sinks,  hewn  asunder.  And  another  sinks,  and  another; 
and  there  forms  itself  a  piled  heap  of  corpses,  and  the  kennels 
begin  to  run  red,  Fancy  the  yells  of  these  men,  their  faces  of 
sweat  and  blood  ;  the  crueller  shrieks  of  these  women,  for  there 
iire  women  too  ;  and  a  fellow-mortal  hurled  naked  into  it  all  1 
Jourgniac  de  Saint  Meard  has  seen  battle,  has  seen  an  efferves- 
cent Regiment  du  Roi  in  mutiny  ;  but  the  bravest  heart  may  quail 
at  this.  The  Swiss  Prisoners,  remnants  of  the  Tenth  of  August, 
*  clasped  each  other  spasmodically,'  and  hung  back  ;  grey  veterans 
'crying:  *^  Mercy  Messieurs;  ah,  mercy  I  "  But  there  was  no 
'mercy.  Suddenly,  however,  one  of  these  men  steps  forward.  He 
*had  a  blue  frock  coat  ;  he  seemed-  to  be  about  thirty,  his  stature 
*was  above  common^  his  look  noble  and  martial,      I  go  first,^ 


SEPTEMBER, 


*said  he,  "since  it  must  be  so  :  adieu  !"  Then  dashing  his  hat 
*  sharply  behind  him  :  "  Which  way  ? cried  he  to  the  Brigands  : 
<"shew  it  me,  then.''  They  open  the  folding  gate;  he  is  an- 
*nounced  to  the  multitude.  He  stands  a  moment  motionless ; 
'then  plunges  forth  among  the  pikes,  and  dies  ol  a  thousand 
'wounds.'^ 

Man  after  man  is  cut  down  ;  the  sabres  need  sharpenmg;  the 
killers  refresh  themselves  from  wine  jugs.    Onward  and  onward 
goes  the  butchery  ;  the  loud  yells  wearying  down  into  bass  growls. 
A  sombre-faced,  shifting  multitude  looks  on  ;  in  dull  approval,  or 
dull  disapproval ;  in  dull  recognition  that  it  is  Necessity.    '  An 
'  Aiiglais\x^  drab  greatcoat'  was  seen,  or  seemed  to  be  seen,  serv- 
ing liquor  from  his  own  dram-bottle  ;— for  what  purpose,  '  if  not 
'  set  on  by  Pitt/  Satan  and  himself  know  best  !    Witty  Dr.  Moore 
grew  sick"  on  approaching,  and  turned  into  another  street.f— 
Quick  enough  goes  this  Jury-Court ;  and  rigorous.    The  brave  are 
not  spared,  nor  the  beautiful,  nor  the  weak.    Old  M.  de  Mont- 
morin,  the  Minister's  Brother,  was  acquitted  by  the  Tribunal  of 
the  Seventeenth  ;   and   conducted  back,  elbowed  by  howhng 
o-alleries  ;  but  is  not  acquitted  here.    Princess  de  Lamballe  has 
fain  down  on  bed  :  "  Madame,  you  are  to  be  removed  to  the 
Abbaye."    "  I  do  not  wish  to  remove  ;  I  am  well  enough  here." 
There  is  a  need-be  for  removing.  .  She  will  arrange  her  dress  a 
litde,  then  ;  rude  voices  answer,  "  You  have  not  far  to  go."  ^he 
too  is  led  to  the  hell-gate  ;  a  manifest  Oueen's-Friend.  She  shivers 
back,  at  the  sight  of  bloody  sabres  ;  but  there  is  no  return  :  On- 
wards !    That  fair  hindhead  is  cleft  with  the  axe  ;  the  neck  is 
severed.    That  fair  body  is  cut  in  fragments  ;  with  indignities,- and 
obscene  horrors  of  moustachio  ^r^/^^^-Z^^r^^,  which  human  nature 
would  fain  find  incredible,— which  shall  be  read  in  the  original 
language  only.    She  was  beautiful,  she  was  good,  she  had  known 
no  happiness.    Young  hearts,  generation  after  generation,  will 
think  with  themselves  :  O  worthy  of  worship,  thou  king-descended, 
god-descended  and  poor  sister-woman  !  why  was  not  I  there  ;  and 
some  Sword  Balmung,  or  Thor's  Hammer  in  my  hand  ?    Her  head 
is  fixed  on  a  pike  ;  paraded  under  the  windows  of  the  Temple  ; 
that  a  still  more  hated,  a  Marie  Antoinette,  may  see.    One  Muni- 
cipal, in  the  Temple  with  the  Royal  Prisoners  at  the  moment,  said, 
"  Look  out."    Another  eagerly  whispered,  "  Do  not  look."  The 
circuit  of  the  Temple  is  guarded,  in  these  hours,  by  a  long  stretched 
tricolor  riband  :  terror  enters,  and  the  clangour  of  infinite  tumult :  | 
hitherto  not  regicide,  though  that  too  may  come.  | 
But  it  is  more  edifying  to  note  what  tlinllings  of  affection,  what  , 
fragments  of  wild  virtues  turn  up,  in  this  shaking  asunder  of  man's 
existence,  for  of  these  too  there  is  a  proportion.    Note  old  Mar- 
quis Cazotte  :  he  is  doomed  to  die ;  but  his  young  Daughter 
dasps  him  in  her  arms,  with  an  inpsiration  of  eloquence,  with  a 
love  which  is  stronger  than  very  deatli  ;  the  heart  of  the  killers 
themselves  is  touched  by  it  ;  the  okl  man  is  spared.    Yet  he  was 
*  FdlAnhesi,  La  l^^fnU  /ouUnli^re  {ut  suprk),  p.  I73- 
f  Moore's  Jountal,  i.  185-195. 


A  TRILOGY. 


25 


guilty,  if  plotting  for  his  King  is  guilt  •.  in  ten  days  more,  a  Court 
of  Law  condemned  him,  and  he  had  to  die  elsewhere  ;  bequeath- 
ing his  Daughter  a  lock  of  his  old  grey  hair.  Or  note  old  M. 
de  Sombreuil,  who  also  had  a  Daughter  :— My  Father  is  not  an 
Aristocrat  :  O  good  gentlemen,  I  will  swear  it,  and  testify  it,  and 
in  all  ways  prove  it ;  we  are  not ;  we  hate  Aristocrats  !  "  Wilt 
thou  drinK  Aristocrats'  blood  The  man  lifts  blood  (if  universal 
Rumour  can  be  credited^)  ;  the  poor  maiden  does  drmk.  "  This 
Sombreuil  is  innocent  then  Yes  indeed,— and  now  note,  most 
of  all,  how  the  bloody  pikes,  at  this  news,  do  rattle  to  the  ground  ; 
and  the  tiger-yells  become  bursts  of  jubilee  over  a  brother  saved  ; 
and  the  old  man  and  his  daughter  are  clasped  to  bloody  bosoms, 
with  hot  tears  ;  and  borne  home  in  triumph  of  Vive  la  Nation, 
the  killers  refusing  even  money!  Does  it  seem  strange,  this 
temper  of  theirs  ?  It  seems  very  certain,  well  proved  by  Royahst 
testimony  in  other  instances  :t  and  very  significant. 


CHAPTER  V: 

A  TRILOGY. 

As  all  Delineation,  in  these  ages,  were  it  never  so  Epic, '  speaking 

*  itself  and  not  singing  itself,'  must  either  found  on  Behef  and 
provable  Fact,  or  have  no  foundation  at  all  (nor  except  as  floating 
cobweb  any  existence  at  all),— the  Reader  will  perhaps  prefer  to 
take  a  glance  with  the  very  eyes  of  eye-witnesses  ;  and  see,  in 
that  way,  for  himself,  how  it  was.  Brave  Jourgniac,  innocent  Abbe 
Sicard,  judicious  Advocate  Maton,  these,  greatly  compressing 
themselves,  shall  speak,  each  an  instant.  Jourgniac's  Agony  of 
Thirty-eight  hours  went  through  'above  a  hundred  editions, 
though  intrinsically  a  poor  work.  Some  portion  of  it  may  here  go 
through  above  the  hundred-and-first,  for  want  of  a  better. 

'  Towards  seven  o'clock '  (Sunday  night,  at  the  Abbaye  ;  for 
Jourgniac  goes  by  dates)  :  '  We  saw  two  men  enter,  their  hands 
'  bloody  and  armed  with  sabres  ;  a  turnkey,  with  a  torch,  lighted 
'  them  ;  he  pointed  to  the  bed  of  the  unfortunate  Swiss,  Reding. 

*  Reding  spoke  with  a  dying  voice.  One  of  them  paused  ;  but  the 
'other  cried  Allons  done;  lifted  the  unfortunate  man;  carried 

*  him  out  on  his  back  to  the  street.    He  was  massacred  there.  ^ 

'  We  all  lookGd  at  one  another  in  silence,  we  clasped  each  other  s 

*  hands.    Motionless,  with  fixed  eyes,  we  gazed  on  the  pavement 

*  of  our  prison  ;  on  which  lay  the  moonlight,  checkered  with  the 
'  triple  stancheons  of  our  windows.' 

*  Three  in  the  morjiijig :  They  were  breaking-in  one  of  the 
^  prison-doors.    We  at  first  thought  they  were  coming  to  kill  us  in 

^  Dulaure  :  Esquisses  Historiques  des  principanx  6vdnemens  dela  Riv9lution^ 
.ii.  206  (cited  in  Montgaillard,  iii.  205). 

t  Bertrand-Moleville  {Mdm.  PartUuliers,  ii.  213),  &c.  <xc. 


26 


SEPTEMBER. 


^our  room;  but  heard,  by  vexes  on  the  stauxase,  that  it  was  a 
'  room  where  some  Prisoners  had  barricaded  themselves.  They 
^  were  all  butchered  there,  as  we  shortly  gathered.' 

'  Ten  d clock .  The  Abbe  Lenfant  and  the  Abbe  de  Chapt- 
'  Rastignac  appeared  in  the  pulpit  of  the  Chapel,  which  was  our 
^  prison  ;  they  had  entered  by  a  door  from  the  stairs.  They  said 
^  to  us  that  our  end  v/as  at  hand  ;  that  we  must  compose  ourselves, 
^  and  receive  their  last  blessing.  An  electric  movement,  not  to  be 
'  defined,  threw  us  all  on  our  knees,  and  we  received  it.  These 
two  whitehaired  old  men,  blessing  us  from  their  place  above  ; 
'  death  hovering  over  our  heads,  on  all  hands  environing  us  ;  the 
'  moment  is  never  to  be  forgotten.    Half  an  hour  after,  they  were 

*  both  massacred,  and  we  heard  their  cries/^; — Thus  Jourgniac  in 
his  Agony  in  the  Abbaye. 

But  now  let  the  good  Maton  speak,  what  he,  over  in  La  Force, 
in  the  same  hours,  is  suffering  and  witnessing.  This  Resurrection 
by  him  is  greatly  the  best,  the  least  theatrical  of  these  Pamphlets  ; 
and  stands  testing  by  documents  : 

'  Tov/ards  seven  o'clock,'  on  Sunday  night,  '  prisoners  were 

*  called  frequently,  and  they  did  not  reappear.  Each  of  us  reasoned 
'  in  his  own  way,  on  this  singularity  :  but  our  ideas  became  calm, 

*  as  w^  persuaded  ourselves  that  the  Memorial  I  had  drawn  up  for 
^  the  National  Assembly  was  producing  effect.' 

^At  one  in  the  morning,  the  grate  which  led  to  our  quarter 
^  opened  anew.    Four  men  in  uniform,  each  with  a  drawn  sabre 

*  and  blazing  torch,  came  up  to  our  corridor,  preceded  by  a  turn- 

*  key  ;  and  entered  an  apartment  close  to  ours,  to  investigate  a  box 
^  there,  which  we  heard  them  break  up.  This  done,  they  stept 
^  into  the  gallery,  and  questioned  the  man  Cuissa,  to  know  where 

*  Lamotte'  (Necklace's  Widower)  Svas.  Lamotte,  .they  said,  had 
^  some  months  ago,  under  pretext  of  a  treasure  he  knew  of, 
^  swindled  a  sum  of  three-hundred  livres  from  one  of  them,  inviting 
'  him  to  dinner  for  that  purpose.  The  wretched  Cuissa,  now  in 
^  their  hands,  who  indeed  lost  his  life  this  night,  ansv/ered  trem- 

*  bling.  That  he  remembered  the  fact  well,  but  could  not  tell  what 
^  was  become  of  Lamotte.  Determined  to  find  Lamotte  and  con- 
'  front  him  with  Cuissa,  they  rummaged,  along  with  this  latter, 
'  through  various  other  apartments  ;  but  without  effect,  for  we 
^  heard  them  say  :  "  Come  search  among  the  corpses  then  :  for^ 

*  nom  de  Dieu  I  we  must  find  where  he  is." 

*At  this  same  time,  I  heard  Louis  Bardy,  the  Abbe  Bardy' 
^  name  called  :  he  was  brought  out  ;  and  directly  massacred,  as 

*  learnt.    He  had  been  accused,  along  with  his  concubine,  five  n 

'  six  years  before,  of  having  murdered  and  cut  in  pieces  his  owi^ 

*  B-rother,  Auditor  of  the  CJiambre  des  Com  pies  at  Montpelicr  ;  but 
''held  by  his  subtlety,  his  dexterity,  nay  his  eloquence,  outwiitcd 

*  the  judges,  and  escaped. 

*  One  may  fancy  what  terror  these  words,  "  Come  search  amoir. 

*  llic  cor[)scs  then,"  had  thrown  me  into.    1  saw  nothing  for  it  ncrv 

jourgniac  Saint-Meard,  Mon  Ayonie  de  Trmte-huit  heures  (reprinted  iu 
iJrl.  Pari,  xviii.  103-135). 


A  T-RILOGV. 


27 


,L;t  resigning  myself  to  die.  I  wrote  my  last-will ;  concluding  it 
;  )v  a  petition  and  adjuration,  that  the  paper  should  be  sent  to  its 

*  address.  Scarcely  had  I  quitted  the  pen,  when  there  came  two 
'  other  men  in  uniform  ;  one  of  them,  whose  arm  and  sleeve  up 
'  to  the  very  shoulder,  as  well  as  the  sabre,  were  covered  witk 

*  blood,  said,  He  was  as  weary  as  a  hodman  that  had  been  beating 

*  plaster.' 

'  Baudin  de  la  Chenaye  was  called  ;  sixty  years  of  virtues  could 
'  not  save  him.  They  said,  A  VAbbaye :  he  passed  the  fatal  outer- 
'  gate  ;   gave  a  cry  of  terror,  at  sight  of  the  heaped  corpses  ; 

*  covered'^his  eyes  with  his  hands,  and  died  of  innumerable  wounds. 

*  At  every  new  opening  of  the  grate,  I  thought  I  should  hear  my 
'  own  name  called,  and  see  Rossignol  enter.' 

'  I  flung  off  my  night-gown  and  cap  ;  I  put  on  a  coarse  unwashed 

*  shirt,  a  worn  frock  w^ithout  waistcoat,  an  old  round  hat  ;  these 
'  things  I  had  sent  for,  some  days  ago,  in  the  fear  of  what  might 
>  happen.  '  ,  1  ait 

'  The  rooms  of  this  corridor  had  been  all  emptied  but  ours.  We 
'  were  four  together  ;  whom  they  seemed  to  have  forgotten  :  we 
'  addressed  our  pra)^ers  in  common  to  the  Eternal  to  be  delivered 
'  from  this  peril.' 

^  Baptiste  the  turnkey  came  up  by  himself,  to  see  us.  I  took  him 
'  by  the  hands  ;  I  conjurecThim  to  save  us  ;  promised  him  a  hun- 
'  dred  louis,  if  he  would  conduct  me  home.    A  noise  coming  from 

*  the  grates  made  him  hastily  withdraw. 

'  It  w^as  the  noise  of  some  dozen  or  fifteen  men,  armed  to  the 

*  teeth  ;  as  we,  lying  flat  to  escape  being  seen,  could  see  from  our 
'windows:  "Upstairs!"  said  they  :  "  Let  not  one  remain."  I 
'  took  out  my  penknife ;  I  considered  where  I  should  strike  myself,' 
—but  reflected  '  that  the  blade  was  too  short,'  and  also  '  on 
'  religion.' 

Finallv,  however,  between  seven  and  eight  o'clock  m  the  morn- 
ing, enter  four  men  with  bludgeons  and  sabres^ !— '  tC  one  of  whom 
'  Gerard  my  comrade  whispered,  earnesdy,  apart.    During  :heir 

*  colloquy  I  searched  every  where  for  shoes,  that  I  might  lay  oft 

*  the  Advocate  pumps  {pantoufles  de  Palais)  I  had  on,"  but  could 
find  none.— '  Constant,  called  le  Sauvage,  Gerard,  and  a  dnrd 

*  whose  name  escapes  me,  they  let  clear  off :  as  for  me,  four  sabres 
'  were  crossed  over  my  breast,  and  they  led  me  down.  I  was 
'  brought  to  their  bar  ;  to  the  Personage  with  the  scarf,  who  sat 
'  as  judge  there.  He  w^as  a  lame  man,  of  tall  lank  stature.  He 
'  recognised  me  on  the  streets,  and  spoke  to  me  seven  months 
'  after.  I  have  been  assured  that  he  was  son  of  a  retired  attorney, 
'  and  named  Chepy.  Crossing  the  Court  called  Des  Nounices,  I 
^  saw  Manuel  haranguing  in  tricolor  scarf.'  The  trial,  as  we  see, 
ends  in  acquittal  and  resurrection,'^ 

Poor  Sicard,  from  the  violo7t  of  the  Abbaye,  shall  say  but  a  few 
words  ;  true-looking,  though  tremulous.  Towards  three  in  the 
morning,  the  killers  bethink  them  of  this  little  violoyi  ;  and  knock 
from  the  court.    '  I  tapped  p-en:Iy,  trembling  lest  the  murderers 

♦  Matonde  la  Varenne,  Ma  R^surreciiQii  (in  Hist.  Pari,  xviii.  135-156). 


28 


SEPTEMBER, 


might  hear,  on  the  opposite  door,  where  the  Section  Committee 
was  sittmg  :  they  answered  gruffly  that  they  had  no  key.  There 
were  three  of  us  m  this  violon  ;  my  companions  thought  they 
perceived  a  kind  of  loft  overhead.    But  it  was  very  high  •  only 
one  of  us  could  reach  it,  by  mounting  on  the  shoulders  of  both 
the  others.    One  of  them  said  to  me,  that  my  life  was  usefuller 
^  than  theirs  :  I  resisted,  they  insisted  :  no  denial  !  I  flings  mvself 
on  the  neck  of  these  two  deliverers  ;  never  was  scene  more 
^  touching.    I  mount  on  the  shoulders  of  the  first,  then  on  those  of 
^  the  second,  finally  on  the  loft  ;  and  address  to  my  two  comrades 
the  expression  of  a  soul  overwhelmed  with  natural  emotions  ^ 
The  two  generous  com.panions,  we  rejoice  to  find,  did  not  perish. 
But  It  is  time  that  Jourgniac  de  Saint-Meard  should  speak  his  last 
words,  and  end  this  singular  trilogy.    The  night  had  become  day  • 
and  the  day  has  again  become  night.    Jourgniac,  worn  down  with 
uttermost  agitation,  has  fallen  asleep,  and  had  a  cheering  dream  • 
he  has  also  contrived  to  make  acquaintance  with  one  of  the 
volunteer  bailiffs,  and  spoken  in  native  Provengal  with  him.  On 
Tuesday,  about  one  in  the  morning,  his  Ap:ony  is  reaching  its 
crisis.  ^ 

'  By  the  glare  of  two  torches,  I  now  descried  the  terrible  tribunal 
^  where  lay  my  life  or  my  death.  The  President,  in  grey  coats, 
^  with  a  sabre  at  his  side,  stood  leaning  with  his  hands  against  a 
table,  on  which  were  papers,  an  inkstand,  tobacco-pipes  and 
^  bottles.  Some  ten  persons  y/ere  around,  seated  or  standing  ;  two 
^  of  whom  had  jackets  and  aprons  :  others  were  sleeping  stretched 
^  on  benches.  Two  men,  in  bloody  shirts,  guarded  the  door  of  the 
^  place  ;  an  old  turnkey  had  his  hand  on  the  lock.  In  front  of  the 
President,  three  men  held  a  Prisoner,  who  might  be  about  sixty  ' 
(or  seventy  :  he  was  old  Marshal  Maille,  of  the  Tuileries  and 
August  Tenth).  '  They  stationed  me  in  a  corner  ;  my  guards 
^  crossed  their  sabres  on  my  breast.  I  looked  on  all  sides  for  my 
^  Provengal  :  two  National  Guards,  one  of  them  drunk,  presented 
^  some  appeal  from  the  Section  of  Croix  Rouge  in  favour  of  the 

*  Prisoner  ;  the  Man  in  Grey  answered  :  "  They  are  useless,  these 
^  appeals  for  traitors."  Then  the  Prisoner  exclaimed  :  "  It  is  fright- 
'  ful ;  your  judgment  is  a  murder."     The  President  answered  ; 

"  My  hands  are  washed  of  it ;  take  M.  Maille  away."  They 
'  drove  him  into  the  street ;  where,  through  the  opening  of  the 
^  door,  I  saw  him  massacred. 

'  The  President  sat  down  to  write  ;  registering,  I  suppose,  the 

*  name  of  this  one  whom  they  had  finished  ;  then  I  heard  him  say: 
* "  Another,  A  un  autre  !  " 

'  Behold  me  then  haled  before  this  swift  and  bloody  judgment- 

*  bar,  where  the  best  protection  was  to  have  no  protection,  and  all 

*  resources  of  ingenuity  became  null  if  they  were  not  founded  on 
truth.    Two  of  my  guards  held  me  each  by  a  hand,  the  third  by 

^  the  collar  of  my  coat.      Your  name,  your  profession?"  said  the 

*  President.   "  The  smallest  lie  ruins  you,"  added  one  of  the  judges 

*  Abb6  Sicard :  Relation  adressde  d  un  de  ses  amis  (Hist,  Pari,  xviii. 


A  TRILOGY. 


29 


J— "My  name  is  Jourgniac  Saint-Meard  ;  I  have  served,  as  an 

•  officer,  twenty  years  :  and  I  appear  at  your  tribunal  with  the  as- 
'  surance  of  an  innocent  man,  who  therefore  will  not  lie." — "  We 
"  shall  see  that,"  said  the  President  :  "  Do  you  know  why  yoM  are 
;  arrested  ? '  — Yes,  Monsieur  le  President ;  I  am  accused  of  editing 

the  Journal  De  la  Co2ir  et  de  la  Ville.    But  I  hope  to  prove  the 

falsity  " 

But  no  ;  Jourgniac's  proof  of  the  falsity,  and  defence  generally, 
though  of  excellent  result  as  a  defence,  is  not  interesting  to  read, 
[t  is  long-winded  ;  there  is  a  loose  theatricality  in  the  reporting  of 
[t,  which  does  not  amount  to  unveracity,  yet  which  tends  that  way. 
VVe  shall  suppose  him  successful,  beyond  hope,  in  proving  and 
disproving  ;  and  skip  largely, — to  the  catastrophe,  almost  at  two 
5teps. 

'  "  But  after  all,"  said  one  of  the  Judges,  "  there  is  no  smoke 
\  without  kindling  ;  tell  us  why  they  accuse  you  of  that."—"  I  was 
'  about  to  do  so "  ^ — Jourgniac  does  so  ;  with  more  and  more 
success. 

'"Nay,"  continued  I,  "  they  accuse  me  even  of  recruiting  for 

•  the*  Emigrants  ! "  At  these  words  there  arose  a  general  murmur. 
' "  O  Messieurs,  Messieurs,"  I  exclaimed,  raising  my  voice,  "  it  is 
•my  turn  to  speak ;  1  beg  M.  le  President  to  have  the  kindness  to 

•  maintain  it  for  me  ;  I  never  needed  it  more."—"  True  enough, 
^  true  enough,"  said  almost  all  the  judges  with  a  laugh :  "  Silence  !  " 

'  While  they  were  examining  the  testimonials  I  had  produced,  a 
J  new  Prisoner  was  brought  in,  and  placed  before  the  President. 
•"  It  was  one  Priest  more,"  they  said,  "whom  they  had  ferreted 
^out  of  the  Chapelle."  After  very  few  questions  :  "  A  la  Force  !  " 
^  He  flung  his  breviary  on  the  table  :  was  hurled  forth,  and  mas- 
'  sacred.    I  reappeared  before  the  tribunal. 

'  "You  tell  us  always,"  cried  one  of  the  judges,  with  a  tone  of  im- 

•  patience,  "  that  you  are  not  this,  that  you  are  not  that  :  what  are 
^  you  then  ?  "— "  I  was  an  open  Royahst."— There  arose  a  general 
'  murmur  ;  which  was  miraculously  appeased  by  another  of  the 
^  men,  who  had  seemed  to  take  an  interest  in  me  i  "  We  are  not 
'  here  to  judge  opinions,"  said  he,  "  but  to  judge  the  results  of 
^  them."  Could  Rousseau  and  Voltaire  both  in  one,  pleading  for 
^  me,  have  said  better .?—"  Yes,  Messieurs,"  cried  I,  "always  till 
^  the  Tenth  of  August,  I  was  an  open  Royahst.  Ever  since  the 
'Tenth  of  August  that  cause  has  been  finished.  I  am  a  French- 
^man,  true  to  my  country.    I  was  always  a  man  of  honour."  ' 

*"  My  soldiers  never  distrusted  me.  '  Nay,  two  davs  before  that 
'business  of  Nanci,  when  their  suspicion  of  their  ofticers  was  at- its 
'  height,  they  chose  me  for  commander,  to  lead  them  to  Luneville, 
'to  get  back  the  prisoners  of  the  Regiment  Mestre-de-Chafnp,  and 
[seize  General  Malseigne."'  Which  fact  there  is,  most  luckily,  an 
individual  present  who  by  a  certain  token  can  contirm. 

*  The  President,  this  cross-questioning  being  over,  took  off  his  hat 
'  and  said  :  "  I  see  nothing  to  suspect  in  this  man  ;  I  am  for 
^granting  him  his  Hberty.  Is^that  your  vote  ?  '  To  which  all  the 
'judges  answered  %  "  Oiii^  ouij  it  is  just  I "  ' 


30 


SEPTEMBER. 


And  there  arose  vivats  within  doors  and  without  ;  '  escort  of  i 
^ three/  amid  shoutings  and  embracmgs  :  thus  Jourgniac  escaped' 
from  jury-trial  and  the  laws  of  death. .  Maton  and  Sicard  did, 
either  by  trial,  and  no  "  bill  found,  lank  President  Chepy  finding 
'  absolutely  nothing  ; '  or  else  by  evasion,  and  new  favour  of  Moton 
the  brave  watchmaker,  likewise  escape  ;  and  were  embraced,  and 
wept  over ;  v»^eeping  in  return,  as  they  v/ell  miighto 

Thus  they  three,  in  wondrous  trilogy,  or  triple  soliloquy  ;  uttering 
simultaneously,  through  the  drearl  night-watches,  their  Night- 
thoughts,-— grown  audible  to  us  I  They  Three  are  become  audible:; 
but  the  other  '  Thousand  and  Eighty-nine,  of  whom  Two  Hundred; 
^and  Two  were  Priests,'  who  also  had  Night-thoughts,  remain  in-' 
audible  ;  choked  for  ever  in  black  Death.  Heard  only  of  President 
Chepy  and  the  Man  in  Grey  ! — ■  x 


CHAPTER  VI.  j 

THE  CIRCULAR.  \ 

i 

But  the  Constituted  Authorities,  all  this  v/hile  ?  The  Legislative! 
Assembly  ;  the  Six  Ministers  ;  the  Town-hall  ;  Santerre  wdth  thej 
National  Guard  ?— It  is  very  curious  to  think  what  a  City  is.v 
Theatres,  to  the  number  of  some  twenty-three,  were  open  every'; 
night  during  these  prodigies  :  while  right-arms  here  grew  weary 
with  slaying,  right-arms  there  were  twiddledeeing  on  melodious 
catgut  ;  at  the  very  instant  when  Abbe  Sicard  was  clambering  up 
his  second  pair  of  shoulders,  three-men  high,  five  hundred 
thousand  human  individuals  were  lying  horizontal,  as  if  nothing 
were  amiss. 

As  for  the  poor  Legislative,  the  sceptre  had  departed  from  it| 
The  Legislative  did  send  Deputation  to  the  Prisons,  to  the  Street- 1 
Courts  ;  and  poor  M.  Dusaulx  did  harangue  there  ;  but  produced 
no  conviction  whatsocwr  :  nay  at  last,  as  he  continued  harangu- 
ing, the  Street- Covut  intcipos:.d,  not  without  threats  ;  and  he  had 
to  cease,  and  withdraw.  This  is  the  same  poor  worthy  old  M. 
Dusaulx  who  U)]d,  or  indeed  almost  sang  (though  with  cracked' 
voice),  the  Takimj;  of  Ihc  ]Hutilc—-\.o  our  satisfaction  long  since.  I 
He  was  wont  to  announce  himself,  on  such  and  on  all  occasions,  as  I 
the  Translator  of  Juvenal,  Good  Citizens,  you  see  before  you  a! 
man  who  loves  his  country,  who  is  the  Translator  of  Juvenal,"  saidj 
he  once. Juvenal  ? interrupts  Sansculottism  :  "who  the  devil 
is  Juvenal  ?  One  of  ^owx  sacres  Aristocrates  ?  To  the  Lanfernc  J^'^ 
From  an  orator  of  this  kind,  conviction  was  not  to  be  expected. 
'I'he  Legislative  had  much  ado  to  save  one  ot  its  own  Members, 
or  JO.K- Members,  Deputy  Journeau,  who  chanced  to  be  lying  in 
arrest  for  mere  Parliamentary  delimquencies,  in  these  Prisons.  As 

*  Mor.  A^i^unic  (ut  supra),  Hist.  Pari,  xvik.  128, 


7///.  CIRCULAR. 


for  poor  old  Dusaulx  and  Company,  they  returned  tX)  the  Salle  dc 
Manege,  saying,  It  was  dark  ;  and  they  could  not  see  well  what 
was  going  on."  * 

Roland  vmtes  indignant  messages,  in  the  name  of  Order, 
Humanity,  and  the  Law  ;  but  there  is  no  Force  at  his  disposal. 
Santerre's  National  Force  seems  lazy  to  rise  ;  though  he  made 
requisitions,  he  says, — which  always  dispersed  again.  Nay  did 
not  we,  with  Adv^ocate  Maton's  eyes,  see  *men  in  uniform,'  too, 
with  their  ^  sleeves  bloody  to  the  shoulder  ? '  Fetion  goes  in  tri- 
color scarf ;  speaks  the  austere  language  of  the  law  :  "  the  killers 
give  up,  while  he  is  there  ;  when  his  back  is  turned,  recommence. 
Manuel  too  in  scarf  we,  with  Maton's  eyes,  transiently  saw  ha- 
ranguing, in  the  Court  called  of  Nurses,  Coiir  des  No  unices.  On 
the  other  hand,  cruel  Billaud,  likewise  in  scarf,  Svith  that  small  puce 

*  coat  and  black  wig  we  are  used  to  on  him,'t  audibly  dehvers, 

*  standing  among  corpses,'  4t  the  Abbaye,  a  short  but  ever-memor- 
able harangue,  reported  in  various  phraseology,  but  always  to  this 
purpose  :  "  Brave  Citizens,  you  are  extirpating  the  Enemies  of 
Liberty  ;  ypu  are  at  your  duty.  A  grateful  Commune,  and  Country, . 
would  wish  to  recompense  you  adequately  ;  but  cannot,  for  you 
know  its  w^ant  of  funds.  Whoever  shall  have  worked  {travatlle)  in 
a  Frison  shall  receive  a  draft  of  one  louis,  payable  by  our  cashier. 
Continue  your  worli.''j — The  Constituted  Authorities  are  of  yester- 
day ;  all  pulling  different  ways  :  there  is  properly  not  Constituted 
Authority,  but  every  man  is  his  own  King  ;  and  all  are  kinglets, 
belligerent,  allied,  or  armed-neutral,  without  king  over  them. 

'  O  everlasting  infamy,'   exclaims   Montgaillard,   '  that   Paris . 

*  stood  looking  on  in  stupor  for  four  days,  and  did  not  interfere  I ' 
Very  desirable  indeed  that  Faris  had  interfered  ;  yet  not  unnatural 
that  it  stood  even  so,  looking  on  in  stupor.  Faris  is  in  deatl>- 
panic,  the  enemy  and  gibbets  at  its  door  :  whosoever  in  Faris  has 
the  heart  to  front  death  finds  it  more  pressing  to  do  it  fighting  the 
Prussians,  than  fighting  the  killers  of  Aristocrats.  Indignant 
abhorrence,  as  in  Roland,  may  be  here  :  gloomy  sanction,  premedi- 
tation or  not,  as  in  Marat  and  Committee  of  Salvation,  may  be 
there  ;  dull  disapproval,  dull  approval,  and  acquiescence  in  Neces- 
sity and  Destiny,  is  the  general  temper.    The  Sons  of  Darkness, 

*  two  hundred  or  so/  risen  from  their  lurking-places,  have  scope 
to  do  their  work.  Urged  on  by  fever-frenzy  of  Patriotism,  and 
the  madness  of  Terror  urged  on  by  lucre,  and  the  gold  louis  of 
wages  ?  Nay,  not  lucre  :  for  the  gold  watches,  rings,  money  of 
the  Massacred,  are  punctually  brought  to  the  Town-hall,  by  Killers 
sans-indispensables,  who  higgle  afterwards  for  their  twenty 
shillings  of  wages  ;  and  Sergent  sticking  an  uncommonly  fine 
agate  on  his  finger  C  fully  meaning  to  account  for  it'),  becomes 
Agate-Serg^nt.  But  the  temper,  as  we  say,  is  dull  acquiescence. 
Not  till  the  Patriotic  or  Frenetic  part  of  the  work  is  finished  for 
want  of  material  ;  and  Sons  of  Darkness,  bent  clearly  on  lucre 

*  Moniteur,  Debate  of  2nd  September.  1792.  ^ 

t  Mehee,  Fils  (ut  supra,  in  Hist,  Pari.  ,xviii.  p.  189). 

j  Montgaillard,  iii.  1910 


32 


SEPTEMBER, 


alone,  begin  wrenching  watches  and  purses,  brooches  from  ladie^ 
necks  ^to  equip  VGliuitce:  ::/  in  dayhght,  on  the  streets, — does  the 
temper  from  dull  grov/  vehement ;  does  the  Constable  raise  his 
truncheon,  and  striking  heartily  (like  a  cattle-driver  in  earnest)  beat 
the  '  course  of  things '  back  into  its  old  regulated  drove-roads.  The 
Carde-Meuble  itself  was  surreptitiously  plundered,  on  the  17th  of 
the  Month,  to  Roland'2  new  horror ;  who  anew  bestirs  himself,  and  is, 
as  Sieyes  says,  '  the  veto  of  scoundrels/  Roland  vetodes  coqiiins."^— 

This  is  the  September  Massacre,  otherwise  called  'Severe 
Justice  of  the  People.'  These  are  the  Septemberers  (Scptembri- 
seurs)  ;  a  name  of  some  note  and  lucency,— but  lucency  of  the 
Nether-fire  sort  ;  very  different  from  that  of  our  Bastille  Heroes, 
who  shone,  disputable  by  no  Friend  of  Freedom,  as  in  heavenly 
light-radiance  :  to  such  phasis  of  the  business  have  we  advanced 
since  then  1  The  numbers  massacred  are,  in  Historical  fantasy, 
'between  two  and  three  thousand  ; '  or  indeed  they  are  'upwards; 
'of  six  thousand,'  for  Peltier  (in  vision)  saw  them  massacring  the 
very  patients  of  the  Bicetre  Madhouse  'with  grape-shot;'  nay 
finally  they  are  '  twelve  thousand '  and  odd  hundreds, — not  more 
than  that.f  In  Arithmetical  cipheri,  and  Lists  drawn  up  by 
accurate  Advocate  Maton,  the  number,  including  two  hundred  and , 
two  priests,  three  '  persons  unl^nown,'  and  '  one  thief  killed  at  the ' 
Bernardins,'  is,  as  above  hinted,  a  Thousand  and  Eighty-nine,—  : 
not  less  than  that. 

A  thousand  and  eighty-nine  lie  dead,  'two  hundred  and  sixty; 
heaped  carcasses  on  the  Pont  au  Change'  itself among  which, 
Robespierre  pleading  afterwards  will  '  nearly  weep '  to  reflect  that 
there  was  said  to  be  one  slain  innocent.J  One  ;  not  two,  O  thou 
seagreen  Incorruptible?  If  so,  Themis  Sansculotte  must  be 
lucky ;  for  she  was  brief ! — In  the  dim  Registers  of  the  Town- 
hall,  which  are  preserved  to  this  day,  men  read,  with  a  certain 
sickness  of  heart,  items  and  entries  not  usual  in  Town  Books  : 
'  To  workers  employed  in  preserving  the  salubrity  of  the  air  in 
the  Prisons,  and  persons  'who  presided  over  these  dangerous 
operations,'  so  much, — in  various  items,  nearly  seven  hundred 
pounds  sterling.  To  carters  employed  to  '  the  Burying-grounds 
of  Clamart,  Montrouge,  and  Vaugirard,'  at  so  much  a  journey, 
per  cart ;  this  also  is  an  entry.  Then  so  many  francs  and  odd 
sous  '  for  the  necessary  quantity  of  quick-lime  ! '  §  Carts  go 
along  the  streets  ;  full  of  stript  human  corpses,  thrown  pellmell ; 
limbo  sticking  up  :— secb.  .hou  that  cold  Hand  sticking  up,  through 
the  heaped  embrace  of  brother  corpses,  in  its  yellow  paleness,  m 
its- cold  rigour  ;  the  palm  opened  towards  Heaven,  as  if  in  dumb 
prayer,  in  expostulation  dc  proftmdis,  Take  pity  on  the  Sons  of 
Men  !— Mercier  saw  it,  as  he  walked  down  '  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques 
from  Montrouge,  on  the  morrow  of  the  Massacres  :'  but  not  a 
Hand;  it  was  a  Foot, -which  he  reckons  still  more  significant, 
one  understands  not  well  why.    Or  was  it  as  the  Foot  of  one 

Helen  Maria  Williams,  iii.  27.  f  See  Hist.  Pari.  xvii.  421,  422. 

t  M()7iitcur  of  6th  November  O^obate  of  5th  November,  1793). 
§  Etat  des  sommespaydcs  par  la  Commune  de  Paris  {.Hist,  Pari,  xviii.  231}. 


THE  CIRCULAR. 


33 


spurnirig  Heaven?  Rushing,  like  a  wild  diver,  in  disgust  and 
despair,  towards  the  depths  of  Annihilation?  Even  there  shall 
His  hand  .find  thee,  and  His  right-hand  hold  thee,  --surely  for 
right  not  for  wrong,  for  good  not  evil!  M  saw  that  Foot,'  says 
Mercier  ;  '  I  shall  know  it  again  at  the  great  Day  of  Judgment, 
'  when  the  Eternal,  throned  on  his  thunders,  shall  judge  botli 

*  K.ngs  and  Septemberers.'"^ 

That  a  shriek  of  inarticulate  horror  rose  over  thi^  thing,  not 
only  from  French  Aristocrats  and  Moderates,  but  from  all  Europe, 
and  has  prolonged  itself  to  the  present  day,  was  most  natural  and 
right.  The  thing  lay  done,  irrevocable  ;  a  thing  to  be  counted 
besides  some  other  things,  which  lie  very  black  in  our  Earth's 
Annals,  yet  which  will  not  erase  therefrom.  For  man,  as  was 
vemarked,  has  transcendentalisms  in  him  ;  standing,  as  he  doeS; 
poor  creature,  every  way  ^  in  the  confluence  of  Infinitudes;'  a 
mystery  to  himself  and  others  :  in  the  centre  of  two  Eternities, 
of  hree  Immensities, — in  the  intersection  of  primeval  Light  with 
tne  everlasting  dark  !  Thus  have  there  been,  especially  by  vehe- 
ment tempers  reduced  to  a  state  of  desperation,  very  miserable 
thmgs  done.  Sicilian  Vespers,  and  ^  eight  thousand  slaughted  in 
two  hours,'  are  a  known  thing.  Kings  themselves,  not  in  desper- 
ation, but  only  in  difficulty,  have  sat  hatching,  for  year  and  day 
(nay  De  Thou  says,  lox  seven  years),  their  Bartholomew  Business  ; 
aiid  then,  at  the  right  moment,  also  on  an  Autumn  Sunday,  this 
very  Bell  (they  say  it  is  the  identical  metal)  of  St.  Germam 
FAuxerrois  was  set  a-pealing — with  eflfect.t  Nay  the  same  black 
bouider-stones  of  these  Paris  Prisons  have  seen  Prison-massacres 
bciore  now  ;  men  massacring  countrymen,  Burgundies  massacring 
nrmagnacs,  whom^  they  had  suddenly  imprisoned,  till  as  now  there 
were  piled  heaps  of  carcasses^  and  the  streets  ran  red  ; — the  Mayor 
Petion  of  the  time  speaking  the  austere  language  of  the  law,  and 
answered  by  the  Killers,  in  old  French  (it  is  some  four  hundred 
years  old)  :  Maugre  biett,  Sire, — Sir,  God's  malison  on  your 
justice,  your  pity,  your  right  reason.  Cursed  be  of  God  whoso  shall 
have  pity  on  these  false  traitorous  Armagnacs,  English  ;  dogs  they 
are  ;  they  have  destroyed  us,  wasted  this  realm  of  France,  and  sold 
it  to  the  English.''^  And  so  they  slay,  and  fling  aside  the  slain, 
to  the  extent  of  '  fifteen  hundred  and .  eighteen,  among  whom. 

*  are  found  four  Bishops  of  false  and  damnable  counsel,  and  two 

*  Presidents  of  Parlement.'  For  though  it  is  not  Satan's  world 
this  that  we  live  in,  Satan  always  has  his  place  in  it  (underground 
properly)  ;  and  from  time  to  time  bursts  up.  Well  may  mankind 
shriek,  inarticulately  anathematising  as  they  can.  There  are 
actions  of  such  emphasis  that  no  shrieking  can  be  too  emphatic 
for  them.    Shriek  ye ;  acted  have  they. 

Shriek  who  might  in  this  France,  in  this  Paris  Legislative  or 
Paris  Townhall,  there  are  Ten  Men  who  do  not  shriek.    A  Cir* 

*  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris,  vi.  21. 

JQth  to  13th  September,  1572  (Dulaure,  Hist,  de  Paris^  iv.  289). 
Dulaure,  iii.  494. 

I     VOL.  III.  C 


34 


cular  goes  out  from  the  Committee  of  Salut  Public^  dated  3rd  of 
September  1792  ;  directed  to  all  Townhalls  :  a  State-paper  too 
remarkable  to  be  overlooked.    '  A  part  of  the  ferocious  conspira- 

*  tors  detained  in  the  Prisons/  it  says,  '  have  been  put  to  death  by, 

*  the  People  ;  and  it/  the  Circular,  '  cannot  doubt  but  the  whole 

*  Nation,  driven  u  the  ed^e  of  ruin  by  such  endless  series  of 
'  treasons,  will  make  saste  to  adopt  this  means  of  public  salvation; 
'  and  all  Frenchmen  will  cry  as  the  men  of  Paris  :  We  go  to  fight 
'  the  enemy,  but  we  will  not  leave  robbers  behind  us,  to  butcher 
^  our  wives  and  children.'  To  which  are  legibly  appended  these 
signatures  :  Panis  ;  Sergent  :  Marat,  Friend  of  the  People  with 
Seven  others  ; — carried  down  thereby,  in  a  strange  way,  to  the 
late  remembrance  of  Antiquarians.  We  remark,  however,  that 
their  Circular  rather  recoiled  on  themselves.  The  Townhails 
made  no  use  of  it  \  even  the  distracted  Sansculottes  made  little  ; 
they  only  howled  and  bcllov/ed,  but  did  not  bite.    At  Rheims 

*  about  eight  persons' were  killed  ;  and  two  afterwards  were  hanged 
for  doing  it.  At  Lyons,  and  a  few  other  places,  some  attempt 
was  made  ;  but  with  hardly  any  effect,  being  quickly  put  down. 

Less  fortunate  were  the  Prisoners  of  Orleans  ;  was  the  good 
Duke  de  la  Rochefoucault.  He  journeying,  by  quick  stages,  with 
his  Mother  and  Wife,  towards  the  Waters  of  Forges,  or  some 
quieter  country,  was  arrested  at  Gisors  ;  conducted  along  the 
streets,  amid  effervescing  multitudes,  and  killed  dead  'by  the 
'stroke  of  a  paving-stone  hurled  through  the  coach-windoWo* 
Killed  as  a  once  Liberal  now  Aristocrat ;  Protector  of  Priests, 
Suspender  of  virtuous  Petions,  and  most  unfortunate  Hot-grown- 
cold,  detestable  to  Patriotism.  He  dies  lamented  of  Europe  ;  his 
blood  spattering  the  cheeks  of  his  old  Mother,  ninety-three  years  old. 

As  for  the   Orleans    Prisoners,  they  are   State  Criminals: 
Royahst  Ministers,  Delessarts,  Montmorins  ;  who  have  been  ac 
cumulating  on  the  High  Court  of  Orleans,  ever  since  that  Tribunal 
was  set  up.    Whom  now  it  seems  good  that  we  should  get  trans- 
ferred to  our  new  Paris  Court  of  the  Seventeenth  ;  which  proceeds 
far  quicker.    Accordingly  hot  Fournier  from  Martinique,  Fournier 
PAjnericain,  is  off,  missioned  by  Constituted   Authority ;  with 
stanch  National  Guards,  with  Lazouski  the  Pole  ;  sparingly  pro- 
vided with  road-money.    These,  through  bad  quarters,  through 
difficulties,  perils,  for  Authorities  cross  each  other  in  this  time,— 
do   triumphantly  bring   off  the    Fifty   or   Fifty-three  Orleans 
Prisoners,  towards  Paris  ;  where  a  swifter  Court  of  the  Seven- 
teenth will  do  justice  on  them.t    But  lo,  at  Paris,  in  the  interim,  : 
still  swifter  and  swiftest  Court  of  the  Second,  and  of  Scptejubt 
has  instituted  itself  :  enter  not  Paris,  or  that  will  judge  you  ! 
What  shall  hot  Fournier  do.^    Tt  was  his  duty,  as  volunteer  Co. 
stable,  had  he  been  a  perfect  ciiriracter,  to  guard  those  men's  live 
never  so  Aristocratic^  at  the  expense  of  his  own  valuable  life  never 
so  Sanscu'lottic,  till  some  Constituted  Court  had  disposed  of  them, 
i^ut  he  was  an  imperfect  character  and  Constable  ;  perhaps  one 
the  more  imperfect. 

*  Hist.  Pari.  xvii.  433.  f  Ibid.  xvii.  434. 


THE  CIRCULAR. 


35 


Hot  Foumier,  ordered  to  turn  thither  by  one  Authority,  to  turn 
thither  by  another  Authority,  is  in  a  perplexing  multiplicity  of 
orders  ;  but  finally  he  strike^  off  for  Versailles.  His  Prisoners 
fare  in  tumbrils,  or  open  carts,  himself  and  Guards  riding  land 
marching  around  :  and  at  the  last  village,  the  worthy  Mayor  of 
Versailles  comes  to  meet  him^  anxious  that  the  arrival  and  lock- 
ing up  were  well  over.  It  is  Sunday,  the  ninth  day  of  the  month. 
Lo,  on  entering  the  Avenue  of  Versailles,  what  multitudes,  stirring,' 
swarming  in  the  September  sun,  under  the  dull- green  September 
foliage ;  the  Four-rowed  Avenue  all  humming  and  swarming,  as  if 
the  Town  had  emptied  itself !  Our  tumbrils  roll  heavily  through 
the  living  sea  ;  the  Guards  and  Fournier  making  way  with  ever 
more  difficulty  ;  the  Mayor  speaking  and  gesturing  his  per- 
suasivest ;  amid  the  inarticulate  growling  hum,  which  growls  ever 
the  deeper  even  by  heariag  Itself  growl,  not  without  sharp  yelp- 
ings here  and  there  : — Would  to  God  we  were  out  of  this  strait 
place,  and  wind  and  separation  had  cooled  the  heat,  which  seems 
about  igniting  here  ! 

And  yet  if  the  wide  Avenue  is  too  strait,  what  will  the  Street  de 
Surintendance  be,  at  leaving  of  the  same?  At  the  corner  of 
Surintendance  Street,  the  compressed  yelpings  became  a  continuous 
yell  :  savage  figures  spring  on  the  tumbril-shafts  ;  first  spray  of 
an  endless  coming  tide  !  The  Mayor  pleads,  pushes,  half-des- 
perate ;  is  pushed,  carried  off  in  men's  arms  :  the  savage  tide  has 
entrance,  has  mastery.  Amid  horrid  noise,  and  tumult  as  of  fierce 
wolves,  the  Prisoners  sink  massacred, — all  but  some  eleven,  who 
escaped  into  houses,  and  found  mercy.  The  Prisons,  and  what 
other  Prisoners  they  held,  were  with  difficulty  savedo  The  strip'i 
clothes  are  burnt  in  bonfire  ;  the  corpses  Me  heaped  in  the  ditch 
on  the  morrow  morning.^  All  France,  except  it  be  the  Ten  Men 
of  the  Circular  and  their  people,  moans  and  rages,  inarticulately 
shrieking  ;  all  Europe  rings. 

But  neither  did  Danton  shriek;  though,  as  Minister  of  Justice^,  it 
was  more  his  part  to  do  so.  Brawny  Danton  is  in  the  breach,  as 
of  stormed  Cities  and  Nations  ;  amid  the  Sweep  of  Tenth-of- 
August  cannon,  the  rustic  of  Prussian  gallov/s-ropes,  the  smiting 
of  September  sabres ;  dcotruction  all  round  him,  and  the  rushing- 
down  of  worlds  :  Minister  of  Justice  is  his  name  ;  but  Titan  of  the 
Forlorn  Hope,  and  Enfimt  Perdu  of  the  Revolution,  is  his  quality, 
^and  the  man  acts  according  to  that.  We  must  put  our  enemies 
in  fear  ! "  Deep  fear,  is  it  not,  as  of  its  own  accord,  falling  on 
our  enemies  ?  The  Titan  of  the  Forlorn  Hope,  he  is  not  the  man 
that  would  swiftest  of  all  prevent  its  so  falling.  Forward,  thou  lost 
Titan  of  an  Enfant  Perdu;  thou  must  dare,  and  again  dare,  and 
without  end  dare  ;  there  is  nothing  left  for  thee  but  that  !  "  Qtic 
mon  nam  soit flctri,  Ixt  my  name  be  blighted  : "  what  am  I  ?  The 
Cause  alone  is  great  ;  and  shall  live,  and  not  perish. — So,  on  the 
whole,  here  too  is  a  swallower  of  Formulas  ;  of  still  w^der  gulp 
than  Mirabeau  :  thic  Danton,  Mirabeau  of  the  Sansculottes.  In 

■y  Piec£s  officielUs  relatives  au  massacre  dcz  PrisoTiniers  ct  Versailles  (in 
Hist,  Pari,  xviii.  236-249). 


36 


SEPTEMBER, 


the  September  days,  this  Minister  was  not  heard  of  as  co-operating 
with  strict  Roland  ;  his  business  might  He  elsewhere,— with  Bruns- 
wick and  the  H6tel-de-Ville.  When  applied  to  l3y  an  official 
person,  about  the  Orleans  Prisoners,  and  the  risks  they  ran,  he 
answered  gloomily,  twice  over,  "  Are  not  these  men  guilty  ? '  — 
When  pressed,  he  '  answered  in  a  terrible  voice/  and  turned  his 
back.-^  Two  Thousand  slain  in  the  Prisons  ;  horrible  if  you  will : 
but  Brunswick  is  within  a  day's  journey  of  us  ;  and  there  are  Five- 
and  twenty  Millions  yet,  to  slay  or  to  save.  Some  men  have  tasks, 
— frightfuller  than  ours  !  It  seems  strange,  but  is  not  strange,  ' 
that  this  Minister  of  Moloch-Justice,  when  any  suppliant  for  a 
friend's  life  got  access  to  him,  was  found  to  have  human  compas- 
sion ;  and  yielded  and  granted  '  always  ; '  '  neither  did  one  per- 
'  sonal  enemy  of  Danton  perish  in  these  days/  f 

To  shriek,  we  say,  when  certain  things  are  acted,  is  proper  and 
unavoidable.  Nevertheless,  articulate  speech,  not  shrieking,  is  the 
faculty  of  man  :  when  speech  is  not  yet  possible,  let  there  be,  with 
the  shortest  delay,  at  least — silence.  Silence,  accordingly,  in  this 
forty-fourth  year  of  the  business,  and  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty- 
sixth  of  an  '  Era  called  Christian  as  lucus  a  7ion^  is  the  thing  we 
recommend  and  practise.  Nay,  instead  of  shrieking  more,  it  were 
perhaps  edifying  to  remark,  on  the  other  side,  what  a  singular 
thing  Customs  (in  Latin,  Mores]  are  ;  and  how  fitly  the  Virtue, 
Vir-ius,  Manhood  or  W^orth,  that  is  in  a  man,  is  called  his  Morality^ 
or  Custo7narmess.  Fell  Slaughter,  one  the  most  authentic  pro- 
ducts of  the  Pit  you  would  say,  once  give  it  Customs,  becomes 
War,  with  Laws  of  War  ;  and  is  Customary  and  Moral  enough ; 
and  reel  individuals  carry  the  tools  of  it  girt  round  their  haunches, 
not  without  an  air  of  pride, — Avhich  do  thou  nowise  blame.  While, 
see  I  so  long  as  it  is  but  dressed  in  hodden  or  russet ;  and  Revo- 
lution, less  frequent  than  War,  has  not  yet  got  its  Laws  of  Revolu- 
tion, Dut  the  hodden  or  russet  individuals  are  Uncustomary — O 
shrieking  beloved  brother  blockheads  of  Mankind,  let  us  close 
those  wide  mouths  of  ours  ;  let  us  cease  shrieking,  and  begin  con- 
sidering i 


CHAPTER  VIL 

SEPTEMBER  IN  ARGONNE. 

Pi>AiN,  at  any  rate,  is  one  thing  :  that  the  fear,  whatever  of  fear 
those  Aristocrat  enemies  might  need,  has  been  brought  about.  The 
matter  is  getting  serious  tlien  !  Sansculottism  too  has  become  a 
Fact,  and  seems  minded  to  assert  itself  as  such  ?  This  huge  moon- 
calf of  Sansculottism.  staggering  about,  as  young  calves  do,  is  not 
mockable  only,  and  soft  like  another  calf;  but  terrible  too,  if  you 
prick  it ;  and,  through  its  hideous  nostrils,  blows  fire  ! — Aristocrats, 

*  Bio^raphie  lies  Miuhtj  cs,  p.  97.  f  Ibid.  p.  103. 


SEPTEMBER  IN  ARGONNE, 


37 


with  pale  panic  in  their  hearts,  fly  towards  covert ;  and  a  hght 
rises  to  them  over  several  things  ;  or  rather  a  confused  transition 
towards  light,  whereby  for  the  moment  darkness  is  only  darker 
than  everf  But,  What  will  become  of  this  France?  Here  is  a 
question  !  France  is  dancing  its  desert-waltz,  as  Sahara  does 
when  the  winds  waken  ;  in  whirlblasts  twenty-five  millions  in 
number  ;  waltzing  towards  Townhalls,  Aristocrat  Prisons,  and 
Election  Committee-rooms;  towards  Brunswick  and  the  Frontiers; 
— towards  a  New  Chapter  of  Universal  History;  if  indeed  it  be 
not  the  Fmis^  and  windmg-up  of  that  ! 

In  Election  Committee-rooms  there  is  now  no  dubiety  ;  but  the 
work  goes  bravely  along.  The  Convention  is  getting  chosen, — 
really  in  a  decisive  spirit  ;  in  the  Townhall  we  already  date  First 
year  of  the  Republic.  Some  Two  hundred  of  our  best  Legislators 
may  be  re-elected,  the  Mountain  bodily  :  Robespierre,  with  Mayor 
Petion,  Buzot,  Curate  Gregoire,  Rabaut,  some  three  score  Old- 
Constituents  ;  though  v/e  once  had  only  '  thirty  voices.'  All  these  ; 
and  along  with  them,  friends  long  known  to  Revolutionary  fame  : 
Camille  Desmoulins,  though  he  stutters  in  speech ;  Manuel, 
Talhen  and  Company  ;  Journalists  Gorsas,  Carra,  Mercier,  Louvet 
of  Faublas ;  Clootz  Speaker  of  Mankind  ;  CoUot  dTIerbois,  tear- 
ing a  passion  to  rags  ;  Fabre  d'Eglantine,  speculative  Pamphleteer  ; 
Legendre  the  solid  Butcher  ;  nay  Marat,  though  rural  France  can 
hardly  believe  it,  or  even  believe  that  there  is  a  Marat  except  in 
print.  Of  Minister  Danton,  who  will  lay  down  his  Ministry  for  a 
Mem.bership,  we  need  not  speak.  Paris  is  fervent  ;  nor  is  the 
Country  wanting  to  itself.  Barbaroux,  Rebecqui,  and  fervid 
Patriots  are  coming  from  Marseilles.  Seven  hundred  and  forty- 
five  men  (or  indeed  forty-nine,  for  Avignon  now  sends  Four)  are 
gathering  :  so  many  are  to  meet  ;  not  so  many  are  to  part  ! 

Attorney  Carrier  from  Aurillac,  Ex-Priest  Lebon  from  Arras, 
these  shall  both  gain  a  name.  Mountainous  Auvergne  re-elects 
her  Romme :  hardy  tiller  of  the  soil,  once  Mathematical  Professor; 
who,  unconscious,  carries  in  petto  a  remarkable  New  Calendar, 
with  Messidors,  Pluvioses,  and  such  like  ;— and  having  given  it 
well  forth,  shall  depart  by  the  death  they  call  Roman.  Sieyes 
old-Constituent  comes  ;  to  make  new  Constitutions  as  many  as 
wanted  :  for  the  rest,  peering  out  of  his  clear  cautious  eyes,  he 
will  cower  low  in  many  an  emergency,  and  find  silence  safest. 
Young  Saint- Just  is  coming,  deputed  by  Aisne  in  the  North  ;  more 
like  a  Student  than  a  Senator  :  not  four-and-twenty  yet  ;  w^ho  has 
written  Books  ;  a  yourh  of  slight  stature,  with  mild  mellow  voice, 
enthusiast  ohve-complexion,  and  long  black  hair.  Feraud,  from 
the  far  valley  D'Aure  in  the  folds  of  the  Pyrenees,  is  coming  ;  an 
ardent  Republican  ;  doomed  to  fame,  at  least  in  death. 

All  manner  of  Patriot  men  are  coming  :  Teachers,  Husband- 
men, Priests  and  Ex-Priests,  Traders,  Doctors;  above  all,  Talkers, 
or  the  Attorney-species.  Man-midwives,  as  Levasseur  of  the 
Sarthe,  are  not  wanting.  Nor  Artists  :  gross  David,  with  the 
swoln  cheek,  has  long  painted,  with  genius  in  a  state  of  convul' 


38 


SEPTEMBER. 


sion ;  and  will  now  legislate.  The  swoln  cheek,  choking  his  words 
in  the  birth,  totally  disqualifies  him  as  orator ;  but  his  pencil,  his 
head,  his  gross  hot  heart,  with  genius  in  a  state  of  convulsion,  will 
be  there.  A  man  bodily  and  mentally  swoln -cheeked,  dispropor- 
tionate ;  flabby-large,  instead  of  great  ;  weak  withal  as  in  a  state 
of  convulsion,  not  strong  in  a  state  of  composure  :  so  let  him.  play 
his  part.  Nor  are  naturalised  Benefactors  of  the  Species  forgotten: 
Priestley,  :lected  by  the  Orne  Department,  but  declining  :  Paine 
Ihe  rebellious  Needleman,  by  the  Pas  de  Calais,  who  accepts. 

Few  Ilobles  come,  and  yet  not  none.  Paul  Francois  Barras, 
^  noble  as  the  Barrases,  old  as  the  rocks  of  Provence  he  is  one. 
The  reckless,  shipwrecked  man  :  flung  ashore  on  the  coast  of  the 
Maldives  long  ago,  while  sailing  and  soldiering  as  Indian  Fighter; 
flung  ashore  since  then,  as  hungry  Parisian  Pleasure-hunter  and 
Half-pay,  on  many  a  Circe  Island,  with  temporary  enchantment, 
temporary  conversion  into  beasthood  and  hoghood  ; — the  remote 
Var  Department  has  now  sent  him  hither.  A  man-  of  heat  and 
haste  ;  defective  in  utterance  ;  defective  indeed  in  any  thing  to 
utter  ;  yet  not  without  a  certain  rapidity  of  glance,  a  certain  swift 
transient  courage  ;  who,  in  these  times,  Fortune  favouring,  may  go 
far.  He  is  tall,  handsome  to  the  eye,  '  only  the  complexion  a  little 
^  yellow  ; '  but  ^  with  a  robe  of  purple  with  a  scarlet  cloak  and 
'  plume  of  tricolor,  on  occasions  of  solemnity,'  the  man  will  look 
well.*  Lepelletier  Saint-Fargeau,  Old- Constituent,  is  a  kind  of 
noble,  and  of  enormous  wealth  ;  he  too  has  come  hither  : — to  have 
the  Pain  of  Death  Hapless  Ex-Parlementeer  !  Nay, 

among  our  Sixty  Old- Constituents,  see  Philippe  d' Orleans  a  Prince 
of  the  Blood!  Not  now  d' Orleans :  for,  Feudahsm  being  swept 
from  the  world,  he  demands  of  his  worthy  friends  the  Electors  of 
Paris,  to  have  a  new  name  of  their,  choosing  ;  whereupon  Pro* 
cureur  Manuel,  like  an  antithetic  literary  man,  recommends 
Equality^  Egalite.  A  Philippe  Egalite  therefore  will  sit  \  seen  of 
the  Earth  and  Heaven. 

Such  a  Convention  is  gathering  itself  together.  Mere  angry- 
poultry  in  moulting  season  ;  whom  Brunswick's  grenadiers  and 
cannoneers  will  give  short  account  of  Would  the  weather  only 
mend  a  little  !  f 

In  vain,  O  licrtrand  !  The  weather  will  not  mend  a  whit  : — > 
nay  even  if  it  did  1  Dumouricz  Polymetis,  though  Bertrand  knows 
it  not,  started  from  brief  slumber  at  Sedan,  on  that  morning  of  the 
29th  of  August ;  with  stealthiness,  with  promptitude,  audacity. 
Some  three  mornings  after  that,  Brunswick,  opening  wide  eyes, 
perceives  the  Passes  of  the  Argonne  all  seized  ;  blocked  with 
felled  trees,  fortified  with  camps  ;  and  that  it  is  a  most  shifty  swift 
Dumouricz  this,  who  has  outwitted  him  ! 

The  manoeuvre  may  cost  Brunswick  '  a  loss  of  three  weeks,^  very 
fatal  in  these  circumstances.  A  Mountain-wall  of  forty  miles 
lying  between  him  and  Pans  :  which  he  should  have  preoccupied; 

*  Dictio.uiaire  des  ll.oinmcs  Marqua}is\  §  Barras, 
f  Bertrand-Molcvillc,  AUnioires,  ii.  225. 


39 


—which  how  now  to  get  possessiQii  of?  Also  ilin  r.iin  it  rn meth 
every  day  ;  and  we  are  in  a  hungry  Champagne  i  "  land 
flowing  only  with  ditch-water.  How  to  cross  tin  .  n-wall 
of  the  Argonne  ;  or  what  in  the  world  to  do  with  it  ^  -  i  here  are 
marchings  and  wet  splashings  by  steep  paths,  with  sackennents 
and  guttural  interjections  ;  forcings  of  Argonne  Passes —v/hich 
unhappily  wiU  not  force.  Through  the  \v  O()ds,  volleying  War  re-^ 
verberates,  like  huge  gong-music,  or  Muloch^^  kettledrum,  borne 
by  the  echoes ;  swoln  torrents  boil  angrily  round  the  foot  of  rocks, 
floating  pale  carcasses  of  men.  In  yain  !  Islettes  Village,  with 
its  church-steeple,  rises  intact  in  the  Mountain-pass,  between  thft 
embosoming  heights  ;  your  forced  marchings  and  chmbings  have 
become  forced  slidings,  and  tumblings  back.  From  the  hill-tops 
thou  seest  nothing  but  dumb  crags,  and  endless 'wet  moaning 
woods;  the  Clermont  Vache  (huge  Cow  that  she  is)  disclosing  her- 
self"^ at  intervals  ;  flinging  off  her  cloud-blanket,  and  soon  taking 
it  on  again,  drowned  in  the  pouring  Heaven.  The  Argonne  Passes 
will  not  force  :  you  must  skirt  the  Argonne ;  go  round  by  the  end 
of  it. 

But  fancy  whether  the  Emigrant  Seigneurs  have  not  got  their 
brilliancy  dulled  a  httle  ;  whether  that  '  Foot  Regiment  in  red- 
*  facings  with  nankeen  trousers  '  could  be  in  field-day  order  !  In 
place  of  gasconading,  a  sort  oi  desperation^  and  hydrophobia  from 
excess  of  water,  is  threatening  to  supervene.  Young  Prince  de 
Ligne,  son  of  that  brave  literary  De  Ligne  the  Thundergod  of 
Dandies,  fell  backwards  ;  shot  dead  in  Grand-Pre,  the  Northmost 
of  the  Passes  :  Brunswick  is  skirting  and  rounding,  laboriously, 
by  the  extremity  of  the  South.  Four  da>^s  ;  days  of  a  rain  as  of 
Noah, — without  fire,  without  food  !  For  nre  you  cut  dow^n  green 
trees,  and  produce  smoke  ;  for  food  you  eat  green  qrapes,  and 
produce  colic,  pestilential  dysentery,  IXiKovro  de  Xao£.  And  the 
Peasants  assassinate  us,  they  do  not  join  us  ;  shrill  women  cry 
shame  on  us,  threaten  to  draw  their  very  scissors  on  us  !  O  ye 
hapless  duUed-bright  Seigneurs,  and  hydrophobic  splashed  Nan- 
keens ; — but  O,  ten  times  more,  ye  poor  sackervient-'m^  ghastly- 
visaged  Hessians  and  Hulans,  fallen  on  your  backs  ;  who  had  no 
call  to  die  there,  except  compulsion  and  three-halfpence  a-day  ! 
Nor  has  Mrs.  Le  Blanc  of  the  Golden  Arm  a  good  time  of  it,  in 
her  bower  of  dripping  rushes.  Assassinating  Peasants  are  hanged  : 
Pld-Constituent  Honourable  members,  though  of  venerable  age^ 
ride  in  carts  with  their  hands  tied  ;  these  are  the  woes  of  war. 

Thus  they  ;  sprawling  and  wriggling,  far  and  wide,  on  the  slopes 
and  passes  of  the  Argonne  ; — a  loss  to  Brunswick  of  five-and-twenty 
disastrous  days.  There  is  wriggling  and  struggling  ;  facing,  backing, 
and  right-about  facing  ;  as  the  positions  shift,  and  the  Argonne 
gets  partly  rounded,  partly  forced  : — but  still  Dumouriez,  force  him, 
round  him  as  you  will,  sticks  like  a  rooted  fixture  on  the  ground  ; 
fixture  with  many  hi?2ges ;  wheeling  now  this  way,  now  that ; 
shewing  always  new  front,  in  the  most  unexpected  manner  :  no- 
Wise  consenting  to  take  himself  away.  Recruits  stream  up  on  him  ; 
*  See  Helen  Maria  Williams,  Loiters,  iii.  79-81. 


SEPTEMBER. 


full  of  heart  ;  yet  rather  difficult  to  deal  with;  Behind  Grand-Prdj 
for  example,  Grand- Pre  ^^•hich  is  on  the  wrong-side  of  the 
Argonne,  for  we  are  now  forced  and  rounded,  — the  full  heart,  in 
one  of  those  w^heelings  and  shewings  of  new  front,  did  as  it  were 
overset  itself,  as  full  hearts  are  liable  to  do  ;  and  there  rosa  a 
shriek  of  sauve  qid  peut,  and  a  death-panic  which  had  nigh  ruined 
all  !  So  that  the  General  had  to  come  galloping  ;  and,  w^.h 
thunder-words,  with  gesture,  stroke  of  drawn  sword  even,  check 
and  rally,  and  bring  back  the  sense  of  shame  nay  to  seize  the 
first  shriekers  and  ringleaders .;  ^  shave  their  heads  and  eyebrows/ 
and  pack  them  forth  into  the  world  as  a  sign.  Thus  too  (for 
really  the  rations  are  short,  and  wet  camping  with  hungry  stomach 
brings  bad  humour)  there  is  like  to  be  mutiny.  Whereupon  again 
Dumouriez  '  arrives  at  the  head  of  their  line,  with  his  staff,  and  an 
'  escort  of  a  hundred  huzzars.  He  had  placed  some  squadrons 
'  behind  them,  the  artillery  in  front  ;  he  said  to  them  :  "  As  for 
'  you,  for  I  will  neither  call  you  citizens,  nor  soldiers,  nor  my  men 
*  {ni  7nes  enfans)^  you  see  before  you  this  artillery,  behind  you  this 
'  cavalry.  You  have  dishonoured  yourselves  by  crimes.  If  you 
'  amend,  and  grow  to  behave  like  this  brave  Army  which  you  have 
'  the  honour  of  belonging  to,  you  will  find  in  me  a  good  father. 
^  But  plunderers  and  assassins  I  do  not  suffer  here.  At  the 
'  sm.allest  mutiny  I  will  have  you  shivered  in  ^^lo^ccs  {hacher  en 
^pieces).  Seek  out  the  scoundrels  that  are  among  you,  and 
'  dismiss  them  yourselves  ;  I  hold  you  responsible  for  them  "'  t 

Patience,  O  Dumouriez  !  This  uncertain  heap  of  shriekers, 
mutineers,  were  they  once  drilled  and  inured,  will,  become  a 
phalanxed  mass  of  Fighters ;  and  wheel  and  whirl,  to  order, 
swiftly  like  the  wind  or  the  whirlwind  :  tanned  mustachio-figures  ; 
often  barefoot,  even  bare-backed ;  with  sinews  of  iron  ;  who 
require  only  bread  and  gunpowder  :  very  Sons  of  Fire,  the 
adroitest,  hastiest,  hottest  ever  seen  perhaps  since  Attila's  tim.3. 
They  may  conquer  and  overrun  amazingly,  much  as  that  same 
Attila  did  ; — whose  Attila's-Camp  and  Battlefield  thou  now  seest, 
on  this  very  ground  \  X  who,  after  sweeping  bare  the  world,  was, 
with  difficulty,  and  days  of  tough  fighting,  checked  here  by  Roman 
yEtius  and  Fortune  ;  and  his  dust-cloud  made  to  vanish  in  the 
East  again  ! — 

Strangely  enough,  in  this  skrieking  Confusion  of  a  Soldiery, 
which  we  saw  long  since  fallen  all  suicidally  out  of  square  in 
suicidal  colHsion, — at  Nanci,  or  on  the  streets  of  Metz,  where 
brave  Bouille  stood  with  drawn  sword  ;  and  which  has  collided 
and  ground  itself  to  pieces  worse  and  worse  ever  since,  down  now 
to  such  a  state  :  in  this  shrieking  Confusion,  and  not  elsewhere, 
lies  the  first  germ  of  returning  Order  for  France  !  Round  which, 
we  say,  poor  France  nearly  all  ground  down  suicidally  likewise 
into  rul3bish  and  Chaos,  will  be  glad  to  rally  ;  to  begin  growing,  and 
new-shaping  her  inorganic  dust  :  very  slowly,  through  centuries, 

*  Dumouriez,  Mdmoircs,  iii.  29. 

+  Ibid.,  MiUn aires  iii.  55. 

J  Helen  Maria  Williams,  iii.  32. 


SEPTEMBER  IN  ARGONNE. 


4t 


through  Napoleons,  Louis  Philippes,  and  other  the  hke  media  and 
phases,— into  a  new,  infinitely  preferable  France,  we  can  hope  !— 

!  These  wheeUngs  and  movements  in  the  region  of  the  Argonne, 
which  are  all  faithfully  described  by  Dumouriez  himself,  and  more 
interesting  to  us  than  Hoyle's  or  Philidor's  best  Game  of  Chess, 
let  us,  nevertheless,  O  Reader,  entirely  omit  ;— and  hasten  to 
remark  two  things  :  the  first  a  minute  private,  the  second  a  large 
public  thing.  Our  minute  private  thing  is  :  the  presence,  in  the 
Prussian  host,  in  that  war-game  of  the  Argonne,  of  a  certam  Man 
belonging  to  the  sort  called  Immortal  :  who,  in  days  since  then^ 
is  becoming  visible  more  and  more,  in  that  character,  as  the  Tran- 
sitory more  and  more  vanishes  ;  for  from  of  old  it  was  remarked 
that  when  the  Gods  appear  among  men,  it  is  seldom  in  recognis- 
able shape  ;  thus  Admetus'  eatherds  give  Apollo  a  draught  ol 
their  goatskin  whey-bottle  (well  if  t^  ey  do  not  give  Lmi  strokes 
with  their  ox-rungs),  not  dreaming  that  he  is  the  Sangod  !  This 
man's  name  is  Johami  Wolfgang  von  Goethe,  He  is  Herzog 
'  Weimar's  Minister,  come  with  the  small  contingent  of  Weimar  ; 
to  do  insignificant  unmilit  ry  duty  here  ;  very  irrecognizable  to 
nearly  all !  He  sta-  ds  at  present,  with  drawn  bridle,  on  the  height 
near  Sainte-Menehould,  making  an  experiment  on  the  '  cannon- 

*  fever     having  ridden  thither  against  persuasion  in  o  the  dance 
.  and  firing  of  the  cannon  balls,  with  a  scientific  desire  to  under- 
stand what  that  s^me  c  nnon-fever  may  be  :    the  sound  of  them,' 
says  he,  '  is  curious  enough  ;  as  if  it  were  compounded  of  the 

*  humming  of  tops,  the  gurgling  of  water  and  the  whistle  of  birds. 

*  By  degrees  you  get  a  very  uncommon  sensation  ;  which  can  only 

*  be  described  by  simihtude.  It  seems  as  if  you  were  in  some 
'place  extremely  hot,  and  at  the  same  time  were  completely 
'penetrated  by  the  heat  of  it  ;  so  that  you  feel  as  if  you  and  this 
'element  you  are  in  were  perfectly  on  a  par.  The  eyesight  loses 
'  nothing  of  its  strength  or  distinctness  ;  and  yet  it  is  as  it  all 
'things  had  got  a  kind  of  brown-red  colour,  which  makes  the 
'  situation  and  the  objects  still  more  impressive  on  you.'  * 

This  is  the  cannon-fever,  as  a  World-Poet  feels  it.— A  man  en- 
tirely irrecognisable  !  In  whose  irrecognisable  head,  meanwhile, 
there  verily  is  the  spiritual  counterpart  (and  call  it  complement)  of 
this  same  huge  Death-Birth  of  the  World  ;  which  now  efi'ectuates 
itself,  outwardly  in  the  Argonne,  in  such  cannon-thunder  :  inwardly, 
in  the  irrecognisable  head,  quite  otherwise  than  by  thunder  !  Mark 
that  man,  O  Reader,  as  the  memorablest  of  all  the  memorable  in 
this  Argonne  Campaign.  What  we  say  of  him  is  not  dream,  nor 
flourish  of  rhetoric  ;  but  sciendfic  historic  fact  ;  as  many  men,  now 
at  this  distance,  see  or  begin  to  see. 

But  the  large  public  thing  we  had  to  remark  is  this  :  That  the 
Twentieth  of  September,  1792,  was  a  raw  morning  covered  with 
mist  ;  that  from  three  in  die  morning  Sainto-Mcnehould,  and  those 
Villages  and  homesteads  we  know  o^  old  were  stirred  by  the  rumble 
'  ©f  artillery-wagons,  by  the  clatter  of  hoofs,  and  many  footed  tramp 
*  Goethe,  Camfa^ne  in  Frankrtich  ( Wcrkc^  xxx,  73), 


42 


SEPTEMBER. 


of  men  :  all  manner  of  military,  Patriot  and  Prussian,  taking  up 
positions^  on  the  Heights  of  La  Lime  and  other  Heights  ;  shifting 
and  shoving, — seemingly  in  some  dread  chess-game  ;  which  may 
the  Heavens  turn  to  good  !  The  Miller  of  Valmy  has  fled  dusty 
under  ground  ;  his  Mill,  were  it  never  so  windy,  will  have  rest  to- 
day. At  seven  in  the  morning  the  mist  clears  off :  see  Kellermann, 
Dumouriez'  second  in  command,  with  '  eighteen  pieces  of  cannon,' 
and  deep-serried  ranks,  drawn  up  round  that  same  silent  Wind- 
mill, on  his  knoll  of  streagth  ;  Brunswick,  also,  with  serried  ranks 
and  cannon,  glooming  over  to  him  from  the  height  of  La  Lune  | 
only  the  little  brook  and  its  iittie  dell  now  parting  them. 

So  that  the  much-longed-for  has  come  at  last !  Instead  of 
hunger  and  dysentery,  we  shall  have  sharp  shot ;  and  then  ! — 
Dumouriez,  with  force  and  firm  front,  looks  on  from  a  neighbour- 
ing height  ;  can  help  only  with  his  wishes,  in  silence.  Lo,  the 
eighteen  pieces  do  Muster  and  bark,  responsive  to  the  bluster  of 
La  Lune  ;  and  thunder-clouds  mount  into  the  air  ;  and  echoes  roar 
through  all  dells,  far  into  the  depths  of  Argonne  Wood  (deserted 
now)  ;  and  limbs  and  lives  of  men  fly  dissipated,  this  way  and  that. 
Can  Brunswick  make  an  impression  on  them  ?  The  dull-bright 
Seigneurs  stand  biting  their  thumbs  :  these  Sansculottes  seem  7iot 
to  fly  like  poultry  !  Towards  noontide  a  cannon-shot  blov/s 
Kellermann'c  horce  from  under  him  ;  there  bursts  a  powder-cart 
high  into  the  r.lr,  with  knell  heard  over  all  :  some  swagging  and 
swaying  observable  ;— Brunswick  will  try  !  "  Caviarades'^'  cries 
Kellermann,  Vive  la  Palrie  /  A  lions  vainer  e  pour  elle^l^^i  us 
conquer."  "  Live  the  Fatherland  ! "  rings  respon  sive,  to  the  welkin, 
like  rolling-flre  from  side  to  side  :  our  ranks  are  as  firm  as  rocks; 
and  Brunswick  may  recxo^s  the  dell,  ineffectual  ;  regain  his  old 
position  on  La  Lune  ;  not  unbattered  by  the  w^ay.  And  so,  for  the 
length  of  a  September  day,r-with  bluster  and  bark  ;  with  bellow 
far  echoing  I  The  cannonade  lasts  till  sunset  ;  and  no  impression 
made.  Till  an  hour  after  sunset,  the  few  remaining  Clocks  of  the 
District  striking  Seven ;  at  this  late  time  of  ^.ay  Brunswick  tries 
again.  With  not  a  whit  better  fortune  1  He  is  met  by  rock-ranks, 
by  shouts  of  Vive  la  Palrie;  and  driven  back,  not  unbattered. 
Whereupon  he  ceases  ;  retires  ^  to  the  Tavern  of  La  Lune  and 
sets  to  raising  a  redoute  lest  he  be  attacked  I 

Verily  so  :  ye  dullcd-bright  Seigneurs.  iHcdxC  of  it  what  ye  may. 
Ah,  and  France  does  not  rise  round  us  in  mass  ;  and  the  Peasants 
do  not  join  us,  but  assassinate  us:  neither  hanging  nor  any  per- 
suasion will  induce  them  !  They  have  lost  their  old  distinguishing 
love  of  King,  and  King's-cloak, — I  fear,  altogether  ;  and  will  even 
fight  to  be  rid  of  it  :  that  seems  now  their  humour.  Nor  does 
Austria  prosper,  nor  the  siege  of  Thionville.  The  Thionvillers, 
carrying  their  insolence  to  the  epigrammatic  pitch,  have  put  a 
Wooden  Horse  on  tlieir  walls,  witli  a  bundle  of  hay  hung  from  him, 
and  this  Inscription  :  ^  When  1  finish  my  hay,  you  will  take 
'Thionville.'*    To  such  height  has  tlic  frenzy  of  mankind  risen. 

The  trenches  of  Thionville  may  shut  :  and  what  though  those  of 
*  Hi  si.  Pari.  xix.  177. 


EXEUNT. 


43 


Lille  open  ?  The  Earth  smiles  not  on  us,  nor  the  Heaven ;  but 
weeps  and  blears  itself,  in  sour  rain,  and  worse.  Our  very  friends 
insult  us ;  we  are  wounded  in  the  house  of  our  friends  : 
"  His  Majesty  of  Prussia  had  a  greatcoat,  when  the  rain  came  ; 
and  (contrary  to  all  known  laws)  he  put  it  on,  though  our  two 
French  Princes,  the  hope  of  their  country,  had  none  ! To  which 
indeed,  as  Goethe  admits,  what  answer  could  be  made?"^~Cold 
and  Hunger  and  Affront,  Colic  and  Dysentery  and  Death  ;  and 
we  here,  cowering  redoiited^  most  unredoubtable,  amid  the  '  tattered 
'  corn-shocks  and  deformed  stubble,'  on  the  splashy  Height  of  La 
Lune,  round  the  mean  Tavern  de  La  Lune  ! — 

This  is  the  Cannonade  of  Valmy  ;  wherein  the  World-Poet  ex- 
perimented on  the  cannon-fever  ;  wherein  the  French  Sansculottes 
did  not  fly  like  poultry.  Precious  to  France  !  Every  soldier  did 
his  duty,  and  Alsatian  Kellermann  (how  preferable  to  old  Liickner 
the  dismissed  !)  began  to  become  greater  ;  and  Egalite  Fils, 
Equahty  Junior,  a  light  gallant  Field-Officer,  distinguished  himself 
by  intrepidity  : — it  is  the  same  intrepid  individual  who  now,  as 
Louis-Philippe,  without  the  Equality,  struggles,  under  sad  circum- 
stances, to  be  called  King  of  the  French  for  a  season. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

EXEUNT. 

But  this  Twentieth  of  September  is  otherwise  a  great  day. 
For,  observe,  while  Kellermann's  horse  was  flying  blown  from 
under  him  at  the  Mill  of  Valmy,  our  new  National  Deputies,  that 
shall  be  a  National  Convention,  are  hovering  and  gathering 
about  the  Hall  of  the  Hundred  Swiss  ;  with  intent  to  constitute 
themselves  ! 

On  the  morrow,  about  noontide,  Camus  the  Archivist  is  busy 
*  verifying  their  powers  ; '  several  hundreds  of  them  already  here. 
Whereupon  the  Old  Legislative  comes  solemnly  over,  to  merge  its 
old  ashes  Phoenix-hke  in  the  body  of  the  new  ;— and  so  forthwith, 
returning  all  solemnly  back  to  the  Salle  de  Manege,  there  sits  a 
National  Convention,  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  complete, 
or  complete  enough  ;  presided  by  Petion  ;— which  proceeds  directly 
to  do  business.  Read  that  reported  afternoon's-debate,  O  Reader  ; 
there  are  few  debates  like  it  :  dull  reporting  Moniteur  itself  be- 
comes more  dramatic  than  a  very  Shakespeare.  For  epigram- 
matic Manuel  rises,  speaks  strange  things  ;  how  the  President 
shall  have  a  guard  of  honour,  and  lodge  in  the  Tuileries  \— re- 
jected. And  Danton  rises  and  speaks  ;  and  Collot  d'Herbois 
rises,  and  Curate  Grdgoire,  and  lame  Couthon  of  the  Mountain 
rises  ;  and  in  rapid  Meliboean  stanzas,  only  a  few  lines  each,  they 
*  Goethe,  xxx.  49. 


44 


SEPTEMBER, 


propose  motions  not  a  few  :  That  the  comer-stone  of  our  new 
Constitution  is  Sovereignty  of  the  People  ;  that  our  Constitution 
shall  be  accepted  by  the  People  or  be  null ;  further  that  the 
People  ought  to  be  avenged,  and  have  right  Judges  ;  that  the  Im- 
posts must  continue  till  new  order  ;  that  Landed  and  other  Pro- 
perty be  sacred  forever  ;  finally  that  '  Royalty  from  this  day  is 
^  abolished  in  France  :  ^ — Decreed  all,  before  four  o'clock  strike, 
with  acclamation  of  the  world  !  *  The  tree  was  all  so  ripe  ;  only 
shake  it  and  there  fall  such  yellow  cart-loads. 

And  so  over  in  the  Valmy  Region,  as  soon  as  the  news  come, 
what  stir  is  this,  audible,  visible  from  our  muddy  heights  of  La 
LunePt  Universal  shouthig  of  the  French  on  their  opposite  hill- 
side ;  caps  raised  on  bayonets  ;  and  a  sound  as  of  Repudlique ; 
Vive  la  Reputlique  borne  dubious  on  the  winds  I— On  tne  morrow 
morning,  so  to  speak^  Brunswick  slings  his  knapsacks  before  day, 
lights  any  fires  he  has  ;  and  marches  without  tap  of  drum. 
Dumouriez  finds  ghastly  symptoms  in  that  cam.p  ;  '  latrines  full  of 
^  blood  VX  The  chivalrous  King  of  Prussia,  for  he  as  we  saw  is 
here  in  person,  may  long  rue  the  day  ;  may  look  colder  than  ever 
on  these  dulled-bright  Seigneurs,  and  Freach  Princes  their  Country's 
hope  ; — and,  on  the  whole,  put  on  his  great-coat  without  ceremony, 
happy  that  he  has  one.  They  retire,  all  retire  with  convenient  de- 
spatch, through  a  Champagne  trodden  into  a  quagmire,  the  wild 
weather  pouring  on  them  ;  Dumouriez  through  his  Kellermanns 
and  Dillons  pricking  them  a  little  in  the  hinder  parts.  A  httle,  not 
much  ;  now  pricking,  now  negotiating  :  for  Brunswick  has  his 
eyes  opened  ;  and  the  Majesty  of  Prussia  is  a  repentant  Majesty. 

Nor  has  Austria  prospered,  nor  the  Wooden  Horse  of  Thion- 
ville  bitten  his  hay  ;  nor  Lille  City  surrendered  itself.  The  Lille 
trenches  opened,  on  the  29th  of  the  month  ;  with  balls  and  shells, 
and  redhot  balls  ;  as  if  not  trenches  but  Vesuvius  and  the  Pit  had 
opened.  It  was  frightful,  say  all  cyc-v/itnesses  ;  but  it  is  ineffectual. 
The  Lillers  have  risen  to  such  temper  ;  especially  after  these 
news  from  Argonne  and  the  East.  Not  a  Sans-indispensables  in 
Lille  that  would  surrender  for  a  King's  ransom.  Redhot  balls 
rain,  day  and  night ;  '  six-thousand,'  or  so,  and  bombs  ^filled  in- 
'  ternally  with  oil  of  turpentine  which  splashes  up  in  flame  ; ' — • 
mainly  on  the  dwellings  of  the  Sansculottes  and  Poor  ;  the  streets 
of  the  Rich  being  spared.  V-t  Sansculottes  get  water-pails  ; 
form  quenching-regulations,  "The  l^all  is  in  Peter's  house!" 
"  The  ball  is  in  John's  !  "  They  divide  their  lodging  and  substance 
wit^  each  other  •  shout  Vi^^e  la  Rcpubliquc  j  and  faint  not  in 
heart.  A  ball  thunders  through  the  main  chamber  of  the  Hotel- 
de-Ville,  while  the  Commune  i:  there  assembled  :  "  We  are  in 
permanence,"  says  one,  coldly,  proceeding  with  his  business  ;  and 
the  ball  remains  permanent  too,  sticking  in  the  wall,  probably  to 
this  day.§ 

*  Hist.  Pari.  xix.  19.  f  Williams,  iii.  71, 

ist  October,  T.792;  numouri(;z,  iii.  73. 
Bombardemcnt  dc  Lille,  (in  IJisi.  Pari.  xx.  63-71), 


EXEUNT. 


45 


The  Austrian  Archduchess  (Queen's  Sister)  will  herself  see  red 
artillery  fired  ;  in  their  over-haste  to  satisfy  an  Archduchess  '  two 

*  mortars  explode  and  kill  thirty  persons/  It  is  in  vain;  Lille, 
often  burning,  is  always  quenched  again  ;  Lille  will  not  yield. 
The  very  boys  deftly  wrench  the  matches  out  of  fallen  bombs  : 

*  a  man  clutches  a  rolling  ball  with  his  hat,  which  takes  fire  ; 
'  when  cool,  they  crown  it  with  a  bonnet  rouge!    Memorable  also 

-  be  that  nimble  Barber,  who  when  the  bomb  burst  beside  him, 
snatched  up  a  shred  of  it,  introduced  soap  and  lather  into  it, 
crying,  "  Voila  mofi  plat  a  barbe,  My  new  shaving-dish  ! "  and 
shaved  'fourteen  people'  on  the  spot.  Bravo,  thou  nimble 
Shaver  ;  worthy  to  shave  old  spectral  Redcloak,  and  find  trea- 
sures !— On  the  eighth  day  of  this  desperate  siege,  the  sixth  day 
of  October,  Austria  finding  it  fruitless,  draws  off,  with  no  plea- 
surable consciousness  ;  rapidly,  Dumouriez  tending  thitherward  ; 
and  Lille  too,  black  with  ashes  and  smoulder,  but  jubilant  sky- 
high,  flings  its  gates  open.  The  Plat  a  barbe  became  fashion- 
able ;  'no  Patriot  of  an  elegant  turn,'  says  Mercier  several  years 
afterwards,  '  but  shaves  himself  out  of  the  splinter  of  a  Lille 

*  bomb.' 

Q///^/ ;;/////^z.  Why  many  words?  The  Invaders  are  in  flight; 
Brunswick's  Host,  the  third  part  of  it  gone  to  death,  staggers 
disastrous  along  the  deep  highways  of  Champagne  ;  spreading 
out  also  into  '  the  fields,  of  a  tough  spongy  red-coloured  clay  ; ' — 

*  like  Pharaoh  through  a  Red  Sea  of  mud,'  says  Goethe  ;  '  for  here 
'also  lay  broken  chariots,  and  riders  and  foot  seemed  sinking 
'around.'*  On  the  eleventh  morning  of  October,  the?  World- 
Poet,  struggling  Northwards  out  of  Verdun,  which  he  had  entered 
Southwards,,  some  five  weeks  ago,  in  quite  other  order,  discerned 
the  following  Phenomenon  and  formed  part  of  it  : 

'  Towards  three  in  the  morning,  without  having  had  any  sleep, 

*  we.  were  about  mounting  our  carriage,  drawn  up  at  the  door  ; 
^  when  an  insuperable  obstacle  disclosed  itself :  for  there  rolled  on 

*  already,  between  the  pavement-stones  which  were  crushed  up  into 

*  a  ridge  on  each  side,  an  uninterrupted  column  of  sick-wagons 

*  through  the  Town,  and  all  was  trodden  as  into  a  morass.  While 

*  we  stood  waiting  what  could  be  made  of  it,  our  Landlord  the 

*  Knight  of  Saint-Louis  pressed  past  us,  without  salutation.'.  He 
had  been  a  Calonne's  Notable  in  1787,  an  Emigrant  since  ;  had 
returned  to  his  home,  jubilant,  with  the  Prussians  ;  but  must  now 
forth  again  into  the  wide  world,  '  followed  by  a  servant  carrying  a 
'  little  bundle  on  his  stick.' 

'  The  activity  of  our  alert  Lisieux  shone  eminent  ;  and,  on  this 
'occasion  too,  brought  us  on  :  for  he  struck  into  a  small  gap  of 
'  the  wagon-row  ;  and  held  the  advancing  team  back  till  we,  with 
'  our  six  and  our  four  horses,  got  intercalated  ;  after  which,  in  my 

*  light  litde  coachlet,  I  could  breathe  freer.    We  were  now  under 

*  way  ;  at  a  funeral  pace,  but  still  under  way.  The  day  broke  :  we 
•found  ourselves  at  the  outlet  of  the  Town,  in  a  tumult ^and  tur- 

*  Campagne  in  Frankrcich,  p.  103. 


46  SEPTEMBER. 


'  moil  without  measure.    All  sorts  of  vehicles,  few  horsemen,  m- 

*  numerable  foot-people,  were  crossing  each  other  on  the  great  \ 
'  esplanade  before  the  Gate.    We  turned  to  the  right,  with  our 

*  Column,  towards  Estain,  on  a  hmited  highway,  with  ditches  at  ; 
'  each  side.    Self-preservation,  in  so  monstrous  a  press,  knew  now 

*  no  pity,  no  respect  of  aught.  Not  far  before  us  there  fell  down 
'  a  horse  of  an  ammunition-wagon  :  they  cut  the  traces,  and  let  it 
Mie.    And  now  as  the  three  others  could  not  bring  their  load 

'  along,  they  cut  them  also  loose,  tumbled  the  heavy-packed  vehi«  , 
'  cle  into  the  ditch  ;  and,  with  the  smallest  retardation,  we  had  to 
'drive  on,  right  over  the  horse,  which  was  just  about  to  rise  ;  and 
'  I  saw  too  clearly  how  its  legs,  under  the  wheels,  went  crashing 
'  and  quivering. 

'  Horse  and  foot  endeavoured  to  escape  from  the  narrow  labo- 
rious  highway  into  the  meadows  :  but  these  too  were  rained  to 
'  ruin  ;  overflowed  by  full  ditches,  the  connexion  of  the  footpaths 
'  every  where  interrupted.    Four  gentlemanlike,  handsome,  weli- 
'  dressed  French  soldiers  waded  for  a  time  beside  our  carriage  ; 

*  wonderfully  clean  and  neat  :  and  had  such  art  of  picking  their 
'  steps,  that  their  foot-gear  testified  no  higher  than  the  ancle  to  the 
'  muddy  pilgrimage  these  good  people  found  themselves  engaged 

'in.  •  . 

'  That  under  such  circumstances  one  saw,  in  ditches,  m  mea- 
'  dows,  in  fields  and  crofts,  dead  horses  enough,  was  natural  to  the 
'  case  :  by  and  by,  however,  you  found  them  also  flayed,  the  tleshy 
'parts  even  cut  away  ;  sad  token  of  the  universal  distress.  ; 

'  Thus  we  fared  on  ;  everv  moment  in  danger,  at  the  smallest 
'  stoppage  on  our  own  part,  of  being  ourselves  tumbled  overboard ; 
'  under  which  circumstances,  truly,  the  careful  dexterity  of  our 
'  Lisieux  could  not  be  sufficiently  praised.  The  same  talent  shewed 

*  itself  at  Estain  ;  where  v/e  arrived  towards  noon  ;  and  descried, 
'  over  the  beautiful  well-built  little  Town,  through  streets  and  on 
'  squares,  around  and  beside  us,  one  sense-confusing  tumult :  the 
'mass  roiled  this  way  and  that  ;  and,  all  strugghng  forward  each 
'  hindered  the  other.  Unexpectedly  our  carriage  drew  up  betore  a 
'  stately  house  in  the  market-place  ;  master  and  mistress  ot  the. 
'mansion  saluted  us  in  reverent  distance.'  Dexterous  Lisieux, 
though  we  knew  it  not,  had  said  we  were  the  King  of  Prussia  s 

Brother  !  ,    ,  .  .1.1,1^ 

'  But  now,  from  the  ground-floor  windows,  looking  over  the  whole 

*  market-place,  we  had  the  endless  tumult  lying,  as  it  were,  palpable. 
'  All  sorts  of  walkers,  soldiers  in  uniform,  marauders,  stout  but 

sorrowincr  citizens  and  peasants,  women  and  children,  «rushed 
'  and  jostled  each  other,  amid  vehicles  of  all  forms  :  ammunition- 
'  wagons,  baggage-wagons  ;  carriages,  single,  double,  and  multi- 
'plex  •  such  hundredfold  miscellany  of  teams,  requisitioned  or  Jaw- 
'  fully  owned,  making  way,  hitting  together,  hindering  each  other, 

*  rolled  here  to  right  and  to  left.  Horned-cattle  too  were  struggling 
'  on  ;  probably  herds  that  had  been  put  in  requisition.  Riders  you 
Saw  few;  but  the  elegant  carriages  of  the  Emigrants,  many- 


EXEUNT. 


47 


^coloured,  lackered,  gilt  and  silvered,  evidently  by  the  best  builders, 
^caught  your  eye.* 
'  The  crisis  of  the  strait  however  arose  further  on  a  little  ;  where 

*  the  crowded  market-place  had  to  introduce  itself  into  a  street, — 
'  straight  indeed  and  good,  but  proportionably  far  too  narrow.  I 
*have,  in  my  life,  seen  nothing  like  it  :  the  aspect  of  it  might 

*  perhaps  be  compared  to  that  of  a  swoln  river  v/hich  has  been 
'  raging  over  meadows  and  fields,  and  is  now  again  obliged  to  press 
'  itself  through  a  narrow  bridge^  and  flow  on  in  its  bounded 
^  channel.  Down  the  long  street,  all  visible  from  our  windows^ 
'  there  swelled  continually  the  strangest  tide  :  a  high  double-seated 

*  travelling-coach  towered  visible  over  the  flood  of  things.  We 
^  thought  of  the  fair  P>ench-women  we  had  seen  in  the  morning. 
'  it  was  not  they,  however  ;  it  was  Count  Haugwitz  ;  him  you  could 
'  look  at,  with  a  kind  of  sardonic  malice,  rocking  onwards,  step  by 
'  step,  therc.^'*' 

In  such  untriumphant  Procession  has  the  Brunsv/icl:  Manifesto 
issued  !  Nay  in  worse,  ^in  Negotiation  with  these  miscreants,^ — the 
first  news  of  which  produced  such  a  revulsion  in  the  Em.igrant 
nature,  as  put  our  scientific  World- Poet  ^  in  fear  for  the  wits  of 

*  several.'  There  is  no  help  :  they  must  fare  on,  these  poor  Emi- 
grants, angry  v;ith  all  persons  and  things,  and  making  all  persons 
angry,  in  the  hapless  course  thev  struck  into.  Landlord  and  land- 
lady testify  to  you,  at  tahles-crhote,  how  insupportable  these  French- 
men are  :  how,  in  spite  of  such  humiliation,  of  poverty  and  probable 
beg-gary,  there  is  ever  the  same  struggle  for  precedence,  the  same 
forwardness,  and  want  of  discretion.  High  in  honour,  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  you  with  your  own  eyes  observe  not  a  Seigneur  but 
the  automaton  of  a  Seigneur,  fallen  into  dotage  ;  still  w^orshipped, 
reverently  waited  on,  and  fed.  In  miscellaneous  seats,  is  a  mis- 
cc"::ny  of  soldiers,  commissaries,  adventurers  ;  consuming  silendy 
their,  barbarian  victuak.  '  On  all  brows  is  to  be  read  a  hard  des- 
'  tiny  ;  all  are  silent,  for  each  has  his  own  sufferings  to  bear,  and 
'looks  forth  into  misery  without  bounds.'  One  hasty  vranderer, 
coming  in,  and  eating  without  ungraciousness  what  is  :ct  before 
him,  the  landlord  lets  off  almost  scot-free.  He  is,"  whispered  the 
landlord  to  me,  "  the  first  of  these  cursed  people  I  have  seen  con^ 
descend  to  taste  our  German  black  bread."  § 

And  Dumouriez  is  in  Paris  ;  lauded  and  feasted  ;  paraded  in 
glittering  saloons,  floods  of  beautifullest  blond-dresses  and  broad- 
cioth-coats  flowing  past  him,  endless,  in  admiring  joy.  One 
night,  nevertheless,  in  the  splendour  of  one  such  scene,  he  sees 
hiinseif  suddenly  apostrophised  by  a  squalid  unjoyful  Figure,  who 
^  IS  come  in  ////invited,  nay  despite  of •  all  lackeys;  an  unjoyfuJ. 

4ure  1  The  Figure  is  come  "  in  express  mission  from  the  Jaco- 
s,"  to  inquire  sharplv,  better  then, than  later,  touching  certain 
things  :  "  Shaven  eyebrows  of  Volunteer  Patriots,  for  instance  ? " 

*  See  Ilennann  and  Dorothea  (also  by  Goethe),  Buch  KolUope. 

f  Campanile  hi  Frankrcich,  Goethe's  Wcrke  (Stuttgart,  1829),  xxx.  133-137 

X  ibid.  152. 

§  Ibid.  2IO-I2. 


48 


SEPTEMBER. 


Also  "  your  threats  of  shivering  in  pieces  ?  Also,  "  why  you  have 
not  chased  Brunswick  hotly  enough?"  Thus,  with  sharp  croak 
inquires  the  Figure.— .^/^,  c'est  voiis  qn'on  appelle  Marat^  Yo\x 
are  he  they  call  Marat  ! "  answers  the  General,  and  turns  coldly  on 
his  heel."^— "  Marat  1 The  blonde-gov/ns  quiver  hke  aspens  ; 
the  dress-coats  gather  round  ;  Actor  Talma  (for  it  is:  his  house), 
and  almost  the  very  chandelier-lights,  are  blue  :  till  this  obscene 
Spectrum,  or  visual  Appearance,  vanish  back  into  native  Night. 

General  Dumouriez,  in  few  brief  days,  is  gone  again,  towards 
the  Netherlands  ;  will  attack  the  Netherlands,  winter  though  it  be. 
And  General  Montesquiou,  on  the  South-hast,  has  driven  in  the 
Sardinian  Majesty  ;  nay,  almost  without  a  shot  fired,  has  taken 
Savoy  from  him,  which  longs  to  become  a  piece  of  the  Repubhc. 
And  General  Custine,  on  the  North- East,  has  dashed  forth  on 
Spires  and  its  Arsenal  ;  and  then  on  Electoral  Mentz,  not  unin- 
vited, wherein  are  German  Democrats  and  no  shadow  of  an 
Elector  now  :— so  that  in  the  last  days  of  October,  Frau  Forster, 
a  daughter  of  Heyne's,  somewhat  democratic,  walking  out  of  the 
Gate  of  Mentz  with  her  Husband,  finds  French  Soldiers  playing 
at  bowls  with  cannon-balls  there.  Forster  trips  cheerfully  over 
one  iron  bomb,  with  "  Live  the  Republic  ! A  black-bearded 
National  Guard  answers  :  "  Elle  vivra  Men  sans  vous,  It  will  pro- 
bably live  independently  of  you.''  f 

*  Dumouriez,  iii.  115.— Marat's  account,  In  the  Debats  des  Jacobins  and 
Journal  de  la  Rdpublique  (Hist.  Pari.  xix.  317-21),  agrees  to  the  turning  on 
the  heel,  but  strives  to  interpret  it  differently. 

t  Johann  Georg  Forster's  Briefwechsel  (Leipzig,  1829),  i.  88. 


49 


BOOK  SECOND. 


REGICIDE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  DELIBERATIVE. 

France  therefore  has  done  two  things  very  completely  :  she 
has  hurled  back  her  Cimmerian  Invaders  far  over  the  marches  ; 
and  hkewise  she  has  shattered  her  own  internal  Social  Constitu- 
tion, evfen  to  the  minutest  fibre  of  it,  into  wreck  and  dissolution. 
Utterly  it  is  all  altered  :  from  King  down  to  Parish  Constable,  all 
Authorities,  Magistrates,  Judges,  persons  that  bore  rule,  have  had, 
on  the  sudden,  to  alter  themselves,  so  far  as  needful  ;  or  else,  on 
the  sudden,  and  not  without  violence,  to  be  ahered  :  a  Patriot 
'  Executive  Council  of  Ministers,'  with  a  Patriot  Danton  m  it,  and 
then  a  whole  Nation  and  National  Convention,  have  taken  care  ot 
that.  Not  a  Parish  Constable,  in  the  furthest  hamlet,  who  has 
said  Be  par  le  Rot,  and  shewn  loyalty,  but  must  retire,  making  way 
for  a  new  improved  Parish  Constable  who  can  say  De  par  la  Re- 
publique. 

It  is  a  change  such  as  History  must  beg  her  readers  to  imagine, 
^//described.  An  instantaneous  change  of  the  whole  body-politic, 
the  soul-politic  being  all  changed  ;  such  a  change  as  few  bodies, 
politic  or  other,  can  experience  in  this  world.  Say  perhaps,  such 
as  poor  Nymph  Semele's  body  did  experience,  when  she  would 
needs,  with  woman's  humour,  see  her  Olympian  Jove  as  very  Jove  ; 
—and  so  stood,  poor  Nymph,  this  moment  Semele,  next  moment 
not  Semele,  but  Flame  and  a  Statue  of  red-hot  Ashes  !  France 
has  looked  upon  Democracy  ;  seen  it  face  to  face.— Tne  Cimmerian 
Invaders  will  rally,  in  humbler  temper,  with  better  or  worse  luck  ; 
the  wreck  and  dissolution  must  reshape  itself  into  a  social  Arrange- 
ment as  it  can  and  may.  But  as  for  this  National  Convention, 
which  is  to  settle  every  thing,  if  it  do,  as  Deputy  Paine  and  France 
generally  expects,  get  all  finished  '  in  a  few  months,'  we  shall  call 
it  a  most  deft  Convention. 

In  truth,  it  is  very  singular  to  see  how  this  mercurial  French 
People  plunges  suddenly  from  Vive  le  Roi  to  Vive  la  Repulique:, 


REGICIDE. 


and  goes  simmering  and  dancing,  shaking  off  daily  (so  to  speak), 
and  trampling  into  the  dust,  its  old  social  garnitures,  ways  of 
thinking,  rules  of  existing ;  and  cheerfully  dances  towards  the 
Ruleless,  Unknown,  with  such  hope  in  its  heart,  and  nothing  but 
Freedo?7i,  Equality  and  Brotherhood  in  its  mouth.  Is  it  two 
centuries,  or  is  it  only  two  years,  since  all  France  roared  simul- 
taneously to  the  welkin,  bursting  forth  into  sound  and  smoke  at 
its  Feast  of  Pikes  ^  "  Live  the  Restorer  of  French  Liberty  ?  "  Three 
short  years  ago  there  was  still  Versailles  and  an  CEil-de-Boeuf : 
now  there  is  that  watched  Circuit  of  the  Temple,  girt  with  dragon- 
eyed  Municipals,  where,  as  in  its  final  limbo.  Royalty  lies  extinct. 
In  the  year  1789,  Constituent  Deputy  Barrere  ^wept,'  in  his 
Break-of-Day  Newspaper,  at  sight  of  a  reconciled  King  Louis  ; 
and  now  in  1792,  Convention  Deputy  Barrere,  perfectly  tearless, 
may  be  considering,  whether  the  reconciled  King  Louis  shall  be 
guillotined  or  not. 

Old  garnitures  and  social  vestures  drop  off  (we  say)  so  fast, 
being  indeed  quite  decayed,  and  are  trodden  under  the  National 
dance.  And  the  new  vestures,  where  are  they ;  the  new  modes 
and  rules  ?  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity  :  not  vestures  but  the 
wish  for  vestures  !  The  Nation  is  for  the  present,  figuratively 
speaking,  naked  I  it  has  no  rule  or  vesture  ;  but  is  naked, — a 
Sansculottic  Nation. 

So  far,  therefore,  and  in  such  manner  have  our  Patriot  Drissots, 
Guadets  triumphed.  Vergniaud's  Ezekiel-visions  of  the  fall  of 
thrones  and  crowns,  which  he  spake  hypothetically  and  propheti- 
cally in  the  Spring  of  the  year,  have  suddenly  come  to  fulfilment 
in  the  Autumn.  Our  eloquent  Patriots  of  the  Legislative,  like 
strong  Conjurors,  by  the  word  of  their  mouth,  have  swept  Royalism 
with  its  old  modes  and  formulas  to  the  winds  ;  and  shall  now  govern 
a  France  free  of  formulas.  Free  of  formulas  !  And  yet  man  li\  es  not 
except  with  formulas  ;  with  customs,  ways  of  doing  and  living  :  no 
text  truer  than  this  ;  which  will  hold  true  from  the  Tea-table  and 
Tailor's  shopboard  up  to  the  High  Senate-houses,  Solemn 
Temples  ;  nay  through  all  provinces  of  Mind  and  Imagination, 
onv/ards  to  the  outmost  confines  of  articulate  Being, — Ubi homines 
simt  modi  stmt  /  There  are  modes  wherever  there  are  men.  It 
is  the  deepest  law  of  man's  nature  ;  whereby  man  is  a  craftsman 
and  *  tool-using  animal ; '  not  the  slave  of  Impulse,  Chance,  and 
brute  Nature,  but  in  some  measure  their  lord.  Twenty-five 
milHons  of  men,  suddenly  stript  bare  of  thei-  modi^  and  dancing 
them  down  in  that  manner,  are  a  terrible  thing  to  govern  ! 

Eloquent  Patriots  of  the  Legislative,  meanwhile,  have  precisely 
this  problem  to  solve.  Under  the  name  and  nickname  of  *  states- 
^  men,  homnies  d^^tat^  of  *  moderate-men,  moderanti^iSy  of  Brisso- 
tins,  Rolandins,  finally  of  Girondi?is,  they  shall  become  world-famous 
in  solving  it.  For  the  Twenty-five  millions  are  Gallic  effervescent 
too  ; — filled  both  with  hope  of  the  unutterablr^,  of  universal 
I'Vatcrnity  and  Golden  Age  ;  and  with  terror  of  the  unutterable, 
Cimmerian  Europe  all  rallying  on  us.  It  is  a  problem  like  few. 
Truly;  if  man,  as  the  Philosophers  brag-,  did  to  any  extent  look 


THE  DELIBERATIVE^  

before  aiiJIft^what,  one  may  ask,  in  many  cases  would  become 
of  him  ?  What,  in  this  case,  would  become  of  these  Seven  Hun- 
dred and  Forty-nine  men  ?  The  Convention,  seemg  dearly  before 
and  after,  were  a  paralysed  Convention,  beemg  clearly  to  the 
length  of  its  own  nose,  it  is  not  paralysed. 

To  the  Convention  itself  neither  the  work  nor  the  method  ol 
doing  it  is  doubtful  :  To  make  the  Constitution  ;  to  defend  the 
Republic  till  that  be  made.    Speedily  enough,  accordmgly,  there 
has  been  a  '  Committee  of  the  Constitution'  got  together.  .Sieyes 
Old-Constituent,  Constitution-builder  by  trade  ;  Condorcet,  tit  lor 
better  things  ;  Deputy  Paine,  foreign  Benefactor  of  the  Species, 
with  that  '  red  carbuncled  face,  and  the  black  beaming  eyes  ; 
Herault  de  Sechelles,  Ex-Parlementeer,  one  of  the  handsomest 
men  in  France  :  these,  with  inferior  guild-brethren,  are  girt  cheer- 
fully to  the  work  ;  will  oncQ  more  '  make  the  Constitution  ;  let  us 
hope,  more  effectually  than  last  time.    For  that  the  Constitution 
can  be  made,  who  doubts,-unless  the  Gospel  of  Jean  Jacques 
came  into  the  world  in  vain.--    True,  our  last  Constitution  did 
tumble  within  the  year,  so  lame  itably.    But  what  then  ;  excep 
sort  the  rubbish  and  boulders,  and  build  them  up  agam  better  ? 
'  Widen  your  basis,'  for  one  thing,— to  Universa   Suffrage,  it  need 
be  ;  exclude  rotten  materials,  Royalism  and  such  like,  for  another 
thing.    And  in  brief,  build,  O  unspeakable  Sieyes  and  Company, 
unwearied  !    Frequent  perilous  downruslimg  of  sca.rclamg  and 
rubble-work,  be  that  an  irritation,  no  discourao-emeat.    '^tau  ye 
always  again,  clearing  aside  the  wreck  ;  if  with  broken  limhs,  yet 
with  whole  hearts  ;  and  build,  we  say,  in  the  name  of  rieaven,- 
tiU  either  the  work  do  stand  ;  or  else  mankind  abandon  it,  and  the 
Constitution-builders  be  paid  oil,  with  laughter  and  tears  !  One 
good  time,  m  tlie  course  of  Eternity,  it  was  appointed  that  this  of 
Social  Contract  too  should  try  itself  out.    And  so  the  Committee 
of  Constitution  shall  toil  :  with  hope  and  faith  ;-  wUh  no  d.stui- 
bance  from  anv  reader  of  these  pages. 

To  make  the  Constitution,  then,  and  return  home  joyfully  m  a 
few  months:  this  is  the  prophecy  our  National  Convention  gives 
of  itself  ;  by  this  scientific  program  shall  its  operations  and  events 
go  on.  But  from  the  best  scientific  program  in  such  a  case,  to  ttie 
'  kctual  fulfilment,  what  a  difference!  Every  reumon  of  men,  is  it 
not,  as  we  often  sav,  a  reunion  of  incalculable  Influences;  eveiy 
<  unite  of  it  a  microcosm  of  Influences  ;— of  which  how  shall  Science 
calculate  or  prophesy  ;  Science,  which  cannot,  with  all  its  ca  cii- 
luses,  differential,  integral,  and  of  variations,  calculate^the  Problem 
of  Three  gravitating  Bodies,  ought  to  hold  her  peace  here,  and  sa> 
only  :  In  this  National  Convention  there  are  Seven  Hundred  and 
Forty-nine  very  singular  Bodies,  that  gravitate  and  do  mucti  else  ; 
—who,  probably  in  an  amazing  manner,  will  worK  the  appointment 

of  Heaven.  i.-  i  i 

Of  National  Assemblages,  Parliaments,  Congresses,  which  na\e 
long  sat ;  which  are  of  saturnine  temperament  ;  above  all,  whicn 
are  not  '  dreadfully  in  earnest,'  something  may  be  computed  or 
conjectured ;  yet  even  these  are  a  kind  of  Mystery  m  progress,— 


52 


REGICIDE. 


whereby  we  see  the  Journalist  Reporter  tind  Hvehhood  :  even 
these  jolt  madly  out  of  the  ruts,  from  time  to  time.  How  much 
miore  a  poor  National  Convention,  of  French  vehemence;  urged 
on  at  such  velocity  ;  without  routine,  v/ithout  rut,  track  or  land- 
mark ;  and  dreadfuly  in  earnest  every  man  of  them  !  It  is  a 
Parliament  literally  such  as  there  was  never  elsewhere  in  the 
world.  Themselves  are  new,  unarranged  ;  they  are  the  Heart  and 
presiding  centre  of  a  France  lallen  wholly  into  maddest  disarrange- 
ment. From' all  cities,  hamlets,  from  the  utmost  ends  of  this 
France  with  its  Twenty-five  million  vehement  souls,  thick-stream- 
ing influences  Gtorm  in  on  that  same  Heart,  in  the  Salle  de 
Manege,  and  storm  out  again  :  such  fiery  venous-arterial  circula- 
tion is  the  function  of  that  Heart.  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty- 
nine  human  individuals,  we  say,  never  sat  together  on  Earth, 
under  more  original  circumstances.  Common  individuals  most  of 
them,  or  not  far  from  common  ;  yet  in  virtue  of  the  position  they 
occupied,  so  notable.  How,  in  this  wild  piping  of  the  whirlwind 
of  human  passions,  with  death,  victory,  terror,  valour,  and  all 
height  and  all  depth  pealing  and  piping,  these  men,  left  to  their 
own  guidance,  will  speak  and  act  ? 

Readers  know  well  that  this  French  National  Convention 
(quite  contrary  to  its  own  Program)  became  the  astonishment 
and  horror  of  mankind ;  a  kind  of  Apocalyptic  Convention, 
or  black  Deain  becoine  real;  concerning  whicli  Flistory  seldom 
speaks  except  in  the  way  of  interjection  :  how  it  covered  France 
with  woe,  delusion,  and  delirium  ;  and  from  its  bosom  there  went 
forth  Death  on  the  pale  Horse.  To  hate  this  poor  National  Con- 
vention is  easy  ;  to  praise  and  love  it  has  not  been  found  impos- 
sible. It  is,  as  we  say,  a  Parliament  in  the  most  original  circum- 
stances. To  us,  in  these  pages,  be  it  as  a  fuliginous  hery  m\  stery, 
where  Upper  has  met  Nether,  and  in  such  alternate  glare  and 
blackness  of  darkness  poor  bedazzled  mortals  know  not  which  is 
Upper,  which  is  Nether  ;  but  rage  and  plunge  distractedly,  as 
mortals,  in  that  case,  will  do.  A  Convention  which  has  to  con- 
sume itself,  suicidally  ;  and  become  dead  ashes — with  its  World  ! 
Behoves  us,  not  to  enter  exploratively  its  dim  embroiled  deeps  ; 
yet  to  stand  with  unwavering  eyes,  looking  how  it  welters  ;  what 
notable  phases  and  occurrences  it  will  succv^ssively  throw  up. 

One  general  superficial  circumstance  we  ^'emark  witli  praise  : 
tlie  force  of  Pohteness.  To  such  depth  has  the  sense  of  civilisa- 
tion penetrated  man's  life  ;  no  Drouet,  no  Lcgendre,  in  the 
maddest  tug  of  war,  can  ahogether  shake  it  off.  Debates  of 
Senates  dreadfully  in  earnest  are  seldom  given  frankly  to  the 
world  ;  else  perhaps  they  would  surprise  it.  Did  not  the  Cirand 
Monarque  himself  once  chase  his  Louvois  with  a  pair  of  brandished 
tongs  Ikit  reading  long  volumes  of  these  Convention  Debates, 
all  in  a  foam  with  furious  earnestness,  earnest  many  times  to  the 
extent  of  life  and  death,  one  is  struck  lather  with  the  degree  of 
continence  they  manifest  in  speech  ;  and  how  in  such  wild  ebulli- 
tion, there  is  still  a  kind  of  polite  rule  struggling  for  mastery,  and 


W  2-HE  DELIBERATIVE.   S3 

the  forms  of  social  life  never  altogether  disappear.  These  men, 
though  they  menace  with  clenched  right-hands,  do  not  clench  one 
another  by  the  collar  ;  they  draw  no  daggers,  except  for  oratorical 
purposes,  and  this  not  often  :  profane  swearmg  is  almost  unknown, 
though  the  Reports  are  frank  enough  ;  we  find  only  one  or  two 
oaths,  oaths  by  Marat,  reported  in  all.  ,    ,     :>  Trr-r 

For  the  rest,  that  there  is  '  effervescence    who  doubts  ?  l^ller- 
vescence  enough  ;  Decrees  passed  by  acclamation  to-day,  repealed 
by  vociferation  to-m.orrow  ;  temper  fitful,  most  rotatory  changetul, 
always  headlong!     The  'voice  of  the  orator  is  covered  with 
'rumours-'  a  hundred  'honourable  Members  rush  with  menaces 
*  towards  the  Left  side  of  the  Hall ; '  President  has  '  broken  three 
'  bells  in  succession,'— claps  on  his  hat,  as  signal  that  the  country 
is  near  ruined.    A  fiercely  effervescent  Old-Gallic  Assemblage  1— 
Ah,  how  the  loud  sick  sounds  of  Debate,  and  of  Life,  which  is  a 
debate,  sink  silent  one  after  another  :  so  loud  now,  and  m  a  little 
while  so  low  !    Brennus,  and  those  antique  Gael  Captains,  m  their 
way  to  Rome,  to  Galatia,  and  such  places,  whither  they  were  m 
the  habit  of  marching  in  the  most  fiery  manner,  had  Debates  as 
effervescent,  doubt  it  not ;  though  no  Moniteur  has  reported  them. 
They  scolded  in  Celtic  Welsh,  those  Brennuses  ;  neither  were 
they  Sansculotte;  nay  rather  breeches  {bracccE,  say  of  felt  or 
rough-leather)  were  the  only  thing  they  had  ;  being,  as  Livy 
testifies,  naked  down  to  the  haunches  :— and,  see,  it  is  the  same 
sort  of  work  and  of  men  still,  now  when  they  have  got  coats,  and 
speak  nasally  a  kind  of  broken  Latin  !    But  on  the  whole  does 
not  Time  envelop  this  present  National  Convention  ;  as  it  did 
those  Brennuses,  and  ancient  August  Senates  in  felt  breeches  ? 
Time  surely  ;  and  also  Eternity.    Dim  dusk  of  Time,— or  noon 
which  will  be  dusk ;  and  ihen  there  is  night,  and  silence  ;  and 
Time  with  all  its  sick  noises  is  swallowed  in  the  still  sea.  Pity 
thy  brother,  O  Son  of  Adam  !    The  angriest  frothy  jargon  that  he 
utters,  is  it  not  properly  the  whimpering  of  an  infant  which  cannot 
speak  what  ails  it,  but  is  in  distress  clearly,  in  the  inwards  of  it ; 
and  so  must  squall  and  whimper  continually,  till  its  Mother  take 
it,  and  it  get — to  sleep  ! 

This  Convention  is  not  four  days  old,  and  the  melodius  Meli- 
boean  stanzas  that  shook  down  Royalty  are  still  fresh  in  our  ear, 
when  there  bursts  out  a  new  diapason,— unhappily,  of  Discord, 
this  time.  For  speech  has  been  made  of  a  thing  difficult  to  speak 
of  well:  the  September  Massacres.  How  deal  with  these  Sep- 
tember Massacres  ;  with  the  Paris  Commune  that  presided  over 
them?  A  Paris  Commune  hateful-terrible;  before  which  the 
poor  effete  Legislative  had  to  quail,  and  sit  quiet.  And  now  if  a 
young  omnipotent  Convention  will  not  so  quail  and  sit,  what  steps 
shalllt  take?  Have  a  Depart]nental  Guard  in  its  pay,  answer  the 
Girondins,  and  Friends  of  Ol  der  !  A  Giuird  of  National  Volun- 
teers, missioned  from  nil  the  Eighty-three  or  Eighty-five  Depart- 
ments, for  that  express  end  ;  these  will  keep  Septemberers,  tumuL 
tuous  Communes  in  a  due  state  of  submissix  eness,  the  Convention 


54 


REGICIDE. 


m  a  due  state  of  sovereignty.  So  have  the  Friends  of  Order' 
answered,  sitting  m  Committee,  and  reporting  ;  and  even  a  Decree' 
has  been  passed  of  the  required  tenour.  Nay  certain  Depart- 
ments, as  the  Var  or  Marseilles,  in  mere  expectation  and  a-sur- 
ance  of  a  Decree,  have  their  contingent  of  Volunteers  already  on 
march  :  brave  Marseillese,  foremost  on  the  Tenth  of  August  will 
not  be  hindmost  here  ;  '  fathers  gave  their  sons  a  mulket'  and 
twenty-five  louis,'  says  Barbaroux,  '  and  bade  them  march  ' 

Can  any  thing  be  properer  ?  A  Republic  that  will  found  itself 
on  justice  must  needs  investigate  September  Massacres;  a  Con- 
vention calling  Itself  National,  ought  it  not  to  be  guarded  by  a 
National  force  ?— Alas,  Reader,  it  seems  so  to  the  eve  :  and  yet 
there  is  much  to  be  said  and  argued.  Thou  beholdest  here  the 
small  beginning  of  a  Controversy,  which  mere  logic  will  not  settle 
Two  small  well-springs,  September,  Departmental  Guard,  or 
rather  at  bottom  they  are  but  one  and  the  same  small  well-spring ; 
which  will  swell  and  widen  into  waters  of  bitterness ;  all  manner 
of  subsidiary  streams  and  brooks  of  bitterness  flowing  in,  from  this 
side  and  that ;  till  it  become  a  wide  river  of  bitterness,  of  t-age  and 
separation,— which  can  subside  only  into  the  Catacombs.  This 
Departmental  Guard,  decreed  by  overwhelming  majorities  and 
then  repealed  for  peace's  sake,  and  not  to  insult  Paris,  is  again 
decreed  more  than  once;  nay  it  is  partially  executed,  and  the 
very  men  that  are  to  be  of  it  are  seen  visiblv  parading  the  Paris 
streets,— shouting  once,  being  overtaken  with  liquor  :  "  A  bas 
Marat,  Down  with  Marat  ! Nevertheless,  decreed  never  so 
often.  It  is  repealed  just  as  often;  and  continues,  for  some  seven 
months,  an  angry  noisy  Hypothesis  only  :  a  fair  Possibility 
struggling  to  become  a  Reality,  but  which  shall  never  be  one; 
which,  after  endless  struggling,  shall,  in  February  next,  sink  into 
sad  rest,— dragging  much  along  with  it.  So  singular  are  the  ways 
of  men  and  honourable  Members. 

But  on  this  fourth  day  of  the  Convention's  existence,  as  we 
said,  which  is  the  25th  of  September  1792,  there  comes  Committee 
Report  on  that  Decree  of  the  Departmental  Guard,  and  speech 
of  repealing  it  ;  there  come  denunciations  of  anarchy,  of  a  Dicta- 
torship,—which  let  the  incorrupdble  Robespierre  consider  :  there 
come  denunciations  of  a  certain  Joimial  de  la  R^publique,  once 
called  A7ni  du  Pcuple ;  and  so  thereupon  there  comes,  visibly 
stepping  up,  visibly  standing  aloft  on  the  Tribune,  ready  to  speak, 
the  i^odily  Spectrum  of  People's-Friend  Marat!  Shriek,  ye 
Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  ;  it  is  verilv  Marat,  he  and  not 
another.  Marat  is  no  phantasm  of  the  brain,  or  mere  lying  impress 
of  Printer's  Types  ;  but  a  thing  material,  of  joint  and  sinew,  and 
a  certain  small  stature  :  yc  behold  him  there,  in  his  blackness  in 
his  dingy  squalor,  a  living  fraction  of  Chaos  and  Old  Night  ; 
visibly  mcarnate,  desirous  to  speak.  "  It  appears,"  says  Marat  to 
the  shrieking  Assembly,  "that  a  great  many  persons  here  are 
enemies  of  mine."  "All!  All!''  shriek  hundreds  of  voices: 
©nough  to  drown  any  People's-Friend.  But  Marat  will  not 
*  Hist.  Purl.  XX.  184. 


THE  DELIBERATIVE, 


55 


drown  :  he  speaks  and  croaks  explanation  ;  croaks  with  such 
reasonableness,  air  of  sincerity,  that  repentant  pity  smothers 
anger,  and  the  shrieks  subside  or  even  become  applauses.  For 
this  Convention  is  unfortunately  the  crankest  of  machines  :  it 
shall  be  pointing  eastward,  with  stiff  violence,  this  moment  ;  and 
then  do  but  touch  some  spring  dexterously,  the  whole  machine, 
clattering  and  jerking  seven-hundred-fold,  will  whirl  with  huge 
crash,  and,  next  moment,  is  pointing  westward  !  Thus  Marat, 
absolved  and  applauded,  victorious  in  this  turn  of  fence,  is,  as  the 
Debate  goes  on,  prickt  at  again  by  some  dexterous  Girondin  ;  and 
then  the  shrieks  rise  anew,  and  Decree  of  Accusation  is  on  the 
point  of  passing  ;  till  the  dingy  PeopleVFriend  bobs  aloft  once 
more  ;  croaks  once  more  persuasive  stillness,  and  the  Decree  of 
[Accusation  sinks.  Whereupon  he  dravv's  forth— a  Pistcl  ;  and 
setting  it  to  his  Head,  the  seat  of  such  thought  and  prophecy, 
I  says  :  ^'  If  they  had  passed  'their  Accusation  Decree,  he,  the 
i  People's-Friend,  would  have  blown  his  brains  out.''  A  People  s 
Friend  has  that  faculty  in  him.  For  the  rest,  as  to  this  of  the 
two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  Aristocrat  Heads,  Marat  candidly 
says,  "  Cest  la  nion  avis^  such  is  my  opinion,"  Also  it  is  not 
indisputable  :  "  No  power  on  Earth  can  prevent  me  from  seeing 
into  traitors,  and  unmasking  them,"—-by  my  superior  originality 
of  mind  ?  ^  An  honourable  member  like  this  Friend  of  the  People 
few  terrestrial  Parliaments  have  had. 

We  observe,  however,  that  this  first  onslaught  by  the  Friends  of 
0"der.  as  sharp  and  prompt  as  it  was,  has  tailed.  For  neither 
can  Robespierre,  summoned  out  by  talk  of  Dictatorship,  and 
greeted  with  the  like  rumour  on  shewing  himself,  be  thrown  into 
Prison,  into  Accusation  not  though  Barbarous  openly  bear 
testimony  against  him,  and  sign  it  on  paper.  With  such  sanctified 
meekness  does  the  Incorruptible  lift  his  seagreen  cheek  to  tb-^ 
smiter  :  lift  his  thin  voice,  and  with  Jesuitic  dexterity  plead,  arid 
prosper  ;  asking  at  last,  in  a  prosperous  manner  :  "  But  what 
witnesses  has  the  Citoyen  Barbaroux  to  support  his  testimony 

Mot  E'  cries  hot  Rebecqui,  standing  up,  striking  his  breast 
with  both  hands,  and  answering,  "Me!"t  Nevertheless  the 
Seagreen  pleads  again,  and  makes  it  good  :  the  long  hurlyburly, 

personal^ merelv,'  while  so  much  public  matter  hes  fallow,  has 
ended  in  the  oi-der  of  the  day.  O  Friends  of  the  Gironde,  why 
will  you  occupy  our  august  sessions  with  mere  paltry  Personalities, 
while  the  grand  Nationality  lies  in  such  a  state  ?— The  Gironde 
has  touched,  this  dav,  on  the  foul  black-spot  of  its  fair  Convention 
Domain  ;  has  trodden  on  it,  and  yet  not  trodden  it  down.  Alas, 
it  is  a  zvell-spring,  as  we  said,  this  black-spot  ;  and  will  not  tread 
down  ! 

*  Momteur  Newspaper,  Nos.  271,  280,  294,  Annde  premiere;  Moore's 
Journal,  ii.  21.  157,  &c.  (which,  however,  may  perhaps,  as  in  similar  cases,  be 
only  ac(Hn^  of  ti^e  Newspaper). 

t  Moni'lcur,  ut  supra;  Seance  du  25  Septembre. 


56 


REGICIDE, 


CHAPTER  IL 

THE  EXECUTIVE. 

May  we  not  conjecture  therefore  that  round  this  grand  enter«» 
prise  of  Making  the  Constitution  there  will,  as  heretofore,  verj 
strange  embroilments  gather,  and  questions  and  interests  com- 
plicate themselves  ;  so  that  after  a  few  or  even  several  months,  the 
Convention  will  not  have  settled  every  thing  ?  Alas,  a  whole  tide 
of  questions  comes  rolling,  boiling  ;  growing  ever  wider,  without 
end  !  Among  which,  apart  from  this  question  of  September  and 
Anarchy,  let  us  notice  those,  which  emerge  oftener  than  the 
others,  and  promise  to  become  Leading  Questions  :  of  the  Armies  ; 
of  the  Subsistences  ;  thirdly,  of  the  Dethroned  King. 

As  to  the  Armies,  Public  Defence  must  evidently  be  put  on  a 
proper  footing  ;  for  Europe  seems  coalising  itself  again  ;  one  is 
apprehensive  even  England  v/ill  join  it.  Happily  Dumouriez 
prospers  in  the  North  ; — nay  v/hat  if  he  should  prove  too  pros- 
perous, and  become  Liberticide^  Murderer  of  Freedom  ! — ' 
Dumouriez  prospers,  through  this  winter  season  ;  yet  not  without 
lamentable  complaints.  Sleek  Pache,  the  Swiss  Schoolmaster,  he* 
that  sat  frugal  in  his  Alley,  the  wonder  of  neighbours,  has  got 
lately — whither  thinks  the  Reader  1  To  be  Minister  of  war ! 
Madame  Roland,  struck  with  his  sleek  ways,  recommended  him 
to  her  Husband  as  Clerk  :  the  sleek  Clerk  had  no  need  of  salary, 
being  of  true  Patriotic  temper  ;  he  would  come  with  a  bit  of  bread 
in  his  pocket,  to  save  dinner  and  time  ;  and,  munching  incidentally, 
do  three  men's  work  in  a  day  :  punctual,  silent,  frugal,— the  sleek 
Tartuffe  that  he  was.  Wherefore  Roland,  in  the  late  Overturn, 
recommended  him  to  be  War-Minister.  And  now,  it  would  seem, 
he  is  secretly  undermining  Roland  ;  playing  into  the  hands  of 
your  hotter  Jacobins  and  September  Commune  ;  and  cannot,  like 
strict  Roland,  be  the  Veto  des  Co  quins 

How  the  sleek  Pache  might  mine  and  undermine,  one  knows 
not  well ;  this  however  one  does  know  :  that  his  War-Office  has 
become  a  den  of  thieves  and  confusion,  such  as  all  men  shudder 
to  behold.  That  the  Citizen  Hassenfratz,  as  Head-Clerk,  sits  there 
in  bonnet  rouge^  in  rapine,  in  violence,  and  some  Mathematical 
calculation  ;  a  most  insolent,  red-nightcapped  man.  That  Pache 
munches  his  pocket-loaf,  amid  head-clerks  and  sub-clerks,  and  has 
spent  all  the  War-Estimates  :  that  Furnishers  scour  in  gigs,  over 
all  districts  of  France,  and  drive  bargains  ; — and  lastly  that  the 
Army  gets  next  to  no  furniture.  No  shoes,  though  it  is  winter; 
no  clothes  ;  some  have  not  even  arms  :  '  in  the  Army  of  the 

*  South,'  complains  an   honourable  Member,  '  there  are  thirty 

*  thousand  pairs  of  breeches  wanting,' — a  most  scandalous  want. 

Roland's  strict  soul  is  sick  to  see  the  course  things  take  :  but 

*  Mackinic  Roland,  Mdnioircs,  ii.  237,  «&c. 


THE  EXECUTIVE, 


S7 


what  can  he  do  ?  Keep  his  own  Department  strict  ;  rebuke,  and 
repress  wheresoever  possible  ;  at  lowest,  complain.  He  can  com- 
plain in  Letter  after  Letter,  to  a  National  Convention,  to  France, 
to  Posterity,  the  Universe  ;  grow  ever  more  querulous  indignant ; 
— till  at  last  may  he  not  grow  wearisome  ?  For  is  not  this  con- 
tinual text  of  his,  at  bottom,  a  rather  barren  one  :  How  astonish- 
ing that  in  a  time  of  Revolt  and  abrogation  of  all  Law  but  Cannon 
Law,  there  should  be  such  Unlawfulness  ?  Intrepid  Veto-of- 
Scoundrels,  narrow-faithful,  respectable,  methodic  man,  work  thou 
in  that  manner,  since  happily  it  is  thy  manner,  and  wear  thyself 
away  :  though  ineffectual,  not  profitless  in  it — then  nor  now  /—The 
brave  Dame  Roland,  bravest  of  all  French  women,  begins  to  have 
misgivings  :  the  figure  of  D  ant  on  has  too  much  of  the  '  Sardana- 
'  palus  character,^  at  a  Republican  Rolandin  Dinner-table  :  Clootz, 
Speaker  of  Mankind,  proses,  sad  stuff  about  a  Universal  Republic, 
or  union  of  all  Peoples  and  Kindreds  in  one  and  the  same 
Fraternal  Bond  ;  of  which  Bond,  how  it  is  to  be  tied^  one  un- 
happily sees  not. 

It  is  also  an  indisputable,  unaccountable  or  accountable  fact 
that  Grains  are  becoming  scarcer  and  scarcer.  Riots  for  grain, 
tumultuous  Assemblages  demanding  to  have  the  price  of  grain 
fixed  abound  far  and  near.  The  Mayor  of  Paris  and  other  poor 
Mayors  are  like  to  have  their  difficulties.  Petion  was  re-elected 
Mayor  of  Paris  ;  but  has  declined  ;  being  now  a  Convention 
Legislator.  Wise  surely  to  decline  :  for,  besides  this  of  Grains 
and  all  the  rest,  there  is  in  these  times  an  Improvised  insurrec- 
tionary Commune  passing  into  an  Elected  legal  one  ;  getting  their 
accounts  settled, — not  without  irritancy  !  Petion  has  declined  : 
nevertheless  many  do  covet  and  canvass.  After  months  of  scruti- 
nising, balloting,  arguing  and  jargoning,  one  Doctor  Chambon 
gets  the  post  of  honour  :  who  will  not  long  keep  it  ;  but  be,  as  we 
shall  see,  literally  criished  out  of  it> 

Think  also  if  the  private  Sansculotte  has  not  his  difficulties,  in  a 
time  of  dearth!  Bread,  according  to  the  People's-Friend,  may  be 
some  '  six  sous  per  pound,  a  day's  wages  some  fifteen  ; '  and  grim 
winter  here.  How  the  Poor  Man  continues  living,  and  so  seldom 
starves,  by  miracle  !  Happily,  in  these  days,  he  can  enlist,  and 
have  himself  shot  by  the  Austrians,  in  an  unusually  satisfactory 
manner  :  for  the  Rights  of  Man. — But  Commandant  Santerre,  in 
this  so  straitened  condition  of  the  flour-market,  and  state  of 
Equality  and  Liberty,  proposes,  through,  the  Newspapers,  two 
remedies,  or  at  least  palhatives  :  Firsts  that  all  classes  of  men 
should  live,  two  days  of  the  week,  on  potatoes  ;  then  second.,  that 
every  man  should  hang  his  dog.  Hereby,  as  the  Commandant 
thinks,  the  saving,  which  indeed  he  computes  to  so  many  sacks, 
would  be  very  considerable.  A  cheerfuller  form  of  inventive^ 
stupidity  than  Commandant  Santerre's  dwells  in  no  human  soul. 
Inventive-stupidity,  imbedded  in  health,  courage  and  good-nature  ; 
much  to  be  commended.  "  My  whole  strength,"  he  tells  the  Con- 
vention once,  "  is,  day  and  night,  at  the  service  of  my  fellow- 
*  Dictionnaire  des  Hoinmcs  Msirqiians,  §  Chambon. 


58 


REGICIDE, 


Citizens  :  if  they  find  me  worthless,  they  will  dismiss  me  ;  I  will 
return  and  brew  beer.""^ 

Or  figure  what  correspondences  a  poor  Roland,  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  must  have,  on  this  of  Grains  alone  !  Free-trade  in  Grain, 
impossibility  to  fix  the  Prices  of  Grain ;  on  the  other  hand, 
clamour  and  necessity  to  fix  them  :  Political  Economy  lecturing 
from  the  Horrid  Office,  with  demonstration  clear  as  Scripture  ; — 
ineffectual  for  the  empty  National  Stomach.  The  Mayor  of 
Chartres,  like  to  be  eaten  himself,  cries  to  the  Convention  :  the 
Convention  sends  honourable  Members  in  Deputation  ;  who  en- 
deavour to  feed  the  multitude  by  miraculous  spiritual  methods  ; 
but  cannot.  The  multitude,  in  spite  of  all  Eloquence,  come 
bellosving  round ;  will  have  the  Grain-Prices  fixed,  and  at  a 
moderate  elevation  ;  or  else — the  honourable  Deputies  hanged  on 
the  spot  !  The  honourable  Deputies,  reporting  this  business 
admJt  that,  on  the  edge  of  horrid  death,  they  did  fix,  or  affect  to 
fix  the  Price  of  Grain  :  for  which,  be  it  also  noted,  the  Conven 
tion,  a  Convention  that  will  not  be  trifled  with,  sees  good  to 
reprimand  them.f 

But  as  to  the  origin  of  these  Grain  Riots,  is  it  not  most  probabl 
your  secret  Royalists  . again  ?    Ghmpses  of  Priests  were  discernible 
m  this  of  Chartres, — to  the  eye  of  Patriotism.    Or  indeed  may  not 
^  the  root  of  it  all  lie  in  the  Temple  Prison,  in  the  heart  of  a  per 
^jured  King,' well  as  we  guard  him  ?J    Unhappy  perjured  King 
-  And  so  there  shall  be  Baker's  Queues,  by  and  by,  more  sharp 
tempered  than  ever:  on  every  Baker's  door-rabbet  an  iron  ring 
and  coil  of  rope  ;  whereon,  with  firm  grip,  on  this  side  and  that 
we  form  our  Queue  :  but  mischievous  decei"'"ul  persons  cut  the 
rope,  and  our  Queue  becomes  a  ravelment  ;  wherefore  the  coil 
must  be  made  of  iron  chain. §    Also  there  shall  be  Prices  of  Grain 
well  fixed  ;  but  then  no  grain  purchasable  by  them  :  bread  not  to 
be  had  except  by  Ticket  from  the  Mayor,  few  ounces  per  mout 
daily ;  after  long  swaying,  with  firm  grip,  on  the  chain  of  th 
Queue.     And  Hunger    shall    stalk    direful  ;    and   Wrath  an 
Suspicion,  whetted  to  the  Preternatural  pitch,  shall  stalk ; — as 
those  other  preternatural  ^  shapes  of  Gods  in  their  wrathfulness 
v/ere  discerned  stalking, 'in  glare  and  gloom  of  that  fire-ocean 
when  Troy  Town  fell ! — 


But  the  question  more  pressing  than  aft  on  the  Legislator,  as 
yet,  is  this  third  :  What  shall  be  done  with  King  Louis  ? 

King  Louis,  now  King  and  Majesty  to  his  own  family  alone,  in 


CHAPTER  III. 


DISCROWNED. 


*  Monitcur  {\Ti  Ifr  '.  PnrJ.  xx.  412). 
X  Ibid.  409. 


t  Hist.  Part.  xx.  431-440. 
§  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris* 


DISCROWNED.  59 


their  own  Prison  Apartment  alone,  has  been  Louis  Capet  and  the 
Traitor  Veto  with  the  rest  of  France.  Shut  in  his  Circuit  of  the 
Ternpie,  he  has  heard  and  seen  the  loud  whirl  of  things  ;  yells  ot 
^'eptember  Massacres,  Brunswick  war-thunders  dying  ott  in 
^asaster  and  discomfiture  ;  he  passive,  a  spectator  merely 
waiting  whither  it  would  please  to  whirl  with  him.  From  the 
nei^^hbourinp-  windows,  the  curious,  not  without  pity,  might  see 
hiin  walk  dally,  at  a  certain  hour,  in  the  Temple  Garden,  with  his 
Oueen,  Sister  and  two  Children,  all  that  now  belongs  to  him  m  this 
Earth  ^  Quietly  he  walks  and  waits  ;  for  he  is  not  of  lively  teel- 
incrs  and  Ts  of  a  devout  heart.  The  wearied  Irresolute  has,  at 
least,  no  need  of  resolving  now.  His  daily  meals,  lessons  to  his 
Son,  daily  walk  in  the  Garden,  daily  game  at  ombre  or  drafts,  hll 
up  the  day  :  the  morrow  will  provide  for  itself. 

The  morrow  indeed  ;  and  yet  How?  Louis  asks.  How?  France, 
with  perhaps  still  more  solicitude,  asks.  How?  A  King  dethroned 
by  insurrection  is  verily  not  easy  to  dispose  of.  Keep  him  prisoner, 
h-  is  a  secret  cer  tre  for  the  Disaffected,  for  endless  plots,  attempts 
and  hopes  of  theirs.  Banish  him,  he  is  an  open  centre  for  them  ; 
his  roval  war-standard,  with  what  of  divinity  it  has,  unrolls  itse  t, 
summonino- the  world.  Put  him  to  death?  A  cruel  questionable 
extremity  that  too  :  and  yet  the  likeliest  in  these  extrenie  circum- 
stances, of  insurrectionary  men,  whose  own  life  and  death  hes 
staked  :  accordingly  it  is  said,  from  the  last  step  of  the  throne  to 
the  first  of  the  scaffold  there  is  short  distance. 

But  on  the  whole,  we  will  remark  here  that  this  business  of 
Louis 'looks  altogether  different  now,  as  seen  over  Seas  and  at  the 
distance  of  forty-four  years,  than  it  looked  then,  m  France,  and 
strucralincT,  -onfused  all  round  one  !  For  indeed  it  is  a  most  lying 
thin'^^'that  same  Past  Tense  always:  so  beautiful,  sad,  almost 
Elvslan-sacred,  '  in  the  moonlight  of  Memory,'  it  seems  ;  and^^^;;^^ 
on'iy  For  observe  :  always,  one  most  important  element  is  sur- 
reptitiously Cwe  not  noticing  it)  withdrawn  from  the  Past  Time  : 
the  hao-gard^  element  of  Fear  !  Not  there  does  Fear  dwell,  nor 
Uncertainty,  nor  Anxiety  ;  but  it  dwells  here;  haunting  us,  track- 
ing us  ;  running  like  an  accursed  ground-discord  through  all  the 
music-tones  of  our  Existence  ;— making  the  Tense  a  mere  Present 
one  '  Just  so  is  it  with  this  of  Louis.  Why  smite  the  fallen  ?  asks 
Magnanimity,  out  of  danger  now.  He  is  fallen  so  low  this  once- 
high  man  ;  no  criminal  nor  traitor,  how  far  from  it ;  but  the  un- 
happiest  of  Human  Solecisms  :  whom  if  abstract  Justice  had  to 
pronounce  upon,  she  might  well  become  concrete  Pity,  and 
pronounce  only  sobs  and  dismissal  !  •  • 

So  argues  retrospective  Magnanimity  :  but  Pusillanimity,  pre- 
sent, prospective  ?  Reader,  thou  hast  never  hved,  for  months, 
tinder  the  rustle  of  Prussian  gallows-ropes  ;  never  wert  thou  por- 
tion of  a  National  Sahara- waltz.  Twenty-five  millions  running  dis- 
tracted  to  fight  Brunswick  !  Knights  Errant  themselves,  when 
they  conquered  Giants,  usually  slew  the  Giants:  quarter  was  only  tor 
*  Moore,  i.  123;  ii.  224,  &c. 


60 


REGICIDE, 


other  Knights  Errant,  who  knew  courtesy  and  the  laws  of  battle. 
The  French  Nation,  in  simultaneous,  desperate  dead-pull,  and  as 
if  by  miracle  of  madness,  has  pulled  down  the  most  dread  Gohath, 
huge  with  the  growth  of  ten  centuries  ;  and  cannot  believe,  though 
his  giant  bulk,  covering  acres,  lies  prostrate,  bound  with  peg  and 
packthread,  that  he  will  not  rise  again,  man-devouring ;  that  the 
victory  is  not  partly  a  dream.  Terror  has  its  scepticism  ;  miracu- 
lous victory  its  rage  of  vengeance.  Then  as  to  criminalty,  is  the 
prostrated  ^Giant,  who  will  devour  us  if  he  rise,  an  innocent  Giant? 
Curate  Gregoire,  who  indeed  is  now  Constitutional  Bishop  Gre- 
goire,  asserts,  in  the  heat  of  eloquence,  that  Kingship  by  the  very 
nature  of  it  is  a  crime  capital  ;  that  Kings'  Houses  are  as  wild- 
beasts'  dens.^  Lastly  consider  this  :  that  there  is  on  record  a 
Trial  of  Charles  First!  This  printed  Trial  of  Charles  First  is  sold 
and  read  every  where  at  present  :  Quelle  spectacle  I  Thus  did 
the  English  People  judge  their  Tyrant,  and  become  the  fn^st  of 
Free  Peoples  :  which  feat,  by  the  grace  of  Destiny,  may  not 
France  now  rival?  Scepticism  of  terror,  rage  of  miraculous 
victory,  sublime  spectacle  to  the  universe,— all  things  point  one 
fatal  way. 

Such  leading  questions,  and  their  endless  incidental  ones  :  of 
September  Anarchists  and  Departmental  Guard  ;  of  Grain  Riots, 
plaintiff  Interior  Ministers  ;  of  Armies,  Hassenfratz  dilapidations  ; 
and  what  is  to  be  done  with  Louis,— beleaguer  and  embroil  this 
Convention  ;  which  would  so  gladly  make  the  Constitution  rather. 
All  which  questions  too,  as  we  often  urge  of  such  things,  are  in 
crrowth ;  they  grow  in  every  French  head  ;  and  can  be  seen 
growing  also,  very  curiously,  in  this  mighty  welter  of  Parlia- 
mentary Debate,  of  Public  Business  which  the  Convention  has 
to  do.  A  question  emerges,  so  small  at  first ;  is  put  off,  sub- 
merged ;  but  always  re-emerges  bigger  than  before.  It  is  a  curious, 
indeed  an  indescribable  sort  of  growth  which  such  things  have. 

We  perceive,  however,  both  by  its  frequent  re-emergence  and 
by  its  rapid  enlargement  of  bulk,  that  this  (2uestion  of  King  Louis 
will,  take  the  lead  of  all  the  rest.  And  truly,  in  that  case,  it  will 
take  the  lead  in  a  much  deeper  sense.  For  as  Aaron's  Rod  swal- 
lowed all  the  other  Serpents  ;  so  will  the  Foremost  Question, 
whichever  may  get  foremost,  absorb  all  other  quer^ions  and  inte- 
rests ;  and  from  it  and  the  decision  of  it  will  they  ail,  so  to  speak, 
be  bor7i^  or  new-born,  and  have  shape,  physiognomy  and  destiny 
corresponding.  It  was  appointed  of  Fate  that,^in  this  wide-welter- 
ing, strangely  growing,  monstrous  stupendous  imbroglio  of  Con- 
vention Business,  the  grand  First-Parent  of  all  the  questions, 
controversies,  measures  and  enterprises  which  were  to  be  evolved 
there  to  the  world's  astonishment,  should  be  this  Question  of  King 
Louis. 

*  Moniteur,  Stance  du  21  Septembre,  Annee  \er  (1792). 
f  Moore's  jfournal^  ii.  165. 


THE  LOSER  PAYS, 


6i 


CHAPTER  IV, 

I  THE  LOSER  PAYS. 

The  Sixth  of  November,  1792,  was  a  great  day  for  the  Repub- 
lic ;  outwardly,  over  the  Frontiers ;  inwardly,  in  the  Sa//e  de 
Manege. 

Outwardly  :  for  Dumouriez,  overrunning  the  Netherlands,  did, 
on  that  day,  come  in  contact  with  Saxe-Teschen  and  the  Aus- 
trians ;  Dumouriez  wide-winged,  they  wide-winged ;  at  and  around 
the  village  of  Jemappes,  near  Mons.  And  fire-hail  is  whistling  far 
and  wide  there,  the  great  guns  playing,  and  the  small  ;  so  many 
green  Heights  getting  fringed  and  maned  with  red  Fire.  And 
Dumouriez  is  swept  back  on  this  wing,  and  swept  back  on  that, 
and  is  like  to  be  swept  back  utterly  ;  when  he  rushes  up  in  person, 
the  prompt  Polymetis  ;  speaks  a  prompt  word  or  two  ;  and  then, 
with  clear  tenor-pipe, '  uplifts  the  Hymn  of  the  Marseillese,  entonna 
'  la  Marseillaise^^  ten  thousand  tenor  or  bass  pipes  joining  ;  or 
say,  some  Forty  Thousand  in  all  ;  for  every  heart  leaps  at  the 
sound  :  and  so  with  rhythmic  march-melody,  waxing  ever  quicker, 
to  double  and  to  treble  quick,  they  rally,  they  advance,  they  rush, 
death-defying,  man-devouring  ;  carry  batteries,  redoutes,  whatso- 
ever is  to  be  carried  ;  and,  like  the  fire-whirlwind,  sweep  all 
manner  of  Austrians  from  the  scene  of  action.  Thus,  through  the 
hands  of  Dumouriez,  may  Rouget  de  Lille,  in  figurative  speech, 
be  said  to  have  gained,  miraculously,  like  another  Orpheus,  by  his 
Marseillese  fiddle-strings  {fidibus  canoris),  a  Victory  of  Jemappes  ; 
and  conquered  the  Low  Countries. 

Young  General  Egalite,  it  would  seem,  shone  brave  among  the 
bravest  on  this  occasion.  Doubtless  a  brave  Egalite  ; — whom 
however  does  not  Dumouriez  rather  talk  of  oftener  than  need 
were?  The  Mother  Society  has  her  own  thoughts.  As  for 
the  Elder  Egalite  he  flies  low  at  this  time  ;  appears  in  the  Conven- 
tion for  some  half-hour  daily,  with  rubicund,  pre-occupied,  or  im- 
pressive quasi-contemptuous  countenance  ;  and  then  takes  himself 
away.f  The  Netherlands  are  conquered,  at  least  overrun.  Jacobin 
missionaries,  your  Prolys,  Pereiras,  follow  in  the  train  of  the 
Armies  ;  also  Convention  Commissioners,  melting  church-plate, 
revolutionising  and  remodelling — among  whom  Danton,  in  brief 
space,  does  immensities  of  business  ;  not  neglecting  his  own  wages 
and  trade-profits,  it  is  thought.  Hassenfratz  dilapidates  at  home  ; 
Dumouriez  grumbles  and  they  dilapidate  abroad  :  within  the  walls 
there  is  sinning,  and  without  the  walls  there  is  sinning. 

Rut  in  the  Hall  of  the  Convention,  at  the  same  hour  with  this 
victory  of  Jemappes,  there  went  another  thing  forward  :  Report, 
of  great  length,  from  the  proper  appointed  Committee,  on  the 
Crimes  of  Louis.    The  Galleries  listen  breathless  ;  take  comfort, 

*  Dumouriez,  MdmoircSy  iii.  174,  f  Moore,  ii.  148. 


62 


REGICIDE. 


ye  Galleries  :  Deputy  Valaze,  Reporter  on  this  occasion,  thinks 
Louis  very  criminal ;  and  that,  if  convenient,  ho  should  be  tried  ; 
— poor  Girondin  Valaze,  who  may  be  tried  himself,  one  day! 
Comfortable  so  far.  Nay  here  comes  a  second  Committee-reporter, 
Deputy  Mailhe,  with  a  Legal  Argument,  very  pro:y  to  read  now, 
very  refreshing  to  hear  then,  That,  by  the  Law  of  the  Country,  Louis 
Capet  was  only  called  Inviolable  by  a  figure  of  iTietoric  ;  bat  at 
bottom  was  perfectly  violable,  triable  ;  that  he  can,  and  even  should 
be  tried.  This  Question  of  Louis,  emerging  so  often  as  an  arigry 
confused  possibility,  and  submerging  again,  has  emerged  now  in  an 
articulate  shape. 

Patriotism  growls  indignant  joy.  The  so-called  reign  of  Equality 
is  not  to  be  a  mere  name,  then,  but  a  thing  !  Try  Louis  (..  apet? 
scornfully  ejaculates  Patriotism  :  Mean  criminals  go  to  the  gallows 
for  a  purse  cut ;  and  this  chief  criminal,  guilty  of  a  France  cut ; 
of  a  France  slashed  asunder  with  Clotho-scissors  and  Civil  w?ir  ; 
with  his  victims  ^  twelve  hundred  on  the  Tenth  of  August  alone ^ 
lying  low  in  the  Catacombs,  fattening  the  passes  of  Argonne  Vv' ood, 
of  Valmy  and  far  Fields  ;  he^  such  chief  criminal,  shall  not  even 
come  to  the  bar? — For,  alas,  O  Patriotism  !  add  we,  it  was  from 
of  old  said,  The  loser  pays  !  It  is  he  who  has  to  pay  all  scores, 
run  up  by  whomsoever ;  on  him  must  all  breakages  and  charges 
fall ;  and  the  twelve  hundred  on  the  Tenth  of  August  are  not 
rebel  traitors,  but  victims  and  martyrs :  such  is  the  law  of 
quarrel. 

Patriotism,  nothing  doubting,  watches  over  this  Question  of  the 
Trial,  now  happily  emerged  in  an  articulate  shape  ;  and  will  see  it 
to  maturity,  if  the  gods  permit.  With  a  keen  solicitude  Patriotism 
watches  ;  getting  ever  keener,  at  every  new  difhcult)^,  as  Girondins 
and  false  brothers  interpose  delays  ;  till  it  get  a  keenness  as  of 
fixed-idea,  and  will  have  this  Trial  and  no  earthly  thing  instead  of 
it, — if  Equality  be  not  a  name.  Love  of  Equality  ;  then  scepticism 
of  terror,  rage  of  victory,  sublime  spectacle  to  the  universe  :  all 
these  things  are  strong.  "... 

But  indeed  this  Question  of  the  Trial,  is  it  not  to  all  persons  a 
most  grave  one  ;  filing  with  dubiety  many  a  Legislative  head  ! 
Regicide  t  asks  the  Girondc  Respectability  :  To  kill  a  king,  and 
6ecome  the  horror  of  respectable  nations  and  persons?  But  then 
also,  to  save  a  king  ;  to  lose  one's  footing  ^ith  the  decided  Patriot; 
the  undecided  Patriot,  though  never  so  respectable,  being  mere 
hypulhctic  froth  and  no  footing? — The  dilenmia  presses  sore  ;  and 
between  the  horns  of  it  you  wriggle  round  and  round.  Decision  is 
no\vl\crc,  save  in  the  Mother  Society  and  her  Sons.  These  have 
decided,  and  go  forward  :  the  others  wriggle  round  uneasily  within 
their  dilemma-horns,  and  make  way  nowhither. 


.^IKETCHIXG  OF  FORMULAS. 


63 


CHAPTER  V. 

STRETCHING  OF  FORMULAS. 

But  how  this  Question  of  the  Trial  grew  laboriously,  through 
the  weeks  of  gestation,  now  that  it  has  been  articulated  or  con- 
ceived, were  superfluous  to  trace  here.  It  emerged  and  submerged 
among  the  infinite  of  questions  and  embroilments.  The  Veto  of 
Scoundrels  writes  plaintive  Letters  as  to  Anarchy ;  '  concealed 
Royalists,'  aided  by  Hunger,  produce  Riots  about  Grain.  Alas,  it 
is  but  a  week  ago,  these  Girondins  made  a  new  fierce  onslaught 
on  the  September  Massacres  ! 

For,  one  day,  among  the  last  of  October,  Robespierre,  being 
summoned  to  the  tribune  by  some  new  hint  of  that  old  calumny  of 
the  Dictatorship,  was  speaking  and  pleading  there,  with  more  and 
more  com.fort  to  himself ;  till,  rising  high  in  heart,  he  cried  out 
valiantly  :  Is  there  any  man  here  that  dare  specifically  accuse  me  ? 
^^Moi/^^  exclaimed  one.  Pause  of  deep  silence:  a  lean  angry 
little  Figure,  with  broad  bald  brow,  strode  swiftly  towards  the 
tribune,  taking  papers  from  its  pocket  :  "  I  accuse  thee,  Robe- 
spierre,"— I,  Jean  Baptiste  Louvet  !  The  Sea-green  became 
tallow-green  ;  shrinking  to  a  corner  of  the  tribune  :  Danton  cried, 
"  Speak,  Robespierre,  there  are  many  good  citizens  that  listen  ; 
but  the  tongue  refused  its  office.  And  so  Louvet,  with  a  shrill  tone, 
read  and  recited  crime  after  crime  :  dictatorial  temper,  exclusive 
popularity,  bullying  at  elections,  mob-retinue,  September  Mas- 
sacres ; — till  all  the  Convention  shrieked  again,  and  had  almost 
indicted  the  Incorruptible  there  on  the  spot.  Never  did  the  In- 
corruptible run  such  a  risk.  Louvet,  to  his  dying  day,  will  regret 
that  the  Gironde  did  not  take  a  bolder  attitude,  and  extinguish  him 
there  and  then. 

Not  so,  however  :  the  Incorruptible,  about  to  be  indicted  in  this 
sudden  manner,  could  not  be  refused  a  week  of  delay.  That  week, 
he  is  not  idle  ;  nor  is  the  Mother  Society  idle, — fierce-tremulous 
for  her  chosen  son.  He  is  ready  at  the  day  with  his  written 
Speech  ;  smooth  as  a  Jesuit  Doctor's  ;  and  convinces  some.  And 
now  ? .  Why,  now  lazy  Vergniaud  does  not  rise  with  Demosthenic 
thunder  ;  poor  L  ouvet,  unprepared,  can  do  little  or  nothing  : 
Barrere  proposes  that  these  comparatively  despicable  '^personalities' 
be  dismissed  by  order  of  the  day  !  Order  of  the  day  it  accordingly 
is.  Barbaroux  cannot  even  get  a  hearing  ;  not  though  he  rush 
down  to  the  Ba'-,  and  demand  to  be  heard  there  as  a  petitioner.* 
The  Convention,  eager  for  public  business  (v/ith  that  first  articu- 
late emergence  of  the  Trial  just  coming  on),  dismisses  these  com- 
parative miseres  and  despicabilities  :  splenetic  Louvet  must  digest 

*  Louvet,  hUmoires  (Paris,  1823),  p.  52;  Moniteur  (Seances  du  29  Octobre 
5  Novembre,  1792);  Moore  (ii.  17S.),  &c. 


64 


REGICIDE. 


his  spleen,  regretfully  for  ever  :  Robespierre,  dear  to  Patriotism/is 
dearer  for  the  dangers  he  has  run.  ^>     ^       ^  t 

This  is  the  second  grand  attempt  by  our  Gn'ondin  Friends  of 
Order  to  extinguish  that  black-spot  in  their  domain  ;  and  we  see 
they  have  made  it  far  blacker  and  wider  than  before  I  Anarchy, 
September  Massacre  :  it  is  a  thing  that  lies  hideous  m  the  general 
imagination  ;  very  detestable  to  the  undecided  Patriot,  of  Respec- 
tabiHty  :  a  thing  to  be  harped  on  as  often  as  need  is.  Harp  on  it,| 
denounce  it,  trample  it,  ye  Girondin  Patriots  and  yet  behold,  the 
black-spot  will  not  trample  down  ;  it  will  only,  as  we  say,  trample 
blacker  and  wider  :  fools,  it  is  no  black-spot  of  the  surface,  but  a 
well-spring  of  the  deep  !  Consider  rightly,  it  is  the  apex  of  the 
everlasting  Abyss,  this  black-spot,  looking  up  as  water  through 
thin  ice ;— say,  as  the  region  of  Nether  Darkness  through  your 
thin  film  of  Gironde  Regulation  and  Respectability  ;  trample  it 
not^  lest  the  film  break,  and  then —  ! 

The  truth  is,  if  our  Gironde  Friends  had  an  understanding  of  it, 
where  were  French  Patriotism,  with  all  its  eloquence,  at  this 
moment,  had  not  that  same  great  Nether  Deep,  of  Bedlam, 
Fanaticism  and  Popular  wrath  and  madness,  risen  unfathomable 
on  the  Tenth  of  August  ?  French  Patriotism  were  an  eloquent 
Reminiscence  ;  swinging  on  Prussian  gibbets.  Nay,  where,  in  few 
months,  were  it  still,' should  the  same  great  Nether  Deep  subside? 
—Nay,  as  readers  of  Newspapers  pretend  to  recollect,  this  hate- 
fulness  of  the  September  Massacre  is  itself  partly  an  after-thought: 
readers  of  Newspapers  can  quote  Gorsas  and  various  Brissotins 
approving  of  the  September  Massacre,  at  the  time  it  happened  ; 
and  calling  it  a  salutary  vengeance  I^^  So  that  the  real  grief,  after 
all,  were  not  so  much  righteous  horror,  as  grief  that  one's  own 
power  was  departing  ?    Unhappy  Girondins  ! 

In  the  Jacobin  Society,  therefore,  the  decided  Patriot  complains 
that  here  are  men  who  with  their  private  ambitions  and  animosities, 
will  ruin  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Brotherhood,  all  three  :  they  check 
the  spirit  of  Patriotism  ;  throw  stumbling-blocks  in  its  way  ;  and 
instead  of  pushing  on,  all  shoulders  at  the  wheel,  will  stand  idlel 
there,  spitefully  clamouring  what  foul  ruts  there  are,  what  rude 
jolts  we  give  !  To  which  the  Jacobin  Society  answers  with  angry 
roar  ; — with  angry  shriek,  for  there  are  Citoyennes  too,  thick|i 
crowded  in  the  galleries  here.  Citoyennes  who  bring  their  seam 
with  them,  or  their  knitting-needles  ;  and  shriek  or  knit  as  the  case 
needs  ;  famed  Tricot  eases,  P'atriot  Knitters  -—Mere  Duchesse,  or 
the  like  Deborah  and  Mother  of  the  Faubourgs,  giving  the  key- 
note. It  is  a  changed  Jacobin  Society  ;  and  a  still  changing.; 
Where  Mother  Duchess  now  sits,  authentic  Duchesses  have  sat. 
High-rouged  dames  went  once  in  jewels  and  spangles  ;  now, 
instead  of  jewels,  you  may  take  the  knitting-needles  and  leave  the 
rouge  :  the  rouge  will  gradually  give  place  to  natural  brown,  clean 
washed  or  even  unwashed  ;  and  Demoiselle  Thdroigne  herself  get 
scandalously  fustigated.  Strange  enough  :  it  is  the  same  tribuiie 
♦  Sci-  ///  /  l\irl  wii.  ;  N cwsi vipers  by  (iorsas  and  otliers  (cited  ibidi, 
428). 


STRETCHING  OR  FORMULAS, 


65 


raised  in  mid-air,  where  a  high  Mirabeau,  a  high  Barnave  and 
^^ristocrat  Lameths  once  thundered  :  whom  gradually  your  Brissots, 
Guadets,  Vergniauds,  a  hotter  style  of  Patriots  in  bonnet  rouge,  did 
displace  ;  red  heat,  as  one  may  say,  superseding  light.  And  now 
yrour  Brissots  in  turn,  and  Brissotins,  RolandinG,  Girondins,  are  be- 
coming supernumerary  ;  must  desert  the  sittings,  or  be  expelled  : 
the  light  of  the  Mighty  Mother  is  burning  not  red  bu^:  blue  ! — 
Provincial  Daughter-Societies  loudly  disapprove  these  things  ; 
loudly  demand  the  swift  reinstatement  of  such  eloquent  Girondins, 
tb.e  swift  '  erasure  of  Marat,  radiation  de  Marat'  The  Mother 
Society,  so  far  as  natural  reason  can  predict,  seems  ruining  herself. 
Nevertheless  she  has,  at  all  crises,  seemed  so  ;  she  has  a  preter- 
natural  life  in  her,  and  will  not  ruin. 

But,  in  a  fortnight  more,  this  great  Question  of  the  Trial,  while 
the  fit  Committee  is  assiduously  but  silently  working  on  it,  receives 
an  unexpected  stimulus.  Our  readers  remember  poor  Louis's  turn 
for  smithwork  :  how,  in  old  happier  days,  a  certain  Sieur  Gamain 
of  Versailles  was  wont  to  come  over,  and  instruct  him  in  lock- 
making  ;— often  scolding  him,  they  say  for  his  numbness.  By 
whom,  nevertheless,  the  royal  Apprentice  had  learned  something 
of  that  craft.  Hapless  Apprentice;  perfidious  Master- Smith  ! 
For  nov/,  on  this  20th  of  November  1792,  dingy  Smith  Gamain 
comes  over  to  the  Paris  Municipality,  over  to  Minister  Roland, 
with  hints  that  he.  Smith  Gamain,  knows  a  thing  ;  that,  in  Mav 
last,  when  traitorous  Correspondence  was  so  brisk,  he  and  tht. 
royal  Apprentice  fabricated  an  '  Iron  Press,  Arinoire  de  Fer,'  cun- 
ningly inserting  the  same  in  a  wall  of  the  royal  chamber  in  the 
Tuileries  ;  invisible  under  the  wainscot  ;  where  doubtless  it  still 
sticks  !  Perfidious  Gamain,  attended  by  the  proper  Authorities, 
finds  the  wainscot  panel  which  none  else  can  find ;  wrenches  it 
up  ;  discloses  the  Iron  Press, — full  of  Letters  and  Papers  !  Roland 
clutches  them  out ;  conveys  them  over  in  towels  to  the  fit  assiduous 
Committe,  which  sits  hard  by.  In  towels,  we  say,  and  withou' 
notarial  inventory  ;  an  oversight  on  the  part  of  Roland. 

Here,  however,  are  Letters  enough  :  which  disclose  to  a  demon 
stration  the  Correspondence  of  a  traitorous  self-preserving  Court ; 
and  this  not  with  Traitors  only,  but  even  with  Patriots,  so-called ! 
Barnave's  treason,  of  Correspondence  with  the  Queen,  and  friendly 
advice  to  her,  ever  since  that  Varennes  Business,  is  hereby  mani- 
fest :  how  happy  that  VN^e  have  him,  this  Barnave,  lying  safe  in  the 
Prison  of  Grenoble,  since  September  last,  for  he  had  long  been 
suspect  !    Talleyrand's  treason,  many  a  man's  treason,  if  not 
manifest  hereby,  is  next  to  it.    Mirabeau's  treason  :  wherefore  his 
I  Bust  in  the  Hall  of  the  Convention  '  is  veiled  with  gau:::/  till  we 
ascertain.    Alas,  it  is  too  ascertainable  I    His  Bust  in  the  Hall  of 
'  the  Jacobins,  denounced  by  Robespierre  from  the  tribune  in  mid- 
air, is  not  veiled,  it  is  instantly  broken  to  sherds  ;  a  Patriot 
I  mounting  swiftly  with  a  ladder,  and  shivering  it  down  on  the  floc^i; 
;  "^it  and  others  :  amid  shouts.*    Such  is  their  recompense  and 

1  i^^A 

■jL     *  Journal  des  Dibats  des  Jacobltjs  (in  Hist,  Pari,  xxii,  296). 


66 


amount  of  wa^es,  at  this  date:  on  the  principle  of  supply  ant, 
demand  !  Smkh  Gamain,  inadequately  recompensed  for  the  pre: 
sent,  comes,  some  fifteen  months  alter,  with  a  humble  Petition : 
setting  forth  that  no  sooner  was  that  important  Iron  Press  finishec! 
off  by  him,  than  fas  he  now  bethinks  himself)  Louis  gave  hmi  i 
laro-e  ^lass  of  wine.  Which  large  -lass  of  wine  did  produce  ir. 
ilie^stolnach  of  Sieur  Gamain  the  terriblest  effects,  evidently  tenr!  n 
i:v  towards  death,  and  was  then  broiiglit  ui)  by  an  emetic  ;  lm 
jia^,  notwithstanding,  entirely  ruined  the  const  tution  of  Sieu^; 
(lamain  ;  so  that  he  cannot  work  for  his  family  (as  he  now  heir 
thinks  himself).  The  recompense  of  u/hich  is  '  Pension  of  Twelv{;i 
'  Hundred  Francs,'  and  '  honourable  mention.'  So  different  is  the,- 
ratio  of  demand  and  supply  at  different  times.  *^ 

Thus,  amid  obstructions  and  stimulating  furtherances,  has  thv;; 
Question  of  the  Trial  to  grow ;  emerging  and  submerging ;  fostereci 
by  solicitous  Patriotism.  Of  the  Orations  that  were  spoken  on  itji 
of  the  painfully  devised  Forms  of  Process  for  managing  it,  m 
Law  Arguments  to  prove  it  lawful,  and  all  the  infinite  floods  d 
Juridical  and  other  ingenuity  and  oratory,  be  no  syllable  reportec 
in  l!v:s  History.  Lawyer  ingenuity  is  good:  but  v/hat  can  it  profit 
he-  o If  the  truth  must  be  spoken,  O  august  Senators,  the  onb 
Law  in  this  rase  is:  Vcr  victis.  The  loser  pays!  Seldom  did 
Robespierre  say  a  vvis..r  word  than  the  hint  he  gave  to  that  effect 
in  his  oration,  That  it  was  needless  to  speak  of  Law,  that  here,  i: 
never  elsewhere,  our  Right  was  i^,iight.  An  oration  admired  almos^ 
to  ecstasy  by  the  Jacobin  Patriot  :  who  shall  say  that  Robespierrt 
is  not  a  thorough-going  man  ;  bold  in  Logic  at  least  To  the  lib 
effect,  or  still  moVe  plainly,  spake  young  Saint-Just,  the  black 
haired,  mild-toned  youth.  Danton  is  on  mission,  in  thr;  Nether 
lands,  during  this  preliminary  work.  The  rest,  far  :is  one  reads 
welter  amid  Law  of  Nations,  Social  Contract,  Juristics,  Syllogisi 
tics  ;  to  us  barren  as  the  East  wind.  In  fact,  what  can  be  mor^ 
unprofitable  than  the  sight  of  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  inl 
genious  men,  struggling  with  their  whole  force  and  industry,  tor  i 
long  course  of  weeks,  to  do  at  bottom  this  :  To  stretch  out  thl 
old  Formula  and  Law  Phraseology,  so  that  it  may  cover  the  ne\^ 
contradictory,  entirely  ///^coverable  Thing?  Whereby  the  pool 
I'ormula  does  but  Cfack,  and  one's  honesty  along  with  it  !  Th^ 
liiing  that  is  pali)ably  hot,  burning,  wilt  thou  prove  it,  by  syllogisni 
to  1:)c  a  freezing-mixture  ?  This  of  stretching  out  Formulas  tiJ 
they  crack  is,  especially  in  times  of  swift  change,  one  of  the  sox 
fowfullest  tasks  poor  Humanity  has. 


AT  THE  BAR. 


57 


CHAPTER  VI. 

AT  THE  BAR. 

Meanwhile,  in  a  space  of  some  five  weeks,  we  have  got  tc 
smother  emerging  of  the  Trial,  and  a  more  practical  one  than 
ever. 

On  Tuesday,  eleventh  of  December,  the  King's  Trial  has 
merged,  very  decidedly :  into  the  streets  of  Paris ;  in  the  shape  of 
that  green  Carriage  of  Mayor  Chambon,  within  which  sits  the 
King  himself,  with  attendants,  on  his  way  to  the  Convention  Hall! 
Attended,  in  that  green  Carriage,  by  Mayors  Chambon,  Procureurs 
Chaumette;  and  outside  of  it  by  Commandants  Santerre,  with 
cannon,  cavalry  and  double  row  of  infantry ;  all  Sections  under 
arms,  strong  Patrols  scouring  all  streets;  so  fares  he,  slowly 
through  the  dull  drizzling  weather  :  and  about  two  o'clock  we  be- 
hold him,  '  in  walnut-coloured  great-coat,  redingote  noisette;  de- 
scending through  the  Place  Vendome,  towards  that  Salle  de 
Manege  ;  to  be"  indicted,  and  judicially  interrogated.  The  mys- 
terious Temple  Circuit  has  given  up  its  secret ;  which  now,  in  this 
walnut-coloured  coat,  men  behold  with  eyes.  The  same  bodily 
Louis  who  was  once  Louis  the  Desired,  fares  there  :  hapless  King, 
he  is  getting  now  towards  port ;  his  deplorable  farings  and  voyag- 
ings  draw  to  a  close.  What  duty  remains  to  him  henceforth,  that 
of  placidlv  enduring,  he  is  fit  to  do. 

The  singular  Procession  fares  on  ;  in  silence,  says  Prudhomme, 
or  amid  growlings  of  the  Marseillese  Hymn  ;  in  silence,  ushers 
itself  into  the  Hall  of  the  Convention,  Santerre  holding  Louis's  arm 
with  his  hand.  Louis  looks  round  him,  with  com.posed  air,  to  see 
what  kind  of  Convention  and  Parliament  it  is.  Much  changed 
indeed  :-— since  February  gone  two  years,  when  our  Constituent, 
then  busy,  spread  fleur-de-lys  velvet  for  us  ;  and  we  came  over  to 
say  a  kind  word  here,  and  they  all  started  up  swearing  Fidelity  ; 
and  all  France  started  up  swearing,  and  made  it  a  Feast  of  Pikes  ; 
I  which  has  ended  in  this  !  Barrere,  who  once  '  wept '  looking  up 
from  his  Editor's- Desk,  looks  down  now  from  his  President's- 
Chair,  with  a  list  of  Fifty-seven  Questions  ;  and  says,  dry-eyed  : 
"  Louis,  you  may  sit  down."  Louis  sits  down  :  it  is  the  very  seat, 
they  say,  same  timber  and  stuffing,  from  which  he  accepted  the 
Constitution,  amid  dancing  and  illumination,  autumn  gone  a  year. 
So  much  woodwork  remains  identical ;  so  much  else  is  not  identi- 
cal.   Louis  sits  and  listens,  with  a  composed  look  and  mind. 

Of  the  Fifty-seven  Questions  we  shall  not  give  so  much  as  one. 
They  are  questions  captiously  embracing  all  the  main  Documents 
seized  on  the  Tenth  of  August,  or  found  lately  in  the  Iron  Press  ; 
embracing  all  the  main  incidents  of  the  Revolution  History  ;  and 
they  ask,  in  substance,  this  :  Louis,  who  wert  King,  art  thou  not 
guilty  to  a  certain  extent,  by  act  and  written  document,  of  trying 


68 


REGICIDE. 


to  continue  King  ?  Neither  in  the  Answers  is  there  much  notable 
Mere  quiet  negations,  for  most  part ;  an  accused  man  standing  or. 
the  simple  basis  of  No :  I  do  not  recognize  that  document ;  I  die 
not  do  that  act  ;  or  did  it  according  to  the  law  that  then  was; 
Whereupon  the  Fifty-seven  Questions,  and  Documents  to  the' 
number  of  a  Hundred  and  Sixty-two,  being  exhausted  in  this  nian-; 
ner,  Barrere  finishes,  after  some  three  hours,  with  his  :  "  Louis,  1 
invite  you  to  withdraw." 

Louis  withdraws,  under  Municipal  escort,  into  a  neighbouring; 
Committee-room  ;  having  first,  in  leaving  the  bar,  demanded  tc 
have  Legal  Counsel.  He  declines  refreshment,  in  this  Committee- 
room  ;  then,  seeing  Chaumette  busy  with  a  small  loaf  which  ^ 
grenadier  had  divided  with  him,  says,  he  will  take  a  bit  of  bread. 
It  is  five  o'clock  ;  and  he  had  breakfasted  but  slightly  in  a  morning 
of  such  drumming  and  alarm.  Chaumette  breaks  his  half-loaf : 
the  King  eats  of  the  crust  ;  mounts  the  green  Carriage,  eating  ; 
asks  now  what  he  shall  do  with  the  crumb  ?  Chaumette's  clerk 
takes  it  from  him  ;  flings  it  out  into  the  street.  Louis  says,  It  is 
pity  to  fling  out  bread,  in  a  time  of  dearth.  "  My  grandmother/' 
remai  s  Chaumette,  used  to  say  to  me.  Little  boy,  never  waste  a 
crumb  of  bread,  you  cannot  make  one."  "  Monsieur  Chaumette," 
answers  Louis,  "  your  grandmother  seems  to  have  been  a  sensible 
woman."*  Poor  innocent  mortal  :  so  quietly  he  waits  the  drawing 
of  the  lot  ;— fit  to  do  this  at  least  well  ;  Passivity  alone,  without' 
Activity,  sufficing  for  it  !  He  talks  once  of  travelling  over  France 
by  and  by,  to  have  a  geographical  and  topographical  view  of  it  : 
being  from  of  old  fond  of  geography.— The  Temple  Circuit  again 
receives  him,  closes  on  him  ;  gazing  Paris  may  retire  to  its  hearths 
and  coffee-houses,  to  its  clubs  and  theatres  :  the  damp  Darkness 
has  sunk,  and  with  it  the  drumming  and  patrolling  of  this  strange 
Day. 

Louis  is  now  separated  from  his  Queen  and  Family  ;  given  up 
to  his  simple  reflections  and  resources.  Dull  he  these  stone  walls 
round  him  ;  of  his  loved  ones  none  with  him.  '  In  this  state  oi 
'uncertainty,'  providing  for  the  worst,  he  writes  his  Will  :  a  Paper 
which  can  still  be  read  ;  full  of  placidity,  simphcity,  pious  sweet- 
ness. The  Convention,  after  debate,  has  granted  him  Legai 
Counsel,  of  his  own  choosing.  Advocate  Target  feels  himseli 
'  too  old,'  being  turned  of  fifty-four  ;  and  declines.  He  had  gaineo 
great  honour  once,  defending  Rohan  the  Necklace-Cardinal ;  but 
will  gain  none  here.  Advocate  Tronchet,  some  ten  years  older, 
doos  not  decline.  Nay  behold,  good  old  Malesherbes  steps  for 
ward  voluntarily  ;  to  the  last  of  his  fields,  the  good  old  hero  !  He 
is  grey  with  seventy  years  :  he  says,  '  I  was  twice  called  to  the 
'  Council  oi  h'lm  who  was  my  Master,  when  all  the  world  coveted 
'  that  honour  ;  and  1  owe  him  the  same  ser\  ice  now,  when  it  ha:; 
*  become  one  which  many  reckon  dangerous.'  These  two,  with  ^ 
younger  Descze,  whom  they  will  select  for  pleading,  are  busy  9vei 

*  Priidhommc's  Newspaper  (in  //isl.  Pari,  xxi.  3i4;»  j 


AT  THE  BAR,  69 

W—  —  —  ■■   m 

that  Fifty-and-sevenfold  Indictment,  over  the  Hundred  and  Sixty* 
two  Documents  ;  Louis  aiding  them  as  he  can. 

A  great  Thing  is  now  therefore  in  open  progress  ;  all  men,  in 
all  lands,  watching  it.  By  what  Forms  and  Methods  shall  the 
Convention  acquit  itself,  in  such  manner  that  there  rest  not  on  it 
even  the  suspicion  of  blame  ?  Difficult  that  will  be  !  The  Con- 
vention,  really  much  at  a  loss,  discusses  and  deliberates.  All  day 
from  morning  to  night,  day  after  day,  the  Tribune  drones  with 
oratory  on  this  matter  ;  one  mu^t  stretch  the  old  Formula  to  cover 
the  new  Thing.  The  Patriots  of  the  Mountain,  whetted  ever 
keener,  clamour  for  despatch  above  all ;  the  only  good  Form  will 
be  a  swift  one.  Nevertheless  the  Convention  deliberates  ;  the 
Tribune  drones, — drowned  indeed  in  tenor,  and  even  in  treble, 
from  time  to  time  ;  the  whole  Hall  shrilling  up  round  it  into  pretty 
frequent  wrath  and  provocation.  It  has  droned  and  shrilled  well- 
nigh  a  fortnight,  before  we  can  decide,  this  shrillness  getting  ever 
shriller,  That  on  Wednesday  26th  of  December,  Louis  shall  ap- 
pear, and  plead.  His  Advocates  complain  that  it  is  fatally  soon  ; 
which  they  well  might  as  Advocates  :  but  without  remedy  ;  to 
Patriotism  it  seems  endlessly  late. 

On  Wednesday,  therefore,  at  the  cold  dark  hour  of  eight  in  the 
morning,  all  Senators  are  at  their  post.  Indeed  they  warm  the 
cold  hour,  as  we  find,  by  a  violent  effervescence,  such  as  is  too 
comm.on  now  ;  some  Louvet  or  Buzot  attacking  some  Tallien, 
Chabot  ;  and  so  the  whole  Mountain  effervescing  against  the 
whole  Gironde.  Scarcely  is  this  done,  at  nine,  when  Louis  and 
his  three  Advocates,  escorted  by  the  clang  of  arms  and  Santerre's 
National  force,  enter  the  Hall. 

Deseze  unfolds  his  papers  ;  honourably  fulfilling  his  perilous 
office,  pleads  for  the  space  of  three  hours.  An  honourable  Plead- 
ing, '  composed  almost  overnight  ;  ^  courageous  yet  discreet ;  not 
without  ingenuity,  and  soft  pathetic  eloquence  :  Louis  fell  on  his 
neck,  when  they  had  withdrawn,  and  said  with  tears,  Mon  patLvre 
Deseze,  Louis  himself,  before  withdrawing,  had  added  a  few 
words,  "  perhaps  the  last  he  would  utter  to  them  :  how  it  pained 
his  heart,  above  all  things,  to  b^^  held  guilty  of  that  bloodshed  on 
the  Tenth  of  August ;  or  of  ever  shedding  or  wishing  to  shed 
French  blood.  So  saying,  he  withdrew  from  that  Hall ; — having 
indeed  finished  his  work  there.  Many  are  the  strange  errands  he 
has  had  thither ;  but  this  stmnge  one  is  the  last. 

And  now,  why  will  the  Convention  loiter  ?  Here  is  the  Indict- 
ment and  Evidence  ;  here  is  the  Pleading  :  does  not  the  rest 
follow  of  itself.^  The  Mountain,  and  Patriotism  in  general, 
clamours  still  louder  for  despatch  ;  for  Permanent-session,  till  the 
'  k  be  done.  Nevertheless  a  doubting,  apprenhensive  Convention 
des  that  it  will  still  deliberate  first  ;  that  all  Members,  who 
ac.^ire  it,  shall  have  leave  to  speak. — To  your  desks,  therefore,  ye 
eloquent  Members  !  Down  with  your  thoughts,  your  echoes  and 
hearsays  of  thoughts  :  now  is  the  time  to  shew  oneself ;  France 


70 


REGICIDE, 


and  the  Universe  listens  !  Members  are  not  wanting  :  Oration 
spoken  Pamphlet  follows  spoken  Pamphlet,  with  what  eloquence  it  I 
can:  President's  List  swells  ever  higher  with  names  claiming  to  j 
speak  ;  from  day  to  day,  all  days  and  all  hours,  the  constant  , 
Tribune  drones  ; — shrill  Galleries  supplying,  very  variably,  the  \ 
tenor  and  treble.    It  were  a  dull  tune  otherwise. 

The  Patriots,  in  Mountain  and  Galleries,  or  taking  counsel 
nightly  in  Section-house,  in  Mother  Society,  amid  their  shrill 
TricoteuseSy  have  to  watch  lynx-eyed ;  to  give  voice  when  needful ; 
occasionally  very  loud.  Deputy  Thuriot,  he  who  was  Advocate 
Thuriot,  who  was  Elector  Thuriot,  and  from  the  top  of  the  Bastille,  ' 
saw  Saint- Antoine  rising  like  the  ocean  ;  this  Thuriot  can  stretch  > 
a  Formula  as  heartily  as  most  men.  Cruel  Billaud  is  not  silent,  if 
you  incite  him.  Nor  is  cruel  Jean-Bon  silent ;  a  kind  of  Jesuit  he 
too; — write  him  not,  as  the  Dictionaries  too  often  diO^  Jamb  on  ^ 
which  signifies  mere  Hajn  I 

But,  on  the  whole,  let  no  man  conceive  it  possible  that  Louis  is 
not  guilty.  The  only  question  for  a  reasonable  man  is,  or  was  : 
Can  the  Convention  judge  Louis  ?  Or  must  it  be  the  whole 
People  :  in  Primary  Assembly,  and  with  delay  Always  delay,  ye 
Girondins,  false  hoimnes  (felal/  so  bellows  Patriotism,  its  patience 
almost  failing. — But  indeed,  if  v^/e  consider  it,  what  shall  these 
poor  Girondins  do  1  Speak  their  convictions  that  Louis  is  a ' 
Prisoner  of  War  ;  and  cannot  be  put  to  death  without  injustice, , 
solecism,  peril  ?  Speak  such  conviction  ;  and  lose  utterly  your 
footing  with  the  decided  Patriot?  Nav  properly  it  is  not  even  a 
conviction,  but  a  conjecture  and  dim  puzzle.  How  many  poor 
Girondins  are  sure  of  but  one  thing  :  That  a  man  and  Girondin 
ought  to  have  footing  somewhere,  and  to  stand  firmly  on  it ; 
keeping  well  with  the  Respectable  Classes  !  This  is  what  convic- 
tion and  assurance  of  faith  they  have.  They  must  wriggle  pain- 
fully between  their  dilemma-horns."^ 

Nor  is  France  idle,  nor  Europe.  It  is  a  Heart  this  Convention! 
as  we  said,  which  sends  out  influences,  and  receives  them.  A 
King's  Execution,  call  it  Martyrdom,  call  it  Punishment,  were  an 
influence  !  Two  notable  influences  this  Convention  has  already 
sent  forth,  over  all  Nations  ;  much  to  its  own  detriment.  On  the 
19th  of  November,  it  emitted  a  Decree,  and  has  since  confirmed 
rnd  unfolded  the  details  of  it.  That  any  Nation  which  might  see 
good  to  shake  off  the  fetters  of  Despotism  was  thereby,  so  to 
bpcak,  the  Sister  of  France,  ;ind  should  have  help  and  countenance. 
A  Decree  much  noised  of  l:>y  Diplomatists,  Editors,  International 
Lawyers  ;  such  a  Decree  as  no  living  Fetter  of  Despotism,  nor 
Person  in  Authority  anywhere,  can  approve  of !  It  was  Deputy 
Chambon  the  ( iirondin  who  propounded  this  Decree  ;— at  bottom 
perhaps  as  a  flourish  of  rhetoric. 

The  second  influence  we  sj)cak  of  had  a  still  poorer  origin  :  in 
the  restless  loud-rattling  slightly-furnished  head  of  one  Jacob 
Du[)ont  from  the  Loire  country.  The  Convention  is  speculating 
i;n  a  plan  of  National  Education  :  Deputy  Dupont  in  his  speecb 
*  Se€  Extracts  from  their  N  ewspapers,  in  Hist.  Pari,  xxi.  1-38,  4tc. 


THE  BAR. 


n 


says,  "  I  am  free  to  avow,  M.  le  President?  that  I  for  my  part  am 
an  Atheist," thinking  the  world  might  like  to  know  that.  The 
French  world  received  it  without  commentary  ;  or  with  no  audible 
commentary,  so  loud  was  France  otherwise.  The  Foreign  world 
received  it  with  confutation,  with  horror  and  astonishment  ;  t  a 
most  miserable  influence  this  !  And  now  if  to  these  two  were 
added  a  third  influence,  and  sent  pulsing  abroad  over  all  the 
Earth  :  that  of  Regicide  ? 

Foreign  Courts  interfere  in  this  Trial  of  Louis ;  Spain,  England  : 
not  to  be  listened  to;  though  they  come,  as  it  were,  at  least 
Spain  comes,  with  the  olive-branch  in  one  hand,  and  ihe  swdrI 
without  scabbard  in  the  other.  But  at  home  too,  from  out  of  this 
circumambient  Paris  and  France,  what  influences  come  thick- 
pulsing  !  Petitions  flow  in  ;  pleading  for  equal  justice,  in  a  reign 
of  so-called  Equahty.  The  living  Patriot  pleads  ; — O  ye  National 
Deputies,  do  not  the  dead  Patriots  plead  ?  The  Twelve  Hundred 
that  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  do  not  they  plead  ;  and  petition,  in 
Death's  dumb-show,  from  their  narrow  house  there,  more  elo- 
quently than  speech  ?  Crippled  Patriots  hop  on  crutches  round 
the  Salle  de  Manege,  demanding  justice.  The  Wounded  of  the 
Tenth  of  August,  the  Widows  and  Orphans  of  the  Killed  petition 
in  a  body  ;  and  hop  and  dcale,  eloquently  mute,  through  the  Hall : 
one  wounded  Patriot,  unable  to  hop,  is  borne  on  his  bed  thither, 
and  passes  shoulder-high,  in  the  hoiizontal  posture.^  The  Con- 
vention iribune,  which  has  paused  at  such  sight,  commences 
again,— droning  mere  Juristic  Oratory.  But  out  of  doors  Paris  is 
piping  ever  higher.  Bull-voiced  St.  Huruge  is  he^lrd  ;  and  the 
hysteric  eloquence  of  Mother  Duchesse  :  ^  Variet,  Apostle  of 
^  Liberty,'  with  pike  and  red  cap,  flies  hastily,  carrying  his  oratori- 
cal folding-stool.  Justice  on  the  Traitor !  cries  all  the  Patriot  world. 
Consider  also  this  other  cry,  heard  loud  on  the  streets  :  "  Give  us 
"  Bread,  or  else  kill  us  !  "  Bread  and  Equahty  ;  Justice  on  the 
Traitor,  that  we  may  have  Bread  ! 

The  Linated  or  undecided  Patriot  is  set  against  the  Decided. 
Mayor  Chambon  heard  of  dreadful  rioting  at  the  Thedt7^e  de  la 
Aa'tion  :  it  had  •:ome  to  rioting,  and  even  to  rist-work,  between 
the  Decided  an^t  the  Undecided,  touching  a  new  Drama  called 
Ami  des  Lois  (P>iend  of  the  Laws).  One  of  the  poorest  Dramas 
ever  written  ;  but  w^hich  had  didactic  applications  m  it ;  wherefore 
powdered  wigs  of  Friends  of  Order  and  black  hair  of  Jacobin 
heads  are  flying  there  ;  and  Mayor  Chambon  hastens  with  San- 
terre,  in  hopes  to  quell  it.  Far  from  quelling  it,  our  poor  Mayor 
gets  so  '  squeezed,'  says  the  Report,  and  likewise  so  blamed  and 
bullied,  say  we,— that  he,  with  regret,  quits  the  brief  Mayoralty 
altogether,  ^  -lis  lungs  being  affected.'  This  miserable  Ami  des 
I-ois  is  debnred  of  in  the  Convention  itself  ;  so  violent,  mutualiy- 
ged,  are  the  Limited  Patriots  and  the  Unlimited.  § 

Moniteur,  Seance  du  14  Decembre  1792. 
I     t  Mrs.  Hannah  More,  Letter  to  Jacob  Dupont  (London,  1793)'  &c. 
'      X  1 1 1st.  Pari.  xxii.  131 ;  Moore,  &c. 

'  list.  Pari,  xxiii,  31,  48,  &c. 


REGICIDE, 


Between  which  two  classes,  are  not  Aristocrats  enough,  and 
Crypto- Aristocrats,  busy  ?  Spie:  running  ver  from  London  with 
important  Packets;  spies  preten  ni  :  run  ♦  One  of  these 
latter,  Viard  was  the  name  of  hmi,  preterided  :o  accui :  Roiaix  , 
and  even  the  Wife  of  Roland  ;  to  the  joy  of  Chabot  and  the  Moun- 
tain. But  the  Wife  of  Roland  came,  being  summoned,  on  the 
instant,  to  the  Convention  Hall ;  came,  in  her  high  clearness ;  :uid, 
with  few  clear  words,  dissipated  this  Viard  into  despicability  and 
air  ;  all  Friends  of  Order  applauding  *  So,  with  Theatre-riots, 
and  '  Bread,  or  else  kill  us  ; '  with  Rage,  Hunger,  preternatural 
Suspicion,  does  this  wild  Paris  pipe.  Rciand  grows  ever  ii-ore 
querulous,  in  his  Message^  .d  Letters  ,  rising  almost  to  the 
hysterical  pitch.  Marat,  whom  no  power  on  Earth  can  oreva:n  ^ 
seeing  into  traitors  and  Rolands,  takes  to  bed  for  three  ys 
almost  dead,  the  invaluable  People's-Friend,  with  heartUcii-k^ 
with  fever  and  headache  :  '  Peuple  babillard^  si  tu  savais  agir 
'  People  of  Babblers,  if  thou  couldst  but  act  \ ' 

To  crown  all,  victorious  Dumouriez,  in  these  New-year's  daysv, 
is  arrived  in  Raris  ; — one  fears,  for  no  good.  He  pretends  to  be 
complaining  of  Minister  Pache,  and  Hassenfratz  dilapidations  ; 
to  be  concerting  measures  for  the  spring  campaign  :  one  finds 
him  much  in  the  company  of  the  Girondins.  Plotting  with  them 
against  Jacobism,  against  Equality,  and  the  Punishment  of  Louis! 
We  have  Letters  of  his  to  the  Convention  itself  Will  he  act  the 
old  Lafayette  part,  this  new  victorious  General  ?  Let  him  withdraw 
again  ;  not  undenounced.f 

And  still,  in  the  Convention  Tribune,  it  drones  continually,  mere 
Juristic  Eloquence,  and  Hypothesis  without  Action  ;  and  there 
are  still  fifties  on  the  President's  List.  Nay  these  Gironde  Presi- 
dents give  their  own  party  preference  :  we  suspect  they  play  foul 
with  the  List ;  men  of  the  Mountain  cannot  be  heard.  And  still 
it  drones,  all  through  December  into  January  and  a  New  year  ; 
and  there  is  no  end  !  Paris  pipes  round  it  ;  multitudinous  ;  ever 
higher,  to  the  note  of  the  whirlwind.  Paris  will  '  bring  cannon 
*from  Saint-Denis  ;'  there  is  talk  of  '  shutting  the  Barriers,' — to 
Roland's  horror. 

Whereupon,  behold,  the  Convention  Tribune  suddenly  ceases 
droning  :  we  cut  short,  be  on  the  List  who  likes  ;  and  end. 
On  Tuesday  next,  the  Fifteenth  of  January  1793,  it  shall  go  to  the 
Vote,  name  by  name  ;  and,  one  way  or  other,  this  great  game  play 
itself  out ! 


CHAPTER  VIL 

.     THE  THREE  VOTINGS. 

Is  Louis  Capet  guilty  of  conspiring  against  Liberty  ?  Shall  our 
Sentence  be  itself  final,  or  need  ratifying  by  Appeal  to  the  People? 
*  Moniteur,  JSt^ance  du  7  Decembre  1792.     f  Dumouriez,  Mimoires^  iii.  c.  4. 


THE  THREE  VOTINGS. 


73 


If  gtiilty,  what  Punishment  ?  This  is  the  form  agreed  to,  after 
uproar  and  '  several  hours  of  tumultuous  indecision  :^  these  are  the 
Three  successive  Questions,  whereon  the  Convention  shall  now 
pronounce.  Paris  floods  round  their  Hall  ;  multitudinous,  many- 
sounding.  Europe  and  all  Nations  listen  for  their  answer.  Deputy 
after  Deputy  shall  answer  to  his  name  :  Guilty  or  Not  guilty 

As  to  the  Guilt,  there  is,  as  above  hinted,  no  doubt  in  the  mand  of 
Patriot  man.  Overwhelming  majority  pronounces  Guilt ;  the  unani- 
mous Convention  votes  for  Guilt,  only  some  feeble  twenty-eight 
voting  not  Innocence,  but  refusing  to  vote  at  all.  Neither  does  the 
Second  Question  prove  doubtful,  whatever  the  Girondins  might 
calculate.  Would  not  Appeal  to  the  People  be  another  name  for 
civil  war  ?  Majority  of  two  to  one  answers  that  there  shall  be  no 
Appeal  :  this  also  is  settled.  Loud  Patriotism,  now  at  ten  o'clock, 
may  hush  itself  for  the  night  ;  and  retire  to  its  bed  not  without 
hope.  Tuesday  has  gone  well.  On  the  morrow  comes,  What 
Punishment  ?    On  the  morrow  is  the  tug  of  war. 

Consider  therefore  if,  on  this  Wednesday  morning,  there  is  an 
affluence  of  Patriotism  ;  if  Paris  stands  a-tiptoe,  and  all  Deputies 
are  at  their  po^t !  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  honourable 
Deputies  ;  only  some  twenty  absent  on  mission,  Duchatel  and 
some  seven  others  absent  by  sickness.  Meanwhile  expectant 
Patriotism  and  Paris  standing  a-tiptoe,  have  need  of  patience. 
For  this  Wednesday  again  passes  in  debate  and  effervescence  ; 
Girondins  proposing  that  a  '  majority  of  three-fourths  '  shall  be 
required';  Patriots  fiercely  resisting  them.  Danton,  who  has  just 
got  back  from  mission  in  the  Netherlands,  does  obtain  '  order  of 
'the  day'  on  this  (airondin  proposal  ;  nay  he  obtains  further  that 
we  decide  sans  dt'semparer,  in  Permanent-session,  till  we  have 
done. 

And  so,  finally,  at  eight  in  the  evening  this  Third  stupendous 
Voting,  by  roll-call  or  appel  nojnnial,  does  begin.  What  Punish- 
ment ?  Girondins  undecided,  Patriots  decided,  men  afraid  of 
Royalty,  men  afraid  of  Anarchy,  must  answer  here  and  now. 
Infinite  Patriotism.,  dusky  in  the  lamp-light,  floods  all  corridors, 
crowds  all  galleries,  sternly  waiting  to  hear.  Shrill-sounding 
Ushers  summon  you  -by  Name  and  Department  ;  you  must  rise 
to  the  Tribune  and  say. 

Eye-witnesses  have  represented  this  scene  of  the  Third  Voting, 
and  of  the  votings  that  grew  out  of  it  ;  a  scene  protracted,  like  to 
be  endless,  lasting,  with  few  brief  intervals,  from  Wednesday  till 
Sunday  morning, — as  one  of  the  strangest  seen  in  the  Revolution. 
Long  night  wears  itself  into  day,  morning-'s  paleness  is  spread 
over  all  faces  ;  and  again  the  wintry  shadows  sink,  and  the  dim 
lamps  are  lit  :  but  through  day  and  night  and  the  vicissitude  of 
hours.  Member  after  Member  is  mounting  continually  those 
Tribune-steps  ;  pausing  aloft  <here,  in  the  clearer  upper  light,  to 
speak  his  Fate- word  ;  then  diving  down  into  the  dusk  and  throng 
again.  Like  Phantoms  in  the  hour  of  midnight ;  most  spectral, 
pandemonial !    Never  did  President  Vergniaud,  or  any  terrestrial 


74 


.  REGICIDE. 


President,  superintend  the  like.  A  King^rs  Life,  and  so  much  else 
that  depends  thereon,  hangs  treml^ling  in  t'ne  balance.  Man  after 
man  mounts  ;  the  buzz  hushes  itself  till  he  have  spoken  :  Death  ; 
Banishment  ;  Imprisonment  till  the  Peace.  Many  say,  Death  ; 
with  what  cautious  well-studied  phrases  and  paragraphs  they  could 
devise,  of  explanation,  of  enforcement,  of  faint  recommendation 
to  mercy.  Many  too  say,  Banishment ;  something  short  of  Death. 
The  balance  trembles,  none  can  yet  guess  whitherward.  Whereat 
anxious  Patriotism  bellows  ;  irrepressible  by  Ushers. 

The  poor  Girondins,  many  of  them,  under  such  fierce  bellowing 
of  Patriotism,  say  Death  ;  justifying,  vtoiivant^  that  most  miserable 
word  of  theirs  by  some  brief  casuistry  and  Jesuitry.  Vergniaud  him- 
self says,  Death  ;  justifying  by  Jesuitry.  Rich  Lepelletier  Saint- 
Fargeau  had  been  of  the  Noblesse,  and  then  of  the  Patriot  Left 
Side,  in  the  Constituent  ;  and  had  argued  and  reported,  there  and 
elsewhere,  not  a  little,  against  Capital  Punishment  :  nevertheless 
he  now  says,  Death  ;  a  word  which  may  cost  him  dear.  Manuel 
did  surely  rank  with  the  Decided  in  August  last ;  but  he  has  been 
sinking  and  backsliding  ever  since  September,  and  the  scenes  of 
September.  In  this  Convention,  above  all,  no  word  he  could 
speak  would  find  favour  ;  he  says  now.  Banishment ;  and  in  mute 
-wrath  quits  the  place  for  ever, — much  hustled  in  the  corridor^s. 
Philippe  Egalite  votes  in  his  soul  and  conscience,  Death,  at  the 
sound  of  which,  and  of  whom,  even  Patriotism  shakes  its  head ; 
and  there  runs  a  groan  and  shudder  through  this  Hall  of  Doom. 
Robespierre's  vote  cannot  be  doubtful  ;  his  speech  is  long.  Men 
see  the  figure  of  shrill  Sieyes  ascend  ;  hardly  pausing,  passing 
merely,  this  figure  says,  La  Mart  sans  phrase^  Death  without 
phrases ; and  fares  onward  and  downward.  Most  spectral, 
pandemonial ! 

And  yet  if  the  Reader  fancy  it  of  a  funereal,  sorrowful  or  even 
:grave  character,  he  is  far  mistaken.  '  The  Ushers  in  the  Moun- 
■'tain  quarter,'  says  Mercier,  ^had  become  as  Box-openers  at  tfte 
*  Opera  ; '  opening  and  shutting  of  Galleries  for  privileged  per^ns, 
for  '  d'Orleans  Egalite's  mistresses,'  or  other  high-dizened  women 
of  condition,  rustling  with  laces  and  tricolor.  Gallant  Deputies 
pass  arud  repass  thitherward,  treating  them  with  ices,  refreshments 
and  small-talk  ;  the  high-dizened  heads  beck  responsive  ;  some 
have  their  card  and  pin,  pricking  down  the  Ayes  and  Noes,  as  at 
a  game  of  Rouge-et-Noir.  Further  aloft  reigns  Mt^re  Duchesse 
with  her  unrouged  Amazons  ;  she  cannot  be  prevented  making 
long  Hahas^  when  the  vote  is  not  La  Mart  In  these  Galleries 
there  is  refection,  drinking  of  wine  and  brandy  '  as  in  open  tavern, 
''en  pleine  tabagie.^  Betting  goes  on  in  all  coffeehouses  of  the 
neighbourhood.  But  within  doors,  fatigue,  impatience,  uttermost 
weariness  sits  now  on  all  visages  ;  lighted  up  only  fiK)m  time  to 
time,  by  turns  of  tbe  game.  Members  have  fallen  asleep  ;  Usli^ers 
come  and  awaken  them  to  vote  :  other  M  embers  calculate  whether 
they  shall  not  have  time  to  run  and  dine.  Figures  rise,  like  phan- 
toms, pale  in  the  dusky  lamp-light  ;  utter  from  this  Tribune,  only 
one  word  :  Death,    ^  Tout  est  optiquc^  says  Mercier;  *the  world 


THE  THREE  VOTINGS. 


75 


*is  all  an  optical  shadow.'*  Deep  in  the  Thursday  night,  when 
the  Voting  is  done,  and  Secretaries  are  summing  it  up,  sick 
DuchateL  more  spectral  than  another,  comes  borne  on  a  chair, 
wrapt  in  blankets,  '  in  nightgown  and  nightcap/  to  vote  lor  Mercy  ; 
one  vote  it  is  thought  may  turn  the  scale. 

Ah  no  !  In  profoundest  silence,  President  Vergniaud,  with  a 
voice  full  of  sorrow,  has  to  say  :  "  I  declare,  in  the  name  of  the 
Convention,  that  the  Punishment  it  pronounces  on  Louis  Capet  is 
that  of  Death/'  Death  by  a  small  majority  of  Fifty-three.  Nay, 
if  we  deduct  from  the  one  side,  and  add  to  the  other,  a  certain 
Twenty-six,  who  said  Death  but  coupled  some  faintest  ineffectual 
surmise  of  mercy  with  it,  the  majority  will  be  but  One. 

Death  is  the  sentence  :  but  its  execution  ?  It  is  not  executed 
yet!  Scarcely  is  the  vote  declared  when  Louis's  Three  Advocates 
enter  ;  with  Protest  in  his  name,  with  demand  for  Delay,  for  Appeal 
to  the  People.  For  this  do  Deseze  and  Tronchet  plead,  with  brief 
eloquence  :  brave  old  Malesherbes  pleads  for  it  with  eloquent  want 
of  eloquence,  in'  broken  sentences,  in  embarrassment  and  sobs  ; 
that  brave  time-honoured  face,  with  its  grey  strength,  its  broad 
sagacity  and  honesty,  is  mastered  with  emotion,  melts  into  dumb 
tears.f— They  reject  the  Appeal  to  the  People  ;  that  having  been 
already  settled.  But  as  to  the  Delay,  what  they  call  Stirsis,  it  shall 
be  considered  ;  shall  be  voted  for  to-morrow  :  at  present  we  ad- 
journ. Whereupon  Patriotism  '  hisses '  from  the  Mountain  :  but  a 
^tyrannical  majority'  has  so  decided,  and  adjourns. 

There  is  still  this  fourth  Yoie  then,  growls  indignant  Patriotism: 
—this  vote,  and  who  knows  what  other  votes,  and  adiournments 
of  voting  ;  and  the  whole  matter  still  hovering  hypothe^tical  !  And 
at  every  new  vote  those  Jesuit  Girondins,  even  they  who  voted  for 
Death,  would  so  fain  find  a  loophole  !  Patriotism  must  watch  and 
rage.  Tyrannical  adjournments  there  have  been  ;  one,  and  now 
another  at  m.idnight  on  plea  of  fatigue,— all  Friday  wasted  in  hesi- 
tation and  higgling  ;  in  /^^-counting  of  the  votes,  which  are  found 
correct  as  they  stood !  Patriotism  bays  fiercer  than  ever ; 
Patriotism,  by  long-watching,  has  become  red-eyed,  ahiiost 
rabid. 

Delay  :  yes  or  no  1 "  men  do  vote  it  finallv,  ail  Saturday,  aL 
day  and  night.  Men's  nerves  are  worn  out,'  men's  hearts  are  ' 
desperate ;  now  it  shall  end.  Vergniaud,  soite  of  the  bavino-, 
ventures  to  say  Yes,  Delay  ;  though  he  had  voted  Death.  Philippe 
Egahte  says,  in  his  soul  and  conscience.  No.  The  next  Member 
m.ounting  :  "  Since  Philippe  says  No,  I  for  my  part  sav  Yes,  Moi 
€  dis  OuiP  The  balance  still  trembles.  Till  finally,  at  three 
o'clock  on  Sunday  morning,  we  have  :  No  Dt^lay,  by  a  majority  of 
Seventy  ;  Death  within  foiir-a7id-twenty  hours  I 

Garat  Minister  of  Justice  has  to  go  to  the  Temple,  with  this 
stern  message  :   he  ejaculates  repeatedly,     Quelle  eommissiou 

*  Mercier,  Nouveau  Pariss  vi.  156-59  ;  Montg:aillard,  iii.  348-87;  Moore,  &Ci 
f  Moniteur  (in  Hist.   Pari,  xxiii.  210).    bee   Boissy  d'Anglas.    Vil  de 
Malesherbes,  ii.  139, 


76 


REGICIDE. 


affrettse,  What  a  frightful  function  !  ""^  Louis  begs  for  a  Confessor; 
for  yet  three  days  of  life,  to  prepare  himself  to  die.  The  Con- 
fessor is  granted  ;  the  three  days  and  all  respite  are  refused. 

There  \^  no  deUverance,  then  ?  Thick  stone  walls  answer, 
None  — Has  King  Louis  no  fdends?  Men  of  action,  of  courage 
grown  desT^erate,  in  this  his  extreme  need  ?  King  Louis's  friends 
are  feeble  ct^id  far.  Not  even  a  voice  in  the  coffeehouses  rises  for 
him.  At  Meot  the  Restaurateurs  no  Captain  Dampmartin  now 
dines  ;  or  sees  death-doing  whiskerandoes  on  furlough  exhibit 
daggers  of  improved  structure  !  Meot's  gallant  Royalits  on  fur- 
lough are  far  across  the  Marches  ;  they  are  wandering  distracted 
over  the  world  :  or  their  bones  lie  whitening  Argonne  Wood. 
Only  some  weak  Priests  'leave  Pamphlets  on  all  the  bourne- 
'  stones/  this  night,  calling  for  a  rescue  ;  calling  for  the  pious 
women  to  rise  ;  or  are  taken  distributing  Pamphlets,  and  sent  to 
prison.! 

Nay  there  is  one  death-doer,  of  the  ancient  Meot  sort,  who,  with 
effort,'  has  done  even  less  and  worse  :  slain  a  Deputy,  and  set  all 
the  Patriotism  of  Paris  on  edge  !  It  .was  five  on  Saturday  even- 
ing when  Lepelletier  St.  Fargeau,  having  given  his  vote,  No  Delay ^ 
ran  over  to  Fevrier's  in  the  Palais  Royal  to  snatch  a  morsel  of 
dinner.  He  had  dined,  and  v/as  paying.  A  thickset  man 'with 
*  black  hair  and  blue  beard,'  in  a  loose  kind  of  frock,  stept  up  to 
him  ;  it  was,  as  Fevrier  and  the  bystanders  bethought  them,  one 
Paris  of  the  old  King's-Guard.    "Are  you  Lepelletier?"  asks  he. 

 "Yes." — "You  voted  in  the  King's  Business  "I  voted 

Death."—"  Scelerat,  take  that  !  "  cries  Paris,  flashing  out  a  sabre 
from  under  his  frock,  and  plunging  it  deep  in  Lepelletier's  side. 
Fevrier  clutches  him  ;  but  he  breaks  off ;  is  ^:one. 

The  voter  Lepelletier  lies  dead  ;  he  has  expired  in  great  pain, 
at  one  in  the  morning  two  hours  before  that  Vote  of  No  Delay 
was  fully  summed  up  !  Guardsman  Paris  is  flying  over  France  ; 
cannot  be  taken  ;  will  be  found  some  months  after,  self-shot  in  a 
remote  inn.J— Robespierre  sees  reason  to  think  that  Prince 
d'Artois  himself  is  privately  in  Town  ;  that  the  Convention  will  be 
butchered  in  the  lump.  Patriotism  sounds  mere  wail  and  ven- 
geance :  Santerre  doubles  and  trebles  all  his  patrols.  Pity  is  lost 
in  rage  and  fear  ;  the  Convention  has  refused  the  three  days  of 
life  and  all  respite. 

Biographic  des  Minis  ires,  p.  157.  ,  ••• 

t  See  Prudhomme's  Newspaper,  Rdvolutions  de  Paris  (in  Hzst.  Pari,  xxiiu 

^^t  Hist.  Pari,  xxiii.  275,  318;  F('lix  T .cp(.'llelier,  Vie  de  Michel  Lepelletier 
son  Frtre,  p.  61,  &c.  Folix,  with  due  love  of  tlic  miraculous,  will  have  it  that 
the  Suicide  in  the  inn  was  not  i'uris,  but  some  double-ganger  of  his. 


PLACE  DE  LA  REVOLUTION. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PLACE  DE  LA  REVOLUTION. 

To  this  conclusion,  then,  hast  thou  come,  O  hapless  Louis  I 
The  Son  of  Sixty  Kings  is  to  die  on  the  Scaffold  by  form  of  Law. 
Under  Sixty  Kings  this  same  form  of  Law,  form  of  Society,  has 
been  fashioning  itself  together,  these  thousand  years  ;  and  has 
become,  one  way  and  other,  a  jnost  strange  Machine.  Surely,  if 
needful,  it  is  also  frightful  this  Machine  ;  dead,  blind  ;  not  what 
it  should  be  ;  which,  with  swift  stroke,  or  by  cold  slow  torture,  has 
wasted  the  lives  and  souls  of  innumerable  men.  And  behold  now 
a  King  himself,  or  say  rather  Kinghood  in  his  person,  is  to  expire 
here  in  cruel  tortures  ; — like  a  Phalaris  shut  in  the  belly  of  his  own 
red-heated  Brazen  Bull !  It  is  ever  so  ;  and  thou  shouldst  know 
it,  O  haughty  tyrannous  man  :  injustice  breeds  injustice  :  curses 
and  falsehoods  do  verily  '  return  always  kome,^  wide  as  they  may 
wander.  Innocent  Louis  bears  the  sins  of  many  generations  : 
he  too  experiences  that  man's  tribunal  is  not  in  this  Earth  ;  that 
if  he  had  no  Higher  one,  it  were  not  well  with  him. 

A  King  dying  by  such  violence  appeals  impressively  to  the 
imagination ;  as  the  like  must  do,  and  ought  to  do.  And  yet  at 
bottom  it  is  not  the  King  dying,  but  the  Man  !  Kingship  is  a 
coat ;  the  grand  loss  is  of  the  skin.  The  man  from  whom  you 
take  his  Life,  to  him  can  the  whole  combined  world  do  more  f 
Lally  went  on  his  hurdle  ;  his  moth  filled  with  a  gag.  Miserablest 
mortals,  doomed  for  picking  pockets,  have  a  whole  five-act 
Tragedy  in  them,  in  that'  dumb  pain,  as  they  go  to  the  gallows, 
unregarded  ;  they  consume  the  cup  of  trembHng'down  to  the  lees. 
For  Kings  and  for  Beggars,  for  the  justly  doomed  and  the  un- 
justly, it  is  a  hard  thing  to  die.  Pity  them  all :  thy  utmost  pity 
with  all  aids  and  appliances  and  throne-and-scaffold  contrasts, 
how  far  short  is  it  of  the  thing  pitied  ! 

A  Confessor  has  come  ;  Abbe  Edgeworth,  of  Irish  extraction, 
whom  the  King  knew  by  good  report,  has  come  promptly  on  this 
solemn  mission.  Leave  the  Earth  alone,  then,  thou  hapless 
King  ;  it  with  its  malice  will  go  its  way,  thou  also  canst  go  thine. 
A  hard  scene  yet  remains  :  the  parting  with  our  loved  ones. 
Kind  hearts,  environed  in  the  same  grim  peril  with  us  ;  to  be  left 
here  !  Let  the  Reader  look  with  the  eyes  of  Valet  Clery,  through 
these  glass-doors,  where  also  the  Municipahty  watches  ;  and  see 
the  cruellest  of  scenes  : 

*  At  half-past  eight,  the  door  of  the  ante-room  opened  :  the  Queen 

*  appeared  first,  leading  her  Son  by  the  hand  ;  then  Madame 
'  Royale  and  Madame  Elizabeth  :  they  all  flung  themselves  into 
'the  arms  of  the  King.     Silence  reigned  for  some  minutes; 

*  interrupted  only  by  sobs»    The  Queen  made  a  movement  to  lead 


^8  '  REGICIDE. 


*his  Majesty  towards  the  inner  room,  where  M.  Edgeworth  was 

*  waiting  unknown  to  them  :  "  No,"  said  the  King,  let  us  go  into 
*the  dining-room,  it  is  there  only  that  I  can  see  you."  They 
^  entered  there  ;  I  shut  the  door  of  it,  which  was  of  glass.  The 
^  King  sat  down,  the  Queen  on  his  left  hand,  Madame  Elizabeui 

*  on  his  right,  Madame  Royr.Ie  dmost  in  front  :  the  young  .^rince 
'  remained  standing  between  Bis  Father's  legs.    They  all  leaned 

*  towards  him,  and  often  held  him  embraced.  This  scene  of  woe 
'  lasted  an  hour  and  three-quarters  :  during  which  we  could  hear 
^  nothing  ;  we  could  see  only  that  always  when  the  King  spoke, 
^the  sobbings  of  the  Princesses  redoubled,  continued  for  some 
'  minutes  ;  and  that  then  the  King  began  again  to  speak.'* — And 
so  our  meetings  and  our  partings  do  now  end  !  The  sorrows  we 
gave  each  other  ;  the  poor  joys  we  faithfully  shared,  and  all  our 
lovings  and  our  sufferings,  and  confused  toilings  under  the  earthly 
Sun,  are  over.  Thou  good  soul,  I  shall  never,  never  through  all 
ages  of  Time,  see  thee  any  more  ! — Never  !  O  Reader,  knowest 
thou  that  hard  word 

For  nearly  two  hours  this  agony  lasts  ;  then  they  tear  them- 
selves asunder.  "  Promise  that  you  will  see  us  on  the  morrow.'' 
He  promises  : — Ah  yes,  yes  ;  yet  once  ;  and  go  now,  ye  loved 
ones  ;  cry  to  God  for  yourselves  and  me  ! — It  was  a  hard  scene, 
but  it  is  over.  He  will  not  see  them  on  the  morrow.  The  Queen 
in  passing  through  the  ante-room  glanced  at  the  Cerberus  Muni- 
cipals ;  and  with  woman's  vehemence,  said  through  her  tears, 
"  Vous  etes  tons  des  sceleratsT 

King  Louis  slept  sound,  till  five  in  the  morning,  when  Clery,  as 
he  had  been  ordered,  awoke  him.  Clery  dressed  his  hair  •  while 
this  went  forward,  Louis  took  a  ring  from  his  watch,  and  kept  try- 
ing it  on  his  finger  ;  it  was  his  wedding-ring,  which  he  is  now  to 
return  to  the  Queen  as  a  mute  farewell.  At  half-past  six,  he  took 
the  Sacrament ;  and  continued  in  devotion,  and  conference  with 
Abb^  Edgeworth.  He  will  not  see  his  Family  :  it  were  too  hard 
to  bear. 

At  eight,  the  Municipals  enter  :  the  King  gives  them  his  Will 
and  messages  and  effects  ;  which  they,  at  first,  brutally  refuse  to 
take  charge  of :  he  gives  them  a  roll  of  gold  pieces,  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  louis  ;  these  are  to  be  returned  to  Malesherbes, 
■who  had  lent  them.  At  nine,  Santerre  says  the  hour  is  come. 
The  King  begs  yet  to  retire  for  three  minutes.  At  the  end  of  three 
minutes,  Santerre  again  says  the  hour  is  come.    *  Stamping  on  tlie 

*  ground  with  his  right  foot,  Louis  answers  :  "  Partons,  let  us  go." 
— How  the  rolling  of  those  drums  comes  in,  through  the  Temple 
bastions  and  bulwarks,  on  the  heart  of  a  queenly  wife  ;  soon  to  be 
U  widow!  He  is  gone,  then,  and  has  not  seen  us.^^  A  Queen 
weeps  bitterly  ;  a  King's  Sister  and  Children.  Over  ali  these 
Four  does  Death  also  hover  :  all  shall  perish  miserably  save  one  ; 
•he,  as  Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  will  live, — not  happily. 

At  the  Temple  Gate  were  some  faint  cries,  perhaps  from  voices 
pf  pitiful  women  :  "  Grace !  Grace  I "    Through  the  rest  of  the 
*  Ckiry's  Narraiive  (London,  1798),  cited  in  Webfcr,  iii.  31a, 


PLACE  DE  LA  REVOLUTION, 


79 


streets  there  is  silence  as  of  the  grave.  No  man  not  armed  is 
allowed  to  be  there  :  the  armed,  did  any  even  pity,  dare  not 
express  it,  each  man  overawed  by  all  his  neighbours.  All  windows 
are  down,  none  seen  looking  through  them.  All  shops  are  shut. 
No  wheel-carriage  rolls,  this  morning,  in  these  streets  but  one  only. 

i-  Eighty  thousand  armed  men  stand  ranked,  like  armed  statues  of 
itien  ;  cannons  bristle,  cannoneers  with  match  burning,  but  no  word 
■  or  movement  :  it  is  as  a  city  enchanted  into  silence  and  stone  ; 
'  one  carriage  with  its  escort,  'slowly  rumbling,  is  the  only  sound, 
i  Louis  reads,  in  his  Book  of  Devotion,  the  Prayers  of  the  Dying  * 
;  clatter  of  this  death-m^rch  falls  sharp  on  the  ear.  in  the  great 
[  silence  ;  but  the  thought  would  fain  struggle  heavenward,  and 
forget  the  Earth. 

As  the  clocks  strike  ten,  behold  the  Place  de  la  Revolution, 
once  Place  de  Louis  Quinze  :  the  Guillotine,  mounted  near  the 
old  Pedestal  where  once  stood  the  Statue  of  that  Louis  1  Far 
round,  all  bristles  with  cannons  and  armed  men  :  spectators 
crowding  in  the  rear  ;  d'Orleans  Egalite  there  in  cabriolet.  Sv/ift 
messengers,  hoquetons,  speed  to  the  Townhall,  every  three 
minutes  :  near  by  is  the  Convention  sitting, — vengeful  for  Lepel- 
letier.  Heedless  of  all,  Louis  reads  his  Prayers  of  the  Dying  3 
not  till  five  minutes  yet  has  he  finished  ;  then  the  Carriage  opens^ 
•  What  temper  he  is  in  Ten  different  witnesses  will  give  ten 
different  accounts  of  it.  He  is  in  the  collision  of  all  tempers  ; 
arrived  now. at  the  black  Mahlstrom  and  descent  of  Death  :  in 
sorrow,  in  indignation,  in  resignation  struggling  to  be  resigned. 
"  Take  care  of  M.  Edgeworth,"  he  straitly  charges  the  Lieutenant 
who  is  sitting  with  them  :  then  they  two  descend. 

The  drums  are  beating  :  "  Taises-votis,  Silence  ! "  he  cries  ^  in 
a  terrible  voice,  dhme  voix  terrible^  He  mounts  the  scaffold,  not 
without  delay  ;  he  is  in  puce  coat,  breeches  of  grey,  white  stock- 
ings. He  strips  off  the  coat ;  stands  disclosed  in  a  sleeve-waist- 
coat of  white  flannel.  The  Executioners  approach  to  bind  him : 
he  spurns,  resists  ;  Abbe  Edgeworth  has  to  remind  him  how  the 
Saviour,  in  whom  men  trust,  submitted  to  be  bound.  His  hands 
are  tied,  his  head  bare  ;  the  fatal  moment  is  come.  He  advance^ 
to  the  edge  of  the  Scaffold,  "  his  face  very  red,'  and  says  ; 
"  Frenchmen,  I  die  innocent  :  it  is  from  the  Scaffold  and  near 
appearing  before  God  that  I  tell  you  so.    I  pardon  my  enemies  ; 

I  desire  that  France  "    A  General  on  horseback,  Santerre  or 

another,  prances  out  with  uplifted  hand  :  "  Tambours ! "  The 
drums  drown  the  voice.  Executioners  do  your  duty  ! "  The 
Executioners,  desperate  lest  themselves  be  murdered  (for  Santerre 
and  his  Armed  Ranks  will  strike,  if  they  do  not),  seize  the  hapless 
Louis  :  six  of  them  desperate,  him  singly  desperate,  struggling 
there  ;  and  bind  him  to  their  plank.  Abbe  Edgeworth,  stooping, 
bespeaks  him  :  "  Son  of  Saint  Louis,  ascend  to  Heaven."  The 
Axe  clanks  down  ;  a  King's  Life  is  shorn  away.  It  is  Monday  the 
21st  of  January  1793.  He  was  aged  Thirty-eight  years  four 
months  and  twenty-eight  days."^ 

*  Newspapers,  Municipal  Records,  «S:c.  &c.  (in  Hist.  Pari,  x.xiii.  898-349) 
Deux  Amis  (ix.  369-373,),  Mercier  {Nouvean  Paris,  iii.  3-3). 


8o 


REGICIDE. 


Executioner  Samson  shews  the  Head  :  fierce  shout  of  Vive  la 
flepublique  rises,  and  swells ;  caps  raised  on  bayonets,  hats 
waving  :  students  of  the  College  of  Four  Nations  take  it  up,  on 
the  far  Ouais  ;  fling  it  over  Paris.  Orleans  drives  off  in  his 
cabriolet  fthe  Town-hall  Councillors  rub  their  hands,  saying,  "  It 
is  done,  It  is  done."  There  is  dipping  of  handkerchiefs^  of  pike- 
points  in  the  blood.  Headsman  Samson,  though  he  afterwards 
denied  it,"^  sells  locks  of  the  hair  :  fractions  of  the  puce  coat  are 
long  after  worn  in  rings.t — And  so,  in  some  half-hour  it  is  done  ; 
and  the  multitude  has  all  departed.  Pastrycooks,  coffee-sellers, 
milkmen  sing  out  their  trivial  quotidian  cries  :  the  v»^orld  wags  on, 
as  if  this  were  a  common  da.y.  In  the  coffeeh®uses  that  evening, 
says  Prudhomme,  Patriot  shook  hands  with  Patriot  in  a  more 
cordial  manner  than  usual.  Not  till  some  days  after,  according  to 
Mercier,  did  pubUc  men  see  what  a  grave  thing  it  was. 

A  grave  thing  it  indisputably  is  ;  and  will  have  consequences. 
On  the  morrow  morning,  Roland,  so  long  steeped  to  the  hps  in 
disgust  and  chagrin,  sends  in  his  demission.  His  accounts  he  all 
ready,  correct  in  black-on-white  to  the  uttermost  farthing  :  these 
he  wants  but  to  have  audited,  that  he  might  retire  to  remote 
obscurity  to  the  country  and  his  books.  They  will  never  be 
audited  those  accounts  ;  he  will  never  get  retired  thither. 

It  vv^as  on  Tuesday  that  Roland  demitted.  On  Thursday  comes 
Lepelletier  St.  Fargeau's  Funeral,  and  passage  to  the  Pantheon  of 
Great  Men.  Notable  as  the  wdld  pageant  of  a  winter  day.  The 
Body  is  borne  aloft,  half-bare  ;  the  winding-sheet  disclosing  the 
death- wound  :  sabre  and  bloody  clothes  parade  themselves  ;  a 
*  lugubrious  music '  wailing  harsh  iK^nicB.  Oak-crowns  shower 
down  from  windows  ;  President  Vergniaud  walks  there,  with 
Convention,  with  Jacobin  Society,  and  ah  Patriots  of  every  colour, 
all  mourning  brotherlike. 

Notable  also  for  another  thing,  this  Burial  of  Lepelletier  :  it 
was  the  last  act  these  men  ever  did  with  concert  !  All  Parties  and 
figures  of  Opinion,  that  agitate  this  distracted  France  and  its 
Convention,  now  stand,  as  it  were,  face  to  face,  and  dagger  to 
dagger  ;  the  King's  Life,  round  which  they  all  struck  and  battled, 
being  hurled  down,  iyuiuouriez,  conquering  Holland,  growls 
ominous  discontent,  at  the  head  of  Armies.  Men  say  Dumouriez 
will  have  a  King  ;  that  young  d'Orleans  Egalite  shall  be  his  King.- 
Deputy  Fauchct,  in  the  Journal  dcs  Amis,  curses  his  day,  more 
bitterly  than  Job  did  ;  invokes  the  poniards  of  Regicides,  of  '  Arras 
'  Vipers '  or  Robespicrres,  of  Pluto  Dantons,  of  horrid  Butchers 
Legendre  and  Simulacra  d'Herbois,  to  send  him  swiftly  to  another 
world  than  theirs. %  This  is  Tc-Deu77i  Fauchet,  of  the  Bastille 
Victory,  of  the  Cerclc  Social.  Sharp  was  the  cleath-hail  rattling 
round  one's  Flag-of-triice,  on  that  Bastille  day  :  but  it  was  soft  to 
Buch  wreckage  of  high  Hope  as  this;  one's  New  Golden  Era 

*  His  Letter  in  the  Newspapers  {^Hisi  Paul,  ubi  supra/ 
f  VoTsiev's  liriefivcchsr/,  i.  473. 
%  Hist.  Pari,  ubi  supra. 


PLACE  DE  LA  REV0LU2L0N,  8l 


going  down  in  leaden  dross,  and  sulphurous  black  of  the  Everlast- 
ing Darkness  ! 

At  home  this  Killing  of  a  King  has  divided  all  friends  ;  and 
abroad  it  has  united  all  enemies.  Fraternity  of  Peoples,  Revolu- 
tionary Propagandism  ;  Atheism,  Regicide  ;  total  destruction  of 
social  order  in  this  world  !  All  Kings,  and  lovers  of  Kmgs,  airl 
haters  of  Anarchy,  rank  in  coalition  ;  as  m  a  war  lor  liie.  h>ng- 
land  signifies  to  Citizen  Chauvelin,  the  Ambassador  or  rather 
\mbassador's-Cloak,  that  he  must  quit  the  country  m  eight  days. 
Ambassador's-Cloak  and  Ambassador,  Chauvelm  and  1  alleyrancl 
depart  accordingly."^  Talleyrand,  implicated  in  that  Iron  Press  of 
the  Tuileries,  thinks  it  safest  to  make  for  America. 

England  has  cast  out  the  Embassy  :  England  declares  war,-— 
being  shocked  principally,  it  would  seem,  at  the  condition  of  the 
River  Scheldt.  Spain  declares  war  ;  being  shocked  principally  at 
some  other  thing  ;  which  doubtless  the  Manifesto  mdicates.f  Nay 
we  find  it  was  not  England  that  declared  war  first,  or  Spam  fi^rst  ; 
but  that  France  herself  declared  war  first  on  both  of  them 
point  of  immense  Parliamentary  and  Journahstic  interest  m  those 
days,  but  which  has  become  of  no  interest  whatever  m  these. 
They  all  declare  war.  The  sword  is  drawn,  the  scabbard  thrown 
away  It  is  even  as  Danton  said,  in  one  of  his  alFtoo  gigantic 
figures  :  "  The  coalised  Kings  threaten  us  ;  we  hurl  at  their  feets 
as  gage  of  battle,  the  Head  of  a  King." 

*  Annual  Register  of  1793,  PP-  114-128. 

f  23d  March  [Annual  Register,  p.  161.}.  ^ 

i  ist  February ;  7th  March  (Moniteur  of  tnese  dateg) 


82 


BOOK  THIRD. 


THE  GIRONDINS- 


CHAPTER  I. 

CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 

This  huge  Insurrectionary  Movement,  which  we  hken  to  a 
oreakmg  out  of  Tophet  and  the  Abyss,  has  swept  away  Rovaity 
Aristocracy,  and  a  King's  life.  The  question  is.  What  will  it  next 
do  ;  how  will  it  henceforth  shape  itself?  Settle  down  into  a  reien 
of  Law  and  Liberty;  according  as  the  habits,  persuasions  and 
endeavours  of  the  educated,  monied,  respectable  class  prescribe  ? 
That  IS  to  say  :  the  volcanic  lava-liood,  bursting  up  in  the  manner 
described,  Will  explode  and  flow  according  to  Girondin  Formula 
and  pre-established  rule  of  Philosophy  ?  If  so,  for  our  Girondin 
friends  it  will  be  well. 

Meanwhile  were  not  the  prophecy  rather  that  as  no  external 
force,  Royal  or  other,  now  remains  which  could  control  this  Llove- 
menC,  the  Movement  will  follow  a  course  of  its  own  ;  probably  a 
very  original  one?  Further,  that  whatsoever  man  or  men  can 
best  interpret  the  inward  tendencies  it  has,  and  give  them  voice 
and  activity,  will  obtain  the  lead  of  it  ?  For  the  rest,  that  as  a 
thing  imthoiU  (jrdcr,  a  tiling  proceeding  from  beyond  and  beneath 
the  region  of  c-rdci-,  it  must  work  and  welter,  not  as  a  Regularity 
but  as  a  Chaos  ;  destructive  and  seli-destructive  ;  always  till  some- 
thing that  has  order  arise,  strong  enougli  to  bind  it  into  subjection 
aga.in?  Which  something,  we  may  further  conjecture,  will  not  ])c 
a  Tormula,  with  philosophical  propositions  and  forensic  elociuen(  c  ■ 
but  a  Reality,  probably  with  a  sword  in  its  hand  ! 

As  for  the  Girondin  Formula,  of  a  respectable  Republic  for  the 
Middle  Classes,  all  manner  of  Aristocracies  being  now  sufficiently 
drnnolished,  there  seems  little  reason  to  expect  that  the  business 
will  stop  there.  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,  these  are  the  words  ; 
enunciative  and  prophetic.  Republic  for  the  respectable  washed 
Middle  Classes,  how  can  that  be  the  fulfilment  thereof?  Hunger 
and  nakedness,  and  nightmare  oppression  lying  heavy  on  Twenty- 


83 


five  million  hearts  ;  this,  not  the  wounded  vanities  or  contradicted 
philosophies  of  philosophical  Advocates,  rich  Shopkeepers,  rura] 
Noblesse,  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  French  Revolution  ;  as  the 
like  will  be  in  all  such  Revolutions,  in  all  countries.  Feudal  Fleur- 
de-lys  had  become  an  insupportably  bad  marciiing  banner,  and 
needed  to  be  torn  and  trampled  :  but  Moneybag  of  Mammon  (for 
that,  in  these  times,  is  what  the  respectable  Republic  for  the 
Middle  Classes  will  signify)  is  a  still  worse,  while  it  lasts.  Pro- 
perly, indeed,  it  is  the  worst  and  basest  of  all  banners,  and  symbols 
of  dominion  among  men  ;  and  indeed  is  possible  only  in  a  time 
of  general  Atheism,  and  Unbelief  in  any  thing  save  in  brute  Force 
and  Sensuahsm  ;  pride  of  birth,  pride  of  off.ce,  any  known  kind 
of  pride  being  a  degree  better  than  purse-pride.  Freedom, 
Equality,  Brotherhood  :  not  in  the  Moneybag,  but  far  elsewhere, 
will  Sansculottism  seek  these  things. 

We  say  therefore  that  an  Insurrectionary  France,  loose  of  con- 
trol from  without,  destitute  of  supreme  order  from  within,  will 
form  one  of  the  mo^t  tumultuous  Activities  ever  seen  on  this 
Earth ;  such  as  no  Girondin  Formula  can  regulate.  An  im- 
measurable force,  made  up  of  forces  manifold,  heterogeneous, 
compatible  and  incompatible.  In  plainer  words,  this  France  must 
needs  spUt  into  Parties  ;  each  of  which  seeking  to  make  itself 
good,  contradiction,  exasperation  will  arise  ;  and  Parties  on 
Parties  find  that  they  cannot  work  together,  cannot  exist  to- 
gether. 

As  for  the  number  of  Parties,  there  will,  strictly  counting,  be  as 
many  Parties  as  their  are  Opinions.  According  to  which  rule,  in 
this  National  Convention  itself,  to  say  nothing  of  France  generally, 
the  number  of  Parties  ought  to  be  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty- 
Nine  ;  for  every  unit  entertains  his  opinion.  But  now  as  every 
unit  has  at  once  an  individual  nature,  or  necessity,  to  follow  his 
own  road,  and  a  gregarious  nature  or  necessity  to  see  himself 
travelhng  by  the  side  of  others, — what  can  there  be  but  dissolu- 
tions, precipitations,  endless  turbulence  of  attracting  and  repelling  ; 
till  once  the  master-element  get  evolved,  and  this  wild  alchemy 
arrange  itself  again  ? 

To  the  length  of  Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  Parties,  how- 
*ever,  no  Nation  was  ever  yet  seen  to  go.  Nor  indeed  much  beyond 
the  length  of  Two  Parties  ;  tvv'o  at  a  time  ;— so  invincible  is  man's 
tendency  to  unite,  with  all  the  invincible  divisiveness  he  has  ! 
Two  Parties,  we  say,  are  the  usual  number  at  one  time  :  let  these 
two  fight  it  out,  all  minor  shades  of  party  rallying  under  the  shade 
likest  them  ;  when  the  one  has  fought  down  the  other,  then  it,  in 
its  turn,  may  divide,  self-destructive  ;  and  so  the  process  continue, 
as  far  as  needful.  This  is  the  way  of  Revolutions,  which  spring 
up  as  the  French  one  has  done  ;  when  the  so-called  Bonds  of 
Society  snap  asunder  ;  and  all  Laws  that  are  not  Laws  of  Nature 
become  naught  and  Formulas  merely. 

But  quitting  these  somewhat  abstract  considerations,  let  History 
note  this  concrete  reality  which  the  streets  of  Paris  exhibit,  on 


84 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


Monday  the  25th  of  February  1793.  Long  before  daylight  that 
morning,  these  streets  are  noisy  and  angry.  Petitioning  enough 
there  has  been  ;  a  Convention  often  solicited.  It  was  but  yester- 
day there  came  a  Deputation  of  Washerwomen  with  Petition  ; 
complaining  that  not  so  much  as  soap  could  be  had  ;  to  say 
nothing  of  bread,  and  condiments  of  bread.  The  cry  of  women, 
round  the  Salle  de  Manege,  was  heard  plaintive  :  Dn  pain  et  du 
savon,  Bread  and  Soap."* 

And  now  from  six  o'clock,  this  Monday  morning,  one  perceives 
the  Baker's  Queues  unusually  expanded,  angrily  agitating  them- 
selves. Not  the  Baker  alone,  but  two  Section  Commissioners  to 
help  him,  manage  with  difficulty  the  daily  distribution  of  loaves. 
Soft-spoken  assiduous,  in  the  early  candie-light,  are  Baker  and 
Commfesioners  :  and  yet  the  pale  chill  February  sunrise  discloses 
an  unpromising  scene.  Indignant  Female  Patriots,  partly  supplied 
with  bread,  rush  now  to  the  shops,  declaring  that  they  will  have 
groceries.  Groceries  enough  :  sugar-barrels  rolled  forth  into  the 
street.  Patriot  Citoyennes  wxighirg  it  out  at  a  just  rate  of  eleven- 
pence a  pound  ;  likewise  coffee- chests,  soap-chest,  nay  cinnamon 
and  cloves-chests,  with  aqtiavitce  and  other  forms  of  alcohol, — at  a  ■ 
just  rate,  which  3ome  do  not  pay  ;  the  pale-faced  Grocer  silently  : 
wringing  his  hands  !  Wha':  help  1  The  distributive  Citoyennes  ' 
are  of  violent  speech  and  gesture,  their  long  Eumenides'  hair 
hanging  out  of  curl ;  nay  in  their  girdles  pistols  are  seen  sticking  : 
some,  it  is  even  said,  have  beards^ — male  Patriots  in  petticoats  and 
mob-cap.  Thus,  m  the  streets  of  Lombards,  in  the  street  of  Five- 
Diamonds,  street  of  Pullies,  in  most  streets  of  Paris  does  it  effer- 
vesce, the  livelong  day  ;  no  Municipality,  no  Mayor  Pache,  though 
he  was  War-Minister  lately,  sends  military  against  it,  or  aught 
against  it  but,  persuasive-eloquence,  till  seven  at  night,  or 
later. 

On  Monday  gone  five  weeks,  which  was  the  twenty-first  of 
January,  we  saw  Paris,  beheading  its  King,  stand  silent,  like  a 
petrified  City  of  Enchantment  :  and  now  on  this  Monday  it  is  so 
noisy,  selling  sugar  !  Cities,  especially  Cities  in  Revolution,  are 
subject  to  these  alternations  ;  the  secret  courses  of  civic  business 
and  existence  effervescing  and  efflorescing,  in  this  manner,  as  4 
concrete  Phenomenon  to  the  eye.  Of  which  Phenomenon,  when 
secret  existence  becoming  public  effloresces  on  the  street,  the 
philosophical  cause-and-effect  is  not  so  easy  to  find.  What,  for 
example,  may  be  the  accurate  philosophical  meaning,  and  mean- 
ings, of  this  sale  of  sugar  ?  These  things  that  have  become  visible 
in  the  street  of  Pullies  and  over  Paris,  whence  are  they,  we  say  ; 
and  whither.'^  — 

That  Pitt  has  a  hand  in  it,  the  gold  of  Pitt  :  so  much,  to  all 
reasonable  Patriot  men,  may  seem  clear.  But  then,  through  what 
agents  of  Pitt.'*  Varlet,  Apostle  of  Liberty,  was  discerned  again  of 
late,  with  his  pike  and  his  red  nightcap.  Deputy  Mnrat  pulDlished 
in  his  journal,  this  very  day,  complaining  of  the  bitter  scarcity, 
and  sufferi;igs  of  the  people,  till  he  seemed  to  get  wroth:  'If 
*  Moiiitcur  Sec,  {Hisf.  Pari.  xxiv.  332»348). 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 


'your  Rights  of  Man  were  anything  but  a  piece  of  written  paper,  the 
^  plunder  of  a  few  shops,  and  a  forestall  er  or  two  hung  up  at  the  door- 
^  lintels,  would  put  an  end  to  such  things.'*  Are  not  these,  say  the 
Girondins,  pregnant  indications  ?  Pitt  has  bribed  the  Anarchists  ; 
Marat  is  the  agent  of  Pitt  :  hence  this  sale  of  sugar.  To  the 
Mother  Society,"  again,  it  is  clear  that  the  scarcity  is  factitious  ;  is 
the  work  of  Girondins,  and  such  like  ;  a  set  of  men  sold  partly  to 
Pitt  ;  sold  wholly  to  their  own  ambitions,  and  hard-hearted  pedan- 
tries ;  who  will  not  fix  the  grain-prices,  but  prate  pedantically  of 
free-trade  ;  wishing  to  starve  Paris  into  violence,  and  embroil  it 
with  the  Departments  :  hence  this  sale  of  sugar. 

And,  alas,  if  to  these  two  notabilities,  of  a  Phenomenon  and 
such  Theories  of  a  Phenomenon,  we  add  this  third  notabihty, 
That  the  French  Nation  has  believed,  for  several  years  now,  in 
the  possibiHty,  nay  certainty  and  near  advent,  of  a  universal 
Millennium,  or  reign  of  Freedom,  Equality,  Fraternity,  wherein 
man  should  be  the  brother  of  man,  and  sorrow  and  sin  flee  away  ? 
Not  bread  to  eat,  nor  soap  to  wash  with  ;  and  the  reign  of  perfect 
Felicity  ready  to  arrive,  due  always  since  the  Bastille  fell  !  How 
did  our  hearts  burn  within  us,  at  that  Feast  of  Pikes,  when  brother 
flung  himself  on  brothers  bosom  ;  and  in  sunny  jubilee,  Twenty- 
five  milhons  burst  forth  into  sound  and  cannon-smoke  !  Bright 
was  our  Hope  then,  as  sunlight ;  red-angry  is  our  Hope  grown 
now,  as  consuming  fire.  But,  O  Heavens,  what  enchantment  is 
it,  or  devilish  legerdemain,  of  such  effect,  that  Perfect  Felicity, 
always  within  arm's  length,  could  never  be  laid  hold  of,  but  only  in 
her  stead  Controversy  and  Scarcity  ?  This  set  of  traitors  after  that 
set  !  Tremble,  ye  traitors  ;  dread  a  People  which  calls  itself 
patient,  long-suffering  ;  but  which  cannot  always  submit  to  have 
its  pocket  picked,  in  this  way, — of  a  Millennium  1 

Yes,  Reader,  here  is  the  miracle.  Out  of  that  putrescent  rubbish 
of  Scepticism,  Sensuahsrn,  Sentimentahsm,  hollow  Machiavelism, 
such  a  Faith  has  verily  risen  ;  flaming  in  the  heart  of  a  People. 
A  whole  People,  awakening  as  it  were  to  consciousness  in  deep 
misery,  beheves  that  it  is  within  reach  of  a  Fraternal  Heaven-on- 
Earth.  With  longing  arms,  it  struggles  to  embrace  the  Unspeak- 
able ;  cannot  embrace  it,  owing  to  certain  causes.— Seldom  do  we 
find  that  a  whole  People  can  be  said  to  have  any  Faith  at  all  ; 
except  in  things  which  it  can  eat  and  handle.  Whensoever  it  gets 
any  Faith,  its  history  becomes  spirit-stirring,  note- worthy.  But 
since  the  time  when  steel  Europe  shook  itself  simultaneously,  at 
the  word  of  Hermit  Peter,  and  rushed  towards  the  Sepulchre 
where  God  had  lain,  there  was  no  universal  impulse  of  Faith  that 
one  could  note.  Since  Protestantism  went  silent,  no  Luther's 
voice,  no  Zisca's  drum  any  longer  proclaiming  that  God's  Truth 
was  not  the  DeviFs  Lie  ;  and  the  Last  of  the  Cameronians  (Ren- 
wick  was  the  name  of  him  ;  honour  to  the  name  of  the  brave  1) 
sank,  shot,  on  the  Castle  Hill  of  Edinburgh,  there  was  no  partial 
impulse  of  Faith  among  Nations.  Till  now,  behold,  once  more 
*  UisL  Far/,  xxiv.  353-356. 


86 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


this  French  Nation  believes  !  Herein,  we  say,  in  that  astonishing 
Faith  of  theirs,  hes  the  miracle.  It  is  a  Faith  undoubtedlv  of  the 
niore  prodigious  sort,  even  among  Faiths  ;  and  will  embody  itself 
in  prodigies.  It  is  the  soul  of  that  world-prodigy  named  French 
Revolution  ;  whereat  the  world  still  gazes  and  shudders. 

But,  for  the  rest,  let  no  man  ask  History  to  explain  by  cause- 
and-effect  how  the  business  proceeded  henceforth.  This  battle  of 
Mountain  and  Gironde,  and  what  follows,  is  the  battle  of  Fanatic- 
isms and  Miracles  ;  unsuitable  for  cause-and-effect.  The  sound 
of  It,  to  the  mind,  is  as  a  hubbub  of  voices  in  distraction  ;  little  of 
articulate  is  to  be  gathered  by  long  hstening  and  studying  ;  only 
battle-turnult,  shouts  of  triumph,  shrieks  of  despair.  The  Mountain 
has  left  no  Memoirs ;  the  Girondins  have  left  Memoirs,  which  are 
too  often  little  other  than  long-drawn  Interjections,  of  Woe  7^  vie 
and  Cursed  be  ye.  So  soon  as  History  can  philosophically  delineate 
the  conflagration  of  a  kindled  Fireship,  she  may  try  this  other 
task.  Here  lay  the  bitumen-stratum,  there  the  brimstone  one  ;  so 
ran  the  vem  of  gunpowder,  of  nitre,  terebinth  and  foul  grease  : 
this,  Avere  she  inquisitive  enough,  History  might  partly  know. 
But  how  they  acted  and  reacted  below  decks,  one  fire-stratuni 
piaying  into  the  other,  by  its  nature  and  the  art  of  man,  no\v  wlicn 
all  hands  ran  raging,  and  the  flames  lashed  high  over  shouds  and 
topmast  :  this  let  not  History  attempt. 

The  Fireship  is  old  France,  the  old  French  Form  of  Life  ;  her 
creed  a  Generation  of  men.  Wild  are  their  cries  and  rheir  ragings 
there,  like  spirits  tormented  in  that  flame.  But,  on  the  whole,  are 
they  not  go7ie,  O  Reader  ?  Their  Fireship  and  they,  frightening 
the  world,  have  sailed  away  ;  its  flames  and  its  thunders  quite 
away,  into  the  Deep  of  Time.  One  thing  therefore  History  will 
do  :  pity  them  all  ;  for  it  went  hard  with  them  all  Not  even  the 
seagreen  Incorruptible  but  shall  have  some  pity,  some  human  love, 
though  it  takes  an  effort.  And  now,  so  much  once  thoroughly 
attained,  the  rest  will  become  easier.  To  the  eye  of  equal 
brotherly  pity,  innumerable  perversions  dissipate  themselves ; 
exaggerations  and  execrations  fall  off,  of  their  own  accord.  Stand- 
ing wistfully  on  the  safe  shore,, we  will  look,  and  see,  what  is  of 
interest  to  us,  what  is  adapted  to  us. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CULOTTIC  AND  SANSCULOTTIC 

Gironde  and  Mountain  are  now  in  full  quarrel  ;  their  mutual 
rage,  says  Toulongcon,  is  growing  a  'pale'  rage.  Curious, 
lamentable  :  all  these  men  have  the  word  Republic  on  their  lips  ; 
m  the  heart  of  every  one  of  them  is  a  passionate  wish  for  some- 
thmg  which  he  calls  Republic:  yet  see  their  death-quarrel !  So, 
however,  are  men  made.    Creatures  who  live  in  confusion  ;  who, 


CULOTTIC  AND  SANSCULOTTIC.  87 


once  thrown  together,  can  readily  fall  into  that  confusion  of  con- 
fusions which  quarrel  is,  simply  because  their  confusions  differ 
from  one  another  ;  still  more  because  they  seem  to  differ  !  Men's 
words  are  a  poor  exponent  of  their  thought ;  nay  their  thought 
itself  is  a  poor  exponent  of  the  inward  unnamed  Mystery,  where- 
from  both  thought  and  action  have  their  birth.  No  man  can 
explain  himself,  can  get  himself  explained  ;  men  see  not  one 
another  but  distorted  phantasms  which  they  call  one  another  ; 
which  they  hate  and  go  to  battle  with  :  for  all  battle  is  well  said  to 
be  misunderstanding. 

But  indeed  that  similitude  of  the  Fireship  ;  of  our  poor  French 
brethren,  so  fiery  themselves,  working  also  in  an  element  of  fire, 
was  not  insignificant.  Consider  it  well,  there  is  a  shade  of  the 
truth  in  it.  For  a  man,  once  committed  headlong  to  republican  or 
'  any  other  Transcendentalism,  and  fighting  and  fanaticising  amid 
a  Nation  of  his  like,  becomes  as  it  were  enveloped  in  an  ambient 
atmosphere  of  Transcendentalism  and  Delirium  :  his  individual 
self  is  lost  in  something  that  is  not  himself,  but  foreign  though 
inseparable  from  him.  Strange  to  think  of,  the  man's  cloak  still 
seems  to  hold  the  same  man  :  and  yet  the  man  is  not  there,  his 
volition  is  not  there  ;  nor  the  source  of  what  he  will  do  and  devise  ; 
instead  of  the  man  and  his  volition  there  is  a  piece  of  Fanaticism 
and  Fatalism  incarnated  in  the  shape  of  him.  He,  the  hapless 
incarnated  Fanaticism,  goes  his  road  ;  no  man  can  help  him,  he 
himself  least  of  all.  It  is  a  wonderful  tragical  predicament ;— such 
as  human  language,  unused  to  deal  with  these  things,  being  con- 
trived for  the  uses  of  common  life,  struggles  to  shadow  out  in 
figures.  The  ambient  element  of  material  fire,  is  not  wilder  than 
this  of  Fanaticism  ;  nor,  though  visible  to  the  eye,  is  it  more  real. 
Volition  bursts  forth  involuntary-  -voluntary  ;  rapt  along  ;  the 
movement  of  free  human  minds  becomes  a  raging  tornado  of 
fatalism,  blind  as  the  winds  ;  and  Mountain  and  Gironde,  when 
they  recover  themselves,  are  alike  astounded  to  see  where  it  has 
flung  and  dropt  them.  To  such  height  of  miracle  can  men  work  on 
men  ;  the  Conscious  and  the  Unconscious  blended  inscrutably  in 
this  our  inscrutable  Life  ;  endless  Necessity  environing  Freewill  ! 

The  weapons  of  the  Girondins  are  Political  Philosophy,  Respec- 
tability and  Eloquence.  Eloquence,  or  call  it  rhetoric,  really  of  a 
superior  order  ;  Vergniaud,  for  instance,  turns  a  period  as  sweetly 
as  any  man  of  that  generation.  The  weapons  of  the  Mountain 
are  those  of  mere  nature  :  Audacity  and  Impetuosity  which  may 
become  Ferocity,  as  of  men  complete  in  their  determination,  in  their 
conviction  ;  nay  of  men,  in  some  cases,  who  as  Septemberers 
must  either  prevail  or  perish.  The  ground  to  be  fought  for  is 
Popularity  :  further  you  may  either  seek  Popularity  with  the 
friends  of  Freedom  and  Order,  or  with  the  friends  of  Freedom 
Simple  ;  to  seek  it  with  both  has  unhappily  become  impossible. 
With  the  former  sort,  and  generally  with  the  Authorities  of  the 
Departments,  and  such  as  read  Parliamentary  Debates,  and  are 
of  RespectabiUty,  and  of  a  peace-loving  monied  nature,  the 


88  THE  GIRONDINS. 


Girondins  carry  it.  With  the  extreme  Patriot  again,  with  the 
indigent  Millions,  especially  with  the  Population  of  Paris  who  do 
not  read  so  much  as  hear  and  see,  the  Girondins  altogether  lose 
it,  and  the  Mountain  carries  it. 

Egoism,  nor  meanness  of  mind,  is  not  wantmg  on  either  side. 
Surely  not  on  the  Girondin  side;  where  in  fact  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  too  pi'ominently  unfolded  by  circumstances,  cuts 
almost  a  sorry  figure  ;  where  also  a  certain  finesse,  to  the  length 
even  of  shuffling  and  shamming,  now  and  then  shews  itself.  They 
are  men  skilful  in  Advocate-fence.  They  have  been  called  the 
Jesuits  of  the  Revolution  f  but  that  is  too  hard  a  name.  It  must 
be  owned  likewise  that  this  rude  blustering  Mountain  has  a  sense 
in  it  of  what  the  Revolution  means  ;  which  these  eloquent 
Girondins  are  totally  void  of.  Was  the  Revolution  made,  and 
fought  for,  against  the  world,  these  four  weary  years,  that  a 
Formula  might  be  substantiated  ;  that  Society  might  become 
7nethodic,  demonstrable  by  logic  ;  and  the  old  Noblesse  with  their 
pretensions  vanish  ?  Or  ought  it  not  withal  to  bring  some  glim- 
mering of  light  and  alleviation  to  the  Twenty-five  Millions,  who 
sat  in  darkness,  heavy-laden,  till  they  rose  with  pikes  in  their 
hands  ?  At  least  and  lowest,  one  would  think,  it  should  bring 
them  a  proportion  of  bread  to  hve  on  ?  There  is  in  the  Mountain 
here  and  there  ;  in  Marat  People's-friend  ;  in  the  incorruptible 
Seagreen  himself,  though  otherwise  so  lean  and  formularly,  a 
heartfelt  knowledge  of  this  latter  fact  ;— without  which  knowledge 
all  other  knowledge  here  is  naught,  and  ^  the  choicest  forensic  elo- 
quence is  as  sounding  brass  and  a  tinliling  cymbal.  Most  cold, 
on  the  other  hand,  most  patronising,  unsubstantial  is  t^e  tone  ot 
the  Girondins  towards  '  our  poorer  brethren  ;  '—those  brethren 
whom  one  often  hears  of  under  the  collective  name  of '  the  masses, 
as  if  they  were  not  persons  at  all,  but  mounds  of  combustible  ex- 
plosive material,  for  blowing  down  Bastilles  with  !  In  very  truth, 
a  Revolutionist  of  this  kind,  is  he  not  a  Solecism  ?  Disowned  by 
Nature  and  Art  ;  deserving  only  to  be  erased,  and  disappear  ! 
Surely,  to  our  poorer  brethren  of  Paris,  all  this  Girondin  patronage 
sounds  deadening  and  killing  :  if  fine-spoken  and  mcontrovertiole 
in  logic,  then  all  the  falser,  all  the  hatefuller  m  fact. 

Nay  doubtless,  pleading  for  Popularity,  here  among  our  poorer 
brethren  of  Paris,  the  Girondin  has  a  hard  game  to  play.  If  he 
^rain  the  ear  of  the  Respectable  at  a  distance,  it  is  by  insisting  on 
September  and  such  like  ;  it  is  at  the  expense  of  this  Pans  where 
he  dwells  and  perorates.  Hard  to  perorate  m  such  an  auditory  ! 
Wherefore  the  question  arises  :  Could  we  not  get  ourselves  out  ot 
this  Parish  Twice  or  oftcner  such  an  attempt  is  made.  not  we 
ourselves,  thinks  Guadet,  then  at  least  our  ^>///V.y?;/^  might  do  it. 
].  or  every  Deputy  has  his  Suppltani,  or  Substitute,  who  will  take 
his  place  if  need  be:  mio-ht  not  these  assemble,  say  at  hourges, 
which  is  a  quiet  e])iscopal  Town,  in  quiet  ^^^^'^V/^^r^y ^ood  leag^^^ 
off  In  that  case,  what  profit  were  it  for  the  Pans  Sansculottery 
to  insult  us  ;  our  Suppicans  sitting  quiet  in  Bourges,  to  whom  we 
*■  Dumouricz,  Mnnoircs,  iii.  314. 


CULOTTIC  AND  SANSCULOTTIC.  8g 


could  run  ?  Nay  even  the  Primary  electoral  Assemblies,  thinks 
Guadet,  mi^ht  be  reconvoked,  and  a  New  Convention  got,  with 
new  orders  from  the  Sovereign  People  ;  and  right  glad  v/ere  Lyons, 
were  Bourdeaux,  Rouen,  Marsaiiles,  as  yet  Provmcial  Towns,  to 
welcome  us  in  their  turn,  and  become  a  sort  of  Capital  Towns  ; 
and  teach  these  Parisians  reason.  .         r  ^ 

Fond  schemes  ;  which  all  misgo  !  If  decreed,  m  heat  of  elo- 
quent logic,  to-day,  they  are  repealed,  by  clamour,  and  passionate 
wider  considerations,  on  the  morrow.^  Will  you,  O  Girondins, 
parcel  us  into  separate  Republics,  then  ;  like  the  Swiss,  like  your 
Americans  ;  so  that  there  be  no  Metropolis  or  indivisible  French 
Nation  any  more  ?  Your  Departmental  Guard  seemed  to  point 
that  way  !  Federal  Repubhc  ?  Federalist  ?  Men  and  Knitiing- 
women  repeat  Federaliste,  with  or  without  much  Dictionary- 
meaning  ;  but  go  on  repeating  it,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  till  the 
meaning  of  it  becomes  almost  magical,  fit  to  designate  all  mystery 
of*  Iniquity  ;  and  Federaliste  has  grown  a  word  of  Exorcism  and 
Apage-Satanas.    But  furthermore,  consider  what  ^poisoning  of 

*  public  opinion '  in  the  Departments,  by  these  Brissot,  Gorsas, 
Caritat-Condorcet  Newspapers  !  And  then  also  what  counter- 
poisoning,  still  feller  in  quality,  by  a  Pere  Duchesne  of  Hebert, 
brutallest  Newspaper  yet  published  on  Earth  ;  by  a  Rotcgiff  of 
Guffroy  ;  by  the  '  incendiary  leaves  of  Marat  ! '  More  than  once, 
on  complaint  given  and  effervescence  rising,  it  is  decreed  that  a 
man  cannot  both  be  Legislator  and  Editor  ;  that  he  shall  choose 
between  the  one  function  and  the  other.t  But  this  too,  which 
indeed  could  help  httle,  is  revoked  or  eluded  ;  remains  a  pious 
wish  mainly. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  sad  fruit  of  such  strife,  behold,  O  ye  National 
Representatives,  how  between  the  friends  of  Law  and  the  friends 
of  Freedom  everywhere,  mere  heats  and  jealousies  have  arisen  ; 
fevering  the  whole  Republic  !  Department,  Provincial  Town  is 
set  against  Metropohs,  Rich  against  Poor,  Culottic  against  Sans- 
culottic,  man  against  man.  From  the  Southern  Cities  come  Ad- 
dresses of  an  almost  inculpatory  character  ;  for  Pans  has  long 
suffered  Newspaper  calumny.  Bourdeaux  demands  a  reign  of 
Law  and  Respectabilitv,  meaning  Girondism,  with  emphasis. 
With  emphasis  Marseilles  demands  the  like.  Nay  Irom  lAlar- 
seilles  there  come  two  Addresses  :  one  Girondm  ;  one  Jacobin 
Sansculottic.  Hot  Rebecqui,  sick  of  this  Convention-work,  has 
given  place  to  his  Substitute,  and  gone  home  ;  whore  also,  with 
such  iarrings,  there  is  work  to  be  sick  of. 

Lyons,  a  place  of  Capitalists  and  Aristocrats,  is  m  still  worse 
state  ;  almost  in  revolt.  Chaher  the  Jacobin  Towr- Councillor  has 
got,  too  hterally,  to  daggers-drawn  with  Nievre-Chol  the  Mode- 
rantin  Mayor;  one  of  your  Moderate,  perhaps  Aristocrat,  Royalist 
or  Federalist  Mayors  !    Chalier,  who  pilgrimed  to  Pans  ^to  behold 

*  Marat  and  the  Mountain,'  has  verily  kindled  himself  at  their 

*  Moniteiir,  1793,  No.  140,  &c. 
t  Hist.  Pari.  xxv.  25,  &c. 


go 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


sacred  urn  :  for  on  the  6th  of  February  last,  History  or  Rumour 
has  seen  him  haranguing  his  Lyons  Jacobins  in  a  quite  trans- 
cendental manner,  with  a  drawn  dagger  in  his  hand  ;  recommend- 
ing (they  say)  sheer  September-metliods,  patience  being  worn  out; 
and  that  the  Jacobin  Brethren  should,  impromptu^  work  the 
Guillotine  themselves  !  One  sees  him  still,  in  Engravings : 
mounted  on  a  table ;  foot  advanced,  body  contorted  :  a  bald,  rude, 
slope-browed,  infuriated  visage  of  the  canine  species,  the  eyes 
starting  from  their  sockets ;  in  his  puissant  right-hand  the  bran- 
dished dagger,  or  horse-pistol,  as  some  give  it;  other  dog-visages 
kindling  under  him: — a  man  not  likely  to  end  well !  However, 
the  Guillotine  was  not  got  together  impromptu,  that  day,  'on  the 
Pont  Saint-Clair,'  or  elsewhere;  but  indeed  continued  lying  rusty 
in  its  loft:"^  Nievre-Chol  with  military  went  about,  rumbling  can- 
non, in  the  most  confused  manner ;  and  the  '  nine  hundred 
*  prisoners  ^  received  no  hurt.  So  distracted  is  Lyons  grown,  with  its 
cannon  rumbling.  Convention  Commissioners  must  be  sent 
thither  forthwith  :  If  even  they  can  appease  it,  and  keep  the  Guil- 
lotine in  its  loft  ? 

Consider  finally  if,  on  all  these  mad  jarrings  of  the  Southern 
Cities,  and  of  France  generally,  a  traitorous  Crypto-Royalist  class 
is  not  looking  and  watching  ;  ready  to  strike  in,  at  the  right 
season  !  Neither  is  there  bread  ;  neither  is  there  soap  :  see  the 
Patriot  women  selling  out  sugar,  at  a  just  rate  of  twenty-two  sous 
per  pound  !  Citizen  Representatives,  it  were  verily  well  that  your 
quarrels  tinished,  and  the  reiga  of  Perfect  Felicity' began. 


CHAPTER  in. 

GROWING    S  H  R  I  L  L. 

On  the  whole,  one  cannot  say  that  the  Girondins  are  wanting 
to  themseb/es,  so  far  as  good-wih  might  go.  They  prick  assidu- 
ously into  the  sore-places  of  the  Mountain  ;  from  principle,  and 
als  )  from  jesuiiis-m. 

licades  Septctnl)C'\  of  \'/lii(;h  thc'-c  is  n^tw  little  to  be  made 
except  etiervescci »'•(:,  w  .  ,  distcrh  (wo  sore  ])!accs  where  the  Moun- 
tain often  suffer-)  :  :\L:i  ..i,;md  ( ii.-,  r:g;;litc.  Squalid  Alarat, 
for  his  own  sake  and  for  the  Mountain's,  is  assaulted  ever  and 
;i])o)i  ;  held  up  to  France,  as  a  squalid  bloodthirsty  Portent,  in- 
citing  to  t lie  pillage  of  shops;  of  whom,  let  the  Mountain  have 
the  credit  !  The  Mountain  murmurs,  ill  at  ease  :  this  '  Maximui- 
*  of  Patriotism,'  how  shall  they  either  own  him  or  disown  him: 
As  for  Marat  personally,  he.  with  his  rixed-idea,  remains  invu' 
nerabie  to  such  things  :  nay  the  People'  -friend  is  very  evidcntiv 
vising  in  iniport.iuce,  as  his  befriended  People  rises.  No  shrieks 
now,  when  he  goes  to  s|)ea!:  :  ocrnsionai  ae,;)'  :iis(  •  I'/tl-jer..  fu"l,!-er- 
*  Hi  si.  r.n.. 


GROWING  SHRILL, 


9' 


ance  which  breeds  confidence.  The  day  when  the  Girondins  pro- 
posed  to  *  decree  him  accused'  {decreter  accusation^  as  they 
phrase  it)  for  that  February  Paragraph,  of  ^  hanging  up  a  Fore- 

*  staller  or  two  at  the  door-Hntels/  Marat  proposes  to  have  them 

*  decreed  insane  and,  descending  the  Tribune-steps,  is  heard  to 
articulate  these  most  unsenatorial  ejaculations  :  Les  CochonSy 
les  iiiibecillesy  Pigs,  idiots!"  Oftentimes  he  croaks  harsh  sarcasm, 
having  really  a  rough  rasping  tongue,  and  a  very  deep  fund  of 
contempt  for  fine  outsides  ;  and  once  or  twice,  he  even  laughs, 
nay  ^  explodes  into  laughter,  rit  aitx  eclats^  at  the  gentilities  and 
superfine  airs  of  these  Girondin  "  men  of  statesmanship,"  with 
their  pedantries,  plausibilities,  pusillanimities  :  "  these  two  years," 
says  he,  "  you  have  been  whining  about  attacks,  and  plots,  and 
danger  from  Paris ;  and  you  have  not  a  scratch  to  shew  for  your- 
selves.""^—  Danton  gruffly  rebukes  him,  from  time  to  time:  a 
Maximum  of  Patriotism,  whom  one  can  neither  own  nor  disown  ! 

But  the  second  sore-place  of  the  Mountain  is  this  anomalous 
Monseigneur  Equality  Prince  d'Orieans.  Behold  these  men,  says 
the  Gironde  ;  with  a  whilom  Bourbon  Prince  among  them  :  they 
are  creatures  of  the  d'Orieans  Faction  ;  they  will  have  Philippe 
made  King ;  one  King  no  sooner  guillotined  than  another  made 
in  his  stead  !  Girondins  have  moved,  Buzot  moved  long  ago,  from 
principle  and  also  from  Jesuitism,  that  the  whole  race  of  Bourbons 
should  be  marched  forth  from  the  soil  of  France  ;  this  Prince 
Egalite  to  bring  up  the  rear. ,  Motions  which  might  produce  some 
effect  on  the  public  ; — which  the  Mountain,  ill  at  ease,  knows  not 
what  to  do  with. 

And  poor  Orleans  Egalite  himself,  for  one  begins  to  pity  even 
him,  what  does  he  do  with  them  1  The  disowned  of  all  parties, 
the  rejected  and  foolishly  be-drifted  hither  and  hither,  to  what 
corner  of  Nature  can  he  now  drift  with  advantage  Feasible 
hope  remains  not  for  him  :  unfeasible  hope,  in  pallid  doubtful 
glimmers,  there  may  still  come,  bewildering,  not  cheering  or  illu- 
minating,— from  the  Dumouriez  quarter  ;  and  how,  if  not  the 
timewasted  Orleans  Egalite,  then  perhaps  the  young  unworn 
Chartres  Egalite  might  rise  to  be  a  kind  of  King?  Sheltered,  if 
shelter  it  be,  in  the  clefts  of  the  Mountain,  poor  Egalite  will  wait  : 
one  refuge  in  Jacobinism,  one  in  Dumouriez  and  Counter- Revolu- 
tion, are  there  not  two  chances?  However,  the  look  of  him, 
Dame  Genlis  says,  is  grown  gloomy  ;  sad  to  see.  Sillery  also,  the 
Genlis's  Husband,  who  hovers  about  the  Mountain,  not  on  it,  is  in 
a  bad  way.  Dame  Genlis  has  come  to  Raincy,  out  of  England 
and  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  in  these  days  ;  being  summoned  by 
Egahte,  with  her  young  charge,  Mademoiselle  Egalite,  that  so 
Mademoiselle  might  not  be  counted  among  Emigrants  and  hardly 
dealt  with.  But  it  proves  a  ravelled  business  :  Genlis  and  charge 
find  that  they  must  retire  to  the  Netherlands  ;  must  wait  on  the 
Frontiers  for  a  week  or  two  ;  till  Monseigneur,  by  Jacobin  help, 
get  it  wound  up.  ^  Next  morning,'  says  Dame  Genlis,  '  Monseig- 
*  neur,  gloomier  than  ever,  gave  me  his  arm,  to  lead  me  to  the 
*  MoniteuVt  Seance  du  20  Mai  1793. 


92 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


*  carriage.  I  was  greatly  troubled ;  Mademoiselle  burst  intOi 
'tears;  her  Father  was  pale  and  trembling.  After  I  had  got 
^  seated,  he  stood  immovable  at  the  carriage-door,  with  his  eyes ! 
^  fixed  on  me  ;  his  mournful  and  painful  look  seemed  to  implore 
^  pity  ; — Adieu ^  Madame  I  said  he.  The  altered  sound  of  hisi 
^  voice  completely  overcame  me  ;  not  able  to  utter  a  word,  I  held 
'  out  my  hand ;  he  grasped  it  close  ;  then  turning,  and  advancing 
^  sharply  towards  the  postillions,  he  gave  them  a  sign,  and  we 
'  rolled  away.'^ 

Nor  are  Peace-makers  wanting  ;  of  whom  likewise  we  mention 
two  ;  one  fast  on  the  crown  of  the  Mountain,  the  other  not  yet 
alighted  anywhere  :  Danton  and  Barrere.  Ingenious  Barrere, 
Old-Constituent  and  Editor  from  the  slopes  of  the  Pyrenees,  is  one 
of  the  usefullest  men  of  this  Convention,  in  his  way.  Truth  may  lie 
on  both  sides,  o.n  either  side,  or  on  neither  side  ;  my  friends,  ye  must 
give  and  take  :  for  the  rest,  success  to  the  winning  side  !  This  is 
the  motto  of  Barrere.  Ingenious,  almost  genial ;  quick-sighted, 
supple,  graceful ;  a  man  that  will  prosper.  Scarcely  Belial  in  the 
assembled  Pandemonium  was  plausibler  to  ear  and  eye.  An 
indispensable  man  :  in  the  great  Art  of  Varnish  he  may  be  said 
to  seek  his  fellow.  Has  there  an  explosion  arisen,  as  many  do 
arise,  a  confusion,  unsightliness,  which  no  tongue  can  speak  of, 
nor  eye  look  on  ;  give  it  to  Barrere  ;  Barrere  shall  be  Committee- 
Reporter  of  it ;  you  shall  see  it  transmute  itself  into  a  regularity, 
into  the  very  beauty  and  improvement  that  was  needed.  With- 
out one  such  man,  we  say,  how  were  this  Convention  bested  ? 
Call  him  not,  as  exaggerative  Mercier  does,  '  the  greatest  liar  in 
'  France  : '  nay  it  may  be  argued  there  is  not  truth  enough  in  him 
to  make  a  real  lie  of.  Call  him,  with  Burke,  Anacreon  of  the 
Guillotine,  and  a  man  serviceable  to  this  Convention. 

The  other  Peace-maker  whom  we  name  is  Danton.    Peace,  O  | 
peace  with  one  another  !  cries  Danton  often  enough  :    Are  we  j 
not  alone  against  the  world ;  a  little  band  of  brothers  ?    Broad  i 
Danton  is  loved  by  all  the  Mountain  ;  but  they  think  him  too  ^ 
easy-tempered,  deficient  in  suspicion  :  he  has  stood  between 
Dumouriez  and  much  censure,  anxious  not  to  exasperate  our  only 
General  :  in  the  shrill  tumult  Danton's  strong  voice  reverberates, 
for  union  and  pacification.    Meetings  there  are  ;  dinings  with  the 
Girondins  :  it  is  so  pressingly  essential  that  there  be  union.  But 
the  Girondins  are  haughty  and  respectable  ;  this  Titan  Danton  is 
not  a  man  of  Formulas,  and  there  rests  on  him  a  shadow  of  Sep- 
tember.   "  Your  Girondins  have  no  confidence  in  me  : "  this  is 
the  answer  a  conciliatory  Meillan  gets  from  him  ;  to  all  the  argu- 
ments and  pleadings  this   conciliatory  Meillan  can  bring,  the. 
repeated  answer  is,  "//if  n!ont point  de  confianceP^ — The  tumult 
will  get  ever  shriller  ;  rage  is  growing  pale. 

In  fact,  what  a  pang  is  it  to  the  heart  of  a  Girondin,  this  first 
withering  probability  that  the  despicable  unphilosophic  anarchic 
*  Cienlis,  Mdmoi^'cs  (Londf)!!,  T825),  iv.  118. 

t  Mimoires  de  Meillan,  Neprdscntant  du  Peuple  (Paris,  1823),  p.  5X» 


FATHERLAND  IN  DANGER. 


93 


Mountain,  after  all,  may  triumph  !  Brutal  Septemberers,  a  fifth- 
floor  Tallien,  '  a  Robespierre  without  an  idea  in  his  head,'  as  Con- 
dorcet  says,  '  or  a  feeling  in  his  heart  : '  and  yet  we,  the  flower  of 
France,  cannot  stand  against  them  ;  behold  the  sceptre  departs 
from  us  ;  from  us  and  goes. to  them  !  Eloquence,  Philosophism, 
Respectability  avail  not  ;  *  against  Stupidity  the  very  gods  fight  to 
^  no  purpose, 

*  Mit  der  Dummheit  kampfen  Gbtier  selbst  vergebens  f 

Shrill  are  the  plaints  of  Louvet ;  his  thin  existence  all  acidified 
into  rage,  and  preternatural  insight  of  suspicion.  Wroth  is  young 
Barbaroux  ;  wroth  and  scornful.  Silent,  like  a  Queen  with  the 
aspic  on  her  bosom,  sits 'the  wife  of  Roland  ;  Roland's  Accounts 
aever  yet  got  audited,  his  name  become  a  byword.  Such  is  the 
fortune  of  war,  especially  of  revolution.  The  great  gulf  of 
Tophet,  and  Tenth  of  August,  opened  itself  at  the  magic  of  your 
eloquent  voice  ;  and  lo  now,  it  will  not  close  at  your  voice  !  It  is 
a  dangerous  thing  such  magic.  The  Magician's  Famulus  got  hold 
of  the  forbidden  Book,  and  summoned  a  gobhn  :  Fiait-il,  What  is 
your  will  ?  said  the  goblin.  The  Famulus,  somewhat  struck,  bade 
him  fetch  water  :  the  swift  goblin  fetched  it,  pail  in  each  hand  ; 
but  lo,  would  not  cease  fetching  it  !  Desperate,  the  Famulus 
shrieks  at  him,  smites  at  him,  cuts  him  in  two  ;  lo,  two  goblin  water- 
carriers  ply ;  and  the  house  will  be  swum  away  in  Deucalion 
Deluges. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FATHERLAND  IN  DANGER. 

Or  rather,  we  will  say,  this  Senatorial  war  might  have  lasted 
j,long  ;  and  Party  tugging  and  throttling  with  Party  might  have 
suppressed  and  smothered  one  another,  in  the  ordinary  iDloodless 
Parliamentary  way  ;  on  one  condition  :  that  France  had  been  at 
least  able  to  exist,  all  the  while.  But  this  Sovereign  People  has  a 
digestive  faculty,  and  cannot  do  without  bread.  Also  we  are  at 
war,  and  must  have  victory  ;  at  war  with  Europe,  with  Fate  and 
Famine  :  and  behold,  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  all  victory 
deserts  us. 

Dumouriez  had  his  outposts  stretched  as  far  as  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
and  the  beautifullest  plan  for  pouncing  on  Holland,  by  stratagem, 
fiat-  bottomed  boats  and  rapid  intrepidity  ;  wherein  too  he  had 
prospered  so  far;  but  unhappily  could  prosper  no  further.  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  is  lost ;  Maestricht  will  not  surrender  to  mere  smoke 
and  noise  :  the  flat-bottomed  boats  m.ust  launch  themselves  again, 
and  return  the  way  they  came.  Steady  now,  ye  rapidly  intrepid 
men  ;  retreat  with  firmness,  Parthian-hke  !  Alas,  were  it 
General  Miranda's  fault ;  were  it  the  War-ministers  fault  ;  c  •  v.o  - 

I 


94 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


it  Dumouriez's  own  fault  and  that  of  Fortune  :  enough,  there  isj 
nothing  for  it  but  retreat,— well  if  it  be  not  even  flight  ;  for  already! 
terror-'Stricken  cohorts  and  stragglers  pour  off,  not  waiting  forj 
order  ;  flow  disastrous,  as  many  as  ten  thousand  of  them,  withoufti 
halt  till  they  see  France  again.^  Nay  worse  :  Dumouriez  himseliii 
is  perhaps  secretly  turning  traitor?  Very  sharp  is  the  tone  in!' 
which  he  writes  to  our  Committees.  Commissioners  and  Jacobin^ 
Pillagers  have  done  such  incalculable  mischief ;  Hassenfratz  sendsii 
neither  cartridges  nor  clothing  ;  shoes  we  have,  deceptively^ 
*  soled  with  wood  and  pasteboard.'  Nothing  in  short  is  right.  Dan-ji 
ton  and  Lacroix,  when  it  was  they  that  were  Commissioners,  would  f 
needs  join  Belgium  to  France  ;— of  which  Dumouriez  might  havdl 
made  the  prettiest  little  Duchy  for  his  own  secret  behoof!  Withi' 
all  these  things  the  General  is  wroth  ;  and  writes  to  us  in  a  sharp i 
tone.  Who  knows  what  this  hot  httle  General  is  meditating?! 
Dumouriez  Duke  of  Belgium  or  Brabant  ;  and  say,  Egahte  thej 
Younger  King  of  France  :  there  were  an  end  for  our  Revolution  iJ 
—Committee  of  Defence  gazes,  and  shakes  its  head  :  who  except" 
Danton,  defective  in  suspicion,  could  still  struggle  to  be  of  hope  ?  ;i 
And  General  Custine  is  rolKng  back  from  the  Rhine  Country  ;|! 
conquered  Mentz  will  be  reconquered,  the  Prussians  gathering* 
round  to  bombard  it  with  shot  and  shell.  Mentz  may  resist,  Com-' 
missioner  Merhn,  the  Thionviller,  'making  sallies,  at  the  head  of  the^ 
'  besieged  ;  —resist  to  the  death  ;  but  not  longer  than  that.  How' 
sad  a  reverse  for  Mentz  !  Brave  Foster,  brave  Lux  planted 
Liberty-trees,  amid  ca-ira-m.g  music,  in  the  snow-slush  of  last 
winter,  there  :  and  made  Jacobin  Societies  ;  and  got  the  Territory 
incorporated  with  France  :  they  came  hither  to  Paris,  as 
Deputies  or  Delegates,  and  have  their  eighteen  francs  a-day  :  but  i 
see,  before  once  the  Liberty-Tree  is  got  rightly  in  leaf,  Mentz  is  > 
changing  into  an  explosive  crater ;  vomiting  fire,  bevomited  with 
fire  ! 

Neither  of  these  men  shall  again  see  Mentz  ;  they  have  come 
hither  only  to  die.    Foster  has  been  round  the  Globe;  he  saw 
Cook  perish  under  Owyhee  clubs  ;  but  like  this  Paris  he  has  yet  i 
seen  or  suffered  nothing.    Poverty  escorts  him  :  from  home  there 
can  nothing  come,  except  Job's-news  ;  the  eighteen  daily  francs, 
which  we  here  as  Deputy  or  Delegate  with  difficulty  '  touch,'  are 
in  paper  assif^nats.^  and  sink  fast  in  value.    Poverty,  disappoint- 
ment, inaction,  obloquy  ;  the  brave  heart  slowly  breaking  !  Such 
is  Foster's  lot.    For  the  rest,  Demoiselle  Theroigne  smiles  on  you 
in  the  Soirees  ;  '  a  beautiful  brownlocked  face,'  of  an  exalted 
temper  ;  and  contrives  to  keep  her  carriage.    Prussian  Trenck,  the  : 
poor  subterranean  Baron,  jargons  and  jangles  in  an  unmelodious  j 
manner.    Thomas  Paine's  face  is  red-pustuled,  *  but  the  eyes  un-  j 
'commonly  briglit.'  Convention  Deputies  nsk  you  to  dinner  :  very 
courteous  ;  and  '  we  all  play  at  plumsackJ^    '  It  is  the  Explosion 
*and  New-^creation  of  a  World,'  says  Foster  ;  '  and  the  actors  in  it,  | 
'such  small  mean  objects,  buzzing  round  one  like  a  handful  <rf  I 
'flies.' —  ' 

*  Dumouriez,  iv.  16-73.        t  Forster's  Briefwechsel,  ii.  514,  460,  631. 


FATHERLAM)  JN  j)AA(.l'J<. 


LiRewise  there  is  war  with  Spain.  Spain  will  advance  through 
the  gorges  of  the  Pyrenees  ;  rustling  with  Bourbon  banners  • 
jmghng  with  artillery  and  menace.  And  England  has  donned  the 
red  coat  ;  and  marches,  with  Royal  Highness  of  York —whom 
some  once  spake  of  inviting  to  be  our  King.  Changed  that  humour 
now  :  and  ever  more  changing  ;  till  no  hatefuller  thing  walk  this 
Earth  than  a  denizen  of  that  tyrannous  Island  ;  and  Pitt  be  de- 
clared and  decreed,  with  eft(2rvescence,  '  IJennemi  du  ^renre  hu- 

main,  Ihe  enemy  of  mankind  ;  '  and,  very  singular  to'  say,  you 
make  an  order  that  no  Soldier  of  Libertv  give  quarter  to  an  Eno-- 
hshman.  Which  order,  however,  the  Soldier  of  Liberty  does  but 
partially  obey.  We  wiil  take  no  Prisoners  then,  sav  the  Soldiers 
of  Liberty  ;  they  shall  all  be  '  Deserters  '  that  we  take.*  It  is  a 
frantic  order  ;  and  attended  with  inconvenience.  For  surely,  if  you 
give  no  quarter,  the  plain  issue  is  that  you  will  get  none  ;  and  so 
tne  business  become  as  broad  as  it  was  long.— Our  '  recruitment  of 

I  hree  Hundred  Thousand  men,'  which  was  the  decreed  force  for 
;this  year,  is  like  to  have  work  enough  laid  to  its  hand. 
■  '  So  many  enemies  come  wending  on  ;  penetrating  through  throats 
of  Mountains,  steering  over  the  salt  sea  ;  towards  all  points  of  our 
■territory  ;  rattling  chains  at  us.  Nay  worst  of  all  :  there  is  an 
enemy  within  our  own  territory  itself  In  the  early  days  of  March, 
the  Nantes  Postbags  do  not  'arrive;  there  arrive  only  instead  of 
them  Conjecture,  Apprehension,  bodeful  wind  of  Rumour.  The 
bodefuUest  proves  true  !  Those  fanatic  Peoples  of  La  Vendee  will 
no  longer  keep  under  :  their  fire  of  insurrection,  heretofore  dissi- 
pated with  difficulty,  blazes  out  anew,  after  the  King's  Death,  as  a 
wide  conflagration  ;  not  riot,  but  civil  war.  Your  Cathelineaus. 
your  Stofflets,  Charettes,  are  other  men  than  was  thought  :  behokl 
how  their  Peasants,  in  mere  russet  and  hodden,  with  their  rude 
arms,  rude  array,  with  their  fanatic  Gaelic  frenzv  and  wild-veliin*-- 
battle-cry  of  God  and  the  Kin-,  dash  at  us  like  a  dark  whirlwind" 
and  blow  the  best-disciplined  Nationals  we  can  get  into  panic  cind 
sairue-qtd-petU I  Field  after  held  is  theirs  ;  one'sees  not  where  it 
.willend.  ■  Commandant  Santerre  may  be  sent  thither;  but  with 
non-effect ;  he  might  as  well  have  returned  and  brewed  beer. 
^  ^  It  has  become  peremptorily  necessary  that  a  National  Conven- 
tion cease  arguing,  and  begin  acting.  Yield  one  party  of  vou  to 
the  other,  and  do  it  swiftly.  No  theoretic  outlook  is  here,  but  the 
close  certainty  of  ruin  ;  the  very  day  that  is  passing  over  must  be 
provided  for. 

j  It  was  Friday  the  eighth  of  March  when  this  Job's-post  from 
IDumouriez,  thickly  preceded  and  escorted  by  so  manv  other  lob's- 
I  posts,  reached  the  National  Convention.  Blank  enough  are  most 
1  faces.  Little  will  it  avail  whether  our  Septemberers  be  punished  or 
igo  unpunished;  if  Pitt  and  Lobourg  are  coming  in,  with  one 
I  punishment  for  us  all  ;  nothing  now  between  Paris  itself  and  the 
Tyrants  but  a  doubtful  Dumouriez,  and  hosts  in  loose-flowing  loud 
I  retreat! — Danton  the  Titan  rises  in  this  hour,  as  always  in  the 
*  See  Dampmartin,  Ev^ncmcns,  ii.  213-30. 


96 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


hour  of  need.  Great  is  his  voice,  reverberating  from  the  domes  i 
-Citizen-Representatives,  shall  we  not,  in  such  crisis  of  Fate,  lay 
aside  discords  ?  Reputation  :  O  what  is  the  reputation  of  this 
man  or  of  that  ?  Que  mon  noin  soil  fie  tri^  que  la  France  soit  libre^ 
Let  my  name  be  blighted  ;  let  France  be  free  !  It  is  necessary, 
now  again  that  France  rise,  in  swift  vengeance,  with  her  million 
right-hands,  with  her  heart  as  of  one  man.  Instantaneous  recruit- 
ment in  Paris  ;  let  every  Section  of  Paris  furnish  its  thousands ; 
every  section  of  France  !  Ninety-six  Commissioners  of  us,  two 
for  each  Section  of  the  Forty-eight,  they  must  go  forthwith,  and 
tell  Paris  what  the  Country  needs  of  her.  Let  Eighty  more  of  us, 
be  sent,  post-haste,  over  France  ;  to  spread  the  fire-cross,  to  call, 
forth  the  might  of  men.  Let  the  Eighty  also  be  on  the  road,  be- 
fore this  sitting  rise.  Let  them  go,  and  think  what  their  errand 
is.  Speedy  Camp  of  Fifty  thousand  between  Paris  and  the  North 
Frontier  ;  for  Paris  will  pour  forth  her  volunteers  !  Shoulder  to 
shoulder  ;  one  strong  universal  death-defiant  rising  and  rushing  ; 
we  shall  hurl  back  these  Sons  of  Night  yet  again  ;  and  France,  in 
spite  of  the  world,  be  free  !  — So  sounds  the  Titan's  voice  :  into, 
all  Section-houses  ;  into  all  French  hearts.  Sections  sit  in  Per- 
manence, for  recruitment,  enrolment,  that  very  night.  Convention- 
Commissioners,  on  swift  wheels,  are  carrying  the  fire-cross  from 
Town  to  Town,  till  all  France  blaze. 

And  so  there  is  Flag  of  Fatherland  m  Danger  waving  from  the 
Townhall,  Black  Flag  from  the  top  of  Notre-Dame  Cathedral; 
there  is  Proclamation,  hot  eloquence  ;  Paris  rushing  out  once 
again  to  strike  its  enemies  down.    That,  in  such  circumstances, 
Paris  was  in  no  mild  humour  can  be  conjectured.  Agitated  streets  ;* 
still  more  agitated  round  the  Salle  de  Manege  !  Feuillans-Terrace 
crowds  itself  with  angry  Citizens,  angrier  Citizenesses ;  Varlet 
perambulates  with  portable-chair  :  ejaculations  of  no  measured 
kind,  as  to  perfidious  fine-spoken  Homines  d'etat^  friends  of  Du- 
mouriez,  secret-friends  of  Pitt  and  Cobourg,  burst  from  the  hearts 
and  lips  of  men.    To  fight  the  enemy  ?    Yes,  and  even  to  "  freeze 
him  with  terror,  glacer  d'effroi but  first  to  have  domestic  Traitors 
punished  !    Who  are  they  that,  carping  and  quarrelling,  in  t):( 
Jesuitic  most  moderate  way,  seek  to  shackle  the  Patriotic  mo\ 
ment.'^     That  divide  France  against  Paris,  and  poison  pubi' 
opinion  in  the  Departments      That  when  we  ask  for  bread,  ai, 
a  Maximum  fixed-price,  treat  us  with  lectures  on  Free-trade  ui . 
grains      Can  the  human  stomach  satisfy  itself  with  lectures  on  I 
Free-trade;  and  are  we  to  fight  the  Austrians  in  a  modern!  ^ 
manner,  or  in  an  immoderate?    This   Convention  must  i 
purged. 

"  Set  up  a  swift  Tribunal  for  Traitors,  a  Maximum  for  Grains :  ' 
thus  speak  with  energy  the  Patriot  Volunteers,  as  they  defile 
through  the  Convention  flail,  just  on  the  wing  to  the  Frontiers  ; 
— perorating  in  that  heroical  Cambyses'  vein  of  theirs  :  beshouted 
by  the  (Galleries  and  Mountain  ;  bemurmured  by  the  Right-side  | 
and  Plain.  Nor  are  prodigies  wanting  :  lo,  while  a  Captain  of  the  I 
*  Moniteur  (in  Hist.  Pari.  xxv.  6). 


07 


Section  Poissonniere  perorates  with  vehemence  about  Diimouriez, 
Maximum,  and  Crypto-Royahst  Traitors,  and  his  troop  beat 
chorus  with  him,  waving  their  Banner  overhead,  the  eye  of  a 
Deputy  discerns,  in  this  same  Banner,  that  the  cravates  or  streamers 
of  it  have  Royal  fleurs-de-lys  !  The  Section-Captain  shrieks  ;  his 
troop  shriek,  horror-struck,  and  '  trample  the  Banner  under  foot 
seemingly  the  work  of  some  Crypto-Royalist  Plotter  ?  Most  pro- 
bable or  perhaps  at  bottom,  only  the  old  Banner  of  the  Sec- 
tion, manufactured  prior  to  the  Tenth  of  August,  when  such 
streamers  were  according  to  rule  !t 

History,  looking  over  the  Girondin  Memoirs,  anxious  to  dis- 
entangle the  truth  of  them  from  the  hysterics,  finds  these  days  of 
March,  especially  this  Sunday  the  Tenth  of  March,  play  a  great 
part.  Plots,  plots  :  a  plot  for  murdering  the  Girondin  Deputies 
Anarchists  and  Secret-Royahsts  plotting,  in  hellish  concert,  for 
that  end  !  The  far  greater  part  of  which  is  hysterics.  What  we 
do  find  indisputable  is  that  Lou  vet  and  certain  Girondins  were 
apprehensive  they  might  be  murdered  on  Saturday,  and  did  not  go 
to  the  evening  sitting  :  but  held  council  with  one  another,  each 
inciting  his  fellow  to  do  something  resolute,  and  end  these 
Anarchists  :  to  which,  however,  Petion,  opening  the  window,  and 
finding  the  night  very  wet,  answered  only,  "  lis  7te  feront  rien;' 
and  '  composedly  resumed  his  violin,'  says  Louvet  :J  thereby,  with 
soft  Lydian  tweedledeeing,  to  wrap  himself  against  eating  cares. 
Also  that  Louvet  feh  especially  liable  to  being  killed  ;  that  several 
Girondins  went  abroad  to  seek  beds  :  liable  to  being  killed  ;  but 
were  not.  Further  that,  in  very  truth,  Journalist  Deputy  Gorsas, 
poisoner  of  the  Departments,  he  and  his  Printer  had  their  houses 
broken  into  i^by  a  tumult  of  Patriots,  among  whom  red-capped 
Varlet,  American  Fou.nier  loom  forth,  in  the  darkness  of  the  ram 
and  riot) ;  had  their  wives  put  in  fear  ;  their  presses,  types  and 
circumjacent  equipments  beaten  to  ruin  ;  no  Mayor  mterfermg  m 
time  ;  Gorsas  himself  escaping,  pistol  in  hand,  '  along  the  copmg 
*  of  the  back  wall'  Further  that  Sunday,  the  morrow,  was  not  a 
workday,;  and  the  streets  were  more  agitated  than  ever  :  Is  it  a 
new  September,  then,  that  these  Anarchists  intend  ?  Fmally,  that 
no  September  came ;— and  also  that  hysterics,  not  unnaturally, 
had  reached  almost  their  acme. § 

Vergniaud  denounces  and  deplores  ;  in  sweetly  turned  periods. 
Section  Bonconseil,  Good-coinisel  so-named,  not  Mauconseil  or 
lll-coiinsel  as  it  once  was,— does  a  far  notabler  thing  :  demanus 
that  Vergniaud,  Brissot,  Guadet,  and  other  denunciatory  fine- 
spoken  Girondins,  to  the  number  of  Twenty-two,  be  put  under 
arrest !  Section  Good-counsel,  so  named  ever  since  the  Tenth  of 
August,  is  sharply  rebuked,  hke  a  Section  of  Ill-counsel  ;||  but  its 
word  is  spoken,  and  will  not  fall  to  the  ground.  •  r  i 

In  fact,  one  thing  strikes  us  in  these  poor  Girondins  ;  their  fatal 

*  Choix  des  Rapports,  xi.  277.  t  Hisf.  Pari.  xxv.  72. 

%  Louvet,  Mhnoira,  p.  72.        §  Meillan,  pp.  23,  24;  Louvet,  pp.  yi-Sa 

II  Moniteur  (Seance  du  12  Mars),  15  Mars. 

VOL.  III.  ® 


98 


THE  GIRONDINS, 


shortness  of  vision  ;  nay  fatal  poorness  of  character,  for  that  is  the 
root  of  it.  They  are  as  strangers  to  the  People  they  would  govern  ; 
to  the  thing  they  have  come  to  work  in.  Formulas,  Philosophies, 
Respectabilities,  what  has  been  written  in  Books,  and  admitted  by 
the  Cultivated  Classes  :  this  inadequate  Scheme  of  Nature's  work- 
ing is  all  that  Nature,  let  her  work  as  she  will^  can  reveal  to  these 
men.  So  they  perorate  and  speculate  ;  and  call  on  the  Friends  of 
Law,  when  the  question  is  not  Law  or  No-Law,  but  Life  or  No- 
Life.  Pedants  of  the  Revolution,  if  not  Jesuits  of  it  !  Their 
Formalism  is  great  ;  great  also  is  their  Egoism.  France  rising 
to  fight  Austria  has  been  raised  only  by  Plot  of  the  Tenth  of 
March,  to  kill  Twenty-two  of  them  I  This  Revolution  Prodigy, 
unfolding  itself  into  terrific  stature  and  articulation,  by  its  own 
laws  and  Nature's,  not  by  the  laws  of  Formula,  has  become  uni  i- 
tehigible,  incredible  as  an  impossibility,  the  'waste  chaos  of  a 
^  Dream.'  A  Republic  founded  on  what  they  call  the  Virtues  ;  on 
what  we  call  the  Decencies  and  Respectabilities  :  this  they  will 
have,  and  nothing  but  this.  Whatsoever  other  Republic  Nature 
and  Reality  send,  shall  be  considered  as  not  sent ;  as  a  kind  of 
Nightmare  Vision,  and  thing  non-extant ;  disowned  by  the  Laws 
of  Nature,  and  of  Formula.  Alas  !  Dim  for  the  best  eyes  is  this 
Reality  ;  and  as  for  these  men,  they  will  not  look  at  it  with  eyes 
at  all,  but  only  through  '  facetted  spectacles '  of  Pedantry,  wounded 
Vanity ;  which  yield  the  most  portentous  fallacious  spectrum. 
Carping  and  complaining  forever  of  Plots  and  Anarchyj  they  will 
do  one  thing  :  prove,  to  demonstration,  that  the  Realicy  will  not 
translate  into  their  Formula  ;  that  they  and  their  Formula  are 
incompatible  with  the  Reahty  :  and,  in  its  dark  wrath,  the  Reality 
will  extinguish  it  and  them  !  What  a  man  kens  he  cans.  But  the 
beginning  of  a  man's  doom  is  that  vision  be  withdrawn  from  him  ; 
that  he  see  not  the  reality,  but  a  false  spectrum  of  the  reality  ;  and, 
following  that,  step  darkly,  with  more  or  less  velocity,  downwards 
to  the  utter  Dark  ;  to  Ruin,  which  is  the  great  Sea  of  Darkness, 
whither  all  falsehoods,  winding  or  direct,  continually  flow  ! 

This  Tenth  of  March  we  may  mark  as  an  epoch  in  the  Girondin, 
destinies  ;  the  rage  so  exasperated  itself,  the  misconception  so 
darkened  itself  Many  desert  the  sittings  ;  many  come  to  them 
armed.*  An  honourable  Deputy,  setting  out  after  breakfast,  must 
now,  besides  taking  his  Notes,  see  whether  his  Priming  is  in  order. 

Meanwhile  with  Dumouriez  in  Belgium  it  fares  ever  wors 
Were  it  again  General  Miranda's  fault,  or  some  other's  fault,  ther 
is  no  doubt  whatever  but  the  '  Battle  of  Nerwinden,'  on  the  i8th 
of  March,  is  lost ;  and  our  rapid  retreat  has  become  a  far  too 
rapid  one.  Victorious  Cobourg,  with  his  Austrian  prickers,  hangs 
like  a  dark  cloud  on  the  rear  of  us  :  Dumouriez  never  off  horse- 
back night  or  day  ;  engagement  every  three  hours  ;  our  whole 
discomfited  Host  rolling  rapidly  inwards,  full  of  rage,  suspicion, 
and  saiive-qui-peut  I  And  then  Dumouriez  himself,  what  his 
intents  may  be  ?  Wicked  seemingly  and  not  charitable  !  His 
*  Meillan  pp.  85,  24). 


SAJSiSCVLOTTISM  ACCOUTRED.  ' 


despatches  to  Committee  openly  denounce  a  factious  Convention, 
lor  the  woes  it  has  brought  on  France  and  him.  And  his  speeches 
—for  the  Genera]  has  no  reticence  !  The  Execution  of  the  Tyrant 
this  Dumouriez  calls  the  Murder  of  the  King.  Danton  and  Lacroix, 
flying  thither  as  Commissioners  once  more^  return  very  doubtful ; 
even  Danton  now  doubts. 

-Three  Jacobin  Missionaries^*  Proly,  Dubuisson,  Pereyra,  have 
fiown  forth  ;  sped  by  a  wakeful  Mother  Society  :  they  are  struck 
dumb  to  hear  the  General  speak.  The  Convention,  according  to 
this  General,  consists  of  three  hundred  scoundrels  and  four  hun- 
dred imbeciles  :  France  cannot  do  without  a  King.  "  But  we 
have  executed  our  King."  "And  what  is  it  to  me,"  hastily  cries 
Dumouriez,  a  General  of  no  reticence,  "whether  the  King's  name 
be  Ludovicus  or  Jacobus  ?  "  "  Or  PhiUpptis  !  "  rejoins  Proly  ; — 
and  hastens  to  report  progress.  Over  the  Frontiers  such  hope  is 
there. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SANSCULOTTISM  ACCOUTRED. 

Let  us  look,  however,  at  the  grand  internal  Sansculottism  and 
Revolution  Prodigy,  whether  it  stirs  and  waxes  :  there  and  not 
elsewhere  hope  may  still  be  for  France.  The  Revolution  Prodigy, 
as  Decree  after  Decree  issues  from  the  Mountain,  hke  creative 
fats,  accordant  with  the  nature  of  the  Thing,— is  shaping  itself 
rapidly,  in  these  days,  into  terrific  stature  and  articulation,  limb 
after  limb.  Last  March,  1792,  we  saw  all  France  flowing  in  blind 
terror;  shutting  town-barriers,  boiling  pitch  for  Brigands:  happier, 
this  March,  that  it  is  a  seeing  terror  ;  that  a  creative  Mountain 
exists,  which  can  say  fiat  I  Recruitment  proceeds  with  fierce 
celerity  :  nevertheless  our  Volunteers  hesitate  to  set  out,  till  Trea- 
son be  punished  at  home  ;  they  do  noi  fly  to  the  frontiers  ;  but 
only  fly  hither  and  thithen  demanding  and  denouncing.  The 
Mountain  must  speak  new  fiat,  and  new  fiats. 

And^  does  it  not  speak  such  ?  Take,  as  first  example,  those 
Coimtes  Revolutionnaures  for  the  arrestment  of  Persons  Suspect. 
Revolutionary  Committee,  of  Twelve  chosen  Patriots,  sits  in  every 
Township  of  France  ;  examining  the  Suspect,  seeking  arms, 
makmg  domiciliary  visits  and  arrestments  caring,  generally, 
that  the  Republic  suffer  no  detriment.  Chosen  by  universal  suff- 
rage, each  in  its  Section,  they  are  a  kind  of  elixir  of  Jacobinism  ; 
some  Forty-four  Thousand  ot  them  awake  and  alive  over  France  ! 
In  Paris  and  all  Towns,  every  house-door  must  have  the  names  of 
the  mmates  legibly  printed  on  it,  ^at  a  height  not  exceeding  five 
'  feet  from  the  ground  ; '  every  Citizen  must  produce  his  certifica- 
tory  Carte  de  Civisrne,  signed  by  Section-President  ;  everv  man 
be  ready  to  give  account  of  the  faith  that  is  in  him.  Persons 
Suspect  had  as  well  depart  this  soil  of  Liberty  !    And  yet  depar- 

£  Z 


100 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


ture  too  is  bad  :  all  Emigrants  are  declared  Traitors,  their  pro- 
perty become  National  ;  they  are  '  dead  in  Law/— save  indeed 
that  for  our  behoof  they  shall  '  live  yet  fifty  years  in  Law/ and 
what  heritages  may  fall  to  them  in  that  time  become  National  too  1 
A  mad  vitality  of  Jacobinism,  with  Forty-fom*  Thousand  centres- of 
activity,  circulates  through  all  fibres  of  France. 

Very  notable  also  is  the  Tribunal  Extraordinaire :  *  decreed 
by  the  Mountain  ;  some  Girondins  dissenting,  for  surely  such  a 
Court  contradicts  every  formula  ; — other  Girondins  assenting,  nay 
co-operating,  for  do  not  we  all  hate  Traitors,  O  ye  people  of  Paris  ? 
— Tribunal  of  the  Seventeenth  in  Autumn  last  was  swift  ;  but  this 
shall  be  swifter.  Five  Judges  ;  a  standing  Jury,  which  is  named 
from  Paris  and  the  Neighbourhood,  that  there  be  not  delay  in 
naming  it  :  they  are  subject  to  no  Appeal ;  to  hardly  any  Law- 
forms,  but  must  '  get  themselves  convinced  '  in  all  readiest  ways  ; 
and  for  security  are  bound  ^  to  vote  audibly  ;  ^  audibly,  in  the 
hearing  of  a  Paris  Public.  This  is  the  Tribunal  Extraordiitaire ; 
which,  in  few  months,  getting  into  most  lively  action,  shall  be  en- 
titled Tribunal  Revohition7taire,  as  indeed  it  from  the  very  first 
has  entitled  itself :  with  a  Herman  or  a  Dumas  for  Judge  Presi- 
dent, with  a  Fouquier-Tinville  for  Attorney- General,  and  a  Jury  of 
such  as  Citizen  Leroi,  who  has  surnamed  himself  Dix-Aoiit^ '  Leroi 
August-Tenth^  it  will  become  the  wonder  of  the  world.  Herein 
has  Sansculottism  fashioned  for  itself  a  Sword  of  Sharpness  :  a 
weapon  magical ;  tempered  in  the  Stygian  hell-waters  ;  to  the 
edge  of  it  all  armour,  and  defence  of  strength  or  of  cunning  shall 
be  soft ;  it  shall  mow  down  Lives  and  Brazen-gates  ;  and  the 
waving  of  it  shed  terror  through  the  souls  of  men. 

But  speaking  of  an  amorphous  Sansculottism  taking  form,  ought 
we  not  above  all  things  to  specify  how  the  Amorphous  gets  itself 
a  Head  ?  Without  metaphor,  this  Revolution  Government  con- 
tinues hitherto  in  a  very  anarchic  state.  Executive  Council  of 
Ministers,  Six  in  number,  there  is  ;  but  they,  especially  since 
Roland^s  retreat,  have  hardly  known  whether  they  were  Ministers 
or  not.  Convention  Committees  sit  supreme  over  them  ;  but  then 
each  Committee  as  supreme  as  the  others:  Committee  of  Twenty- 
one,  of  Defence,  of  General  Surety  ;  simultaneous  or  successive, 
for  specific  purposes.  The  Convention  alone  is  all-powerful, — 
especially  if  the  Commune  go  with  it  ;  but  is  too  numerous  for  an 
administrative  body.  Wherefore,  in  this  perilous  quick-whirling 
condition  of  the  Republic,  before  the  end  of  March,  we  obtain  our 
small  Comite  de  Saliit  Public  ;\  as  it  were,  for  miscellaneous 
accidental  purposes,  requiring  despatch  ; — as  it  proves,  for  a  sort 
of  universal  supervision,  and  universal  subjection.  They  are  to 
report  weekly,  these  new  Committee-men  ;  but  to  deliberate  in 
secret.  Their  number  is  Nine,  firm  I'atriots  all,  Danton  one  of 
them  :  renewable  every  month  yet  why  not  reelect  them  if  they 
turn  out  well  ?  The  flower  of  the  matter  is  that  they  are  but  nine  5 
that  they  sit  in  secret.    An  insignificant-looking  thing  at  first,  th^,& 

*  Moniteur,  No.  70  (du  11  Mars),  No.  76,  &c. 

Moniteiir,  No.  83  (du  24  Mars  1793),  Nos.  86,  90,  99,  loa 


SANSCULOTTISM  ACCOUTRED. 


lol 


Committee  ;  but  with  a  principle  of  growth  in  it !  Forwarded  by 
fortune,  by  internal  Jacobin  energy,  it  will  reduce  all  Committees 
and  the  Convention  itself  to  mute  obedience,  the  Six  Ministers  to 
Six  assiduous  Clerks  ;  and  work  its  will  on  the  Earth  and  under 
Heaven,  for  a  season.  '  A  Committee  of  Public  Salvation/ 
whereat  the  world  still  shrieks  and  shudders. 

If  we  call  that  Revolutionary  Tribunal  a  Sword,  which  Sanscu- 
lottism  has  provided  for  itself,,  then  let  us  call  the  '  Law  of  the 
*  Maximum,'  a  Provender-scrip,  or  Haversack,  wherein  better  or 
worse  some  ration  of  bread  may  be  found.  It  is  true.  Political 
EcK)nomy,  Girondin  free-trade,  and  all  law  of  supply  and  demand, 
are  hereby  hurled  topsyturvy  :  but  what  help  ?  Patriotism  must 
live  ;  the  '  cupidity  of  farmers '  seems  to  have  no  bowels.  Where- 
fore this  Law  of  the  Maximum,  fixing  the  highest  price  of  grains, 
is,  with  infinite  effort,  got  passed  ;^  and  shall  gradually  extend 
itself  into  a  Maximum  for  all  manner  of  comestibles  and  covimo- 
dities  :  with  such  scrambling  and  topsyturvying  as  may  be  fancied  ! 
For  now,  if,  for  example,  the  farmer  will  not  sell  ?  The  farmer 
shall  be  forced  to  sell.  An  accurate  Account  of  what  grain  he  has 
shall  be  delivered  in  to  the  Constituted  Authorities  :  let  him  see 
that  he  say  not  too  much  ;  for  in  that  case,  k:s  rents,  taxes  and 
contributions  will  rise  proportionally  :  let  him  see  that  he  say  not 
too  little  ;  for,  on  or  before  a  set  day^  we  shall  suppose  in  April, 
less  than  one- third  of  this  declared  quantity,  must  remain  in  his 
barns,  more  than  two-thirds  of  it  must  have  been  thrashed  and 
sold.    One  can  denounce  him,  and  raise  penalties. 

By  such  inextricable  overturning  of  all  Commercial  relation  will 
Sansculottism  keep  life  in  ;  since  not  otherwise.  /  On  the  whole,  as 
Camille  Desmoulins  says  once,  while  the  Sansculottes  fight,  the 
Monsieurs  must  pay."  So  there  come  Impots  Progressifs, 
Ascending  Taxes  ;  which  consume,  with  fast-increasing  voracity, 
the  '  superfluous-revenue '  of  men  :  beyond  fifty-pounds  a-year  you 
are  not  exempt ;  rising  into  the  hundreds  you  bleed  freely  ;  into 
the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  you  bleed  gushing.  Also 
there  come  Requisitions  ;  there  comes  '  Forced- Loan  of  a  Milliard,' 
some  Fifty-Millions  Sterling  ;  which  of  course  they  that  have 
must  lend.  Unexampled  enough  :  it  has  grown  to  be  no  country 
for  the  Rich,  this  ;  but  a  country  for  the  Poor  !  And  then  if  one 
fly,  what  steads  it  ?  Dead  in  Law  ;  nay  kept  alive  fifty  years  yet, 
for  their  accursed  behoof !  In  this  manner,  therefore,  it  goes  ; 
topsyturvying,  ga-ira-'mg  ; — and  withal  there  is  endless  sale  of 
Emigrant  National-Property,  there  is  Cambon  with  endless  cornu- 
copia of  Assignats.  The  Trade  and  Finance  of  Sansculottism  ; 
and  how,  with  Maximum  and  Bakers'-queues,  with  Cupidity. 
Hunger,  Denunciation  and  Paper-money,  it  led  its  galvanic-life, 
and  began  and  ended, — remains  the  most  interesting  of  all  Chapters 
in  Political  Economy  :  still  to  be  written. 

All  which  things  are  they  not  clean  against  Formula?  O  Giron- 
din Friends,  it  is  not  a  Republic  of  the  Virtues  we  are  getting ; 
but  only  a  Republic  of  the  Strengths,  virtuous  and  other ! 

^  Monitcur  {du  20  Avril,  &c.  to  ao  Mai,  1793). 


I02 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  TRAITOR. 

But  Dumouriez,  with  his  fugitive  Host,  with  his  King  Ludovtcus 
or  King  Philippus  ;  There  hes  the  crisis  ;  ther-  hangs  the  ques- 
tion :  Rev'iution  Prodigy,  or  Counter-Revolution  ? -One  wide 
shriek  co  :r:  that  North-East  region.  Soldiers,  ftill  of  rage,  sus- 
picion  and  terror,  floe!:  hither  and  thither  ;  Dumouriez  the  many- 
counselled,  never  o;:  horseback,  knows  now  no  counsel  that  were 
not  worse  than  none  the  counsd,  namely,  of  joining  himself  with 
Cobourg  ;  marching  to  Paris,  extinguishing  Jacobinism,  and,  with 
some  new  King  Ludovicus  or  King  Philippus,  restoring  the  Con* 
stitution  of  1791  !^ 

^  Is  Wisdom  quitting  Dumouriez  ;  the  herald  of  Fortune  quitting 
him  ?  Principle,  faith  pohticai  or  other,  beyond  a  certain  faith  of 
mess-rooms,  and  honour  of  an  officer,  had  him  not  to  quit.  At 
any  rate,  his  qiiartero  in  ±c  Burgh  of  Saint-Amand  ;  his  head-* 
quarters  in  the  Village  of  Saint-Amand  des  Boues,  p.  short  w2y 
off,— have  become  a  Bedlam.  National  Representatives,  Jacobin 
Missionaries  are  riding  and  running  :  of  the  'three  Tov»ns,'  Lille>' 
Valenciennes  or  even  Conde,  which  Dumouriez  wanted  to  snatch 
for  himself,  not  one  can  be  snatched  :  your  Captain  is  admitted, 
but  the  Town-gate  is  closed  on  him,  and  then  the  Prison-gate, 
and  'his  men  v/ander  about  the  ramparts.'  Couriers  gallop 
breathless  ;  men  wait,  or  ceem  waiting,  to  assassinate,  to  be  assas- 
sinated ;  Battalions  nigh  frantic  with  such  suspicion  and  uncer- 
tainty, with  Vv;':^-Ia-Rep2ibUquc  r,nd  Sairjc-qiii-peut,  rush  this  Way 
and  that  ;--Ruin  and  Desperation  in  the  shape  of  Cobourg  lying 
entrr; r.chcd  close  by. 

Dr.me  GcnHs  nnd  her  fai:;  Princess  d'Orleans  find  this  Burgh 
of  .brint-Amand  no  fit  place  for  them  ;  Dumouriez's  protection  is 
grown  worse  than  none.  Tough  GenK  of  the  toughest  women; 
a  woman,  as  it  were,  with  nine  livc:  in  her  ;  whom  nothing  will 
beat:  -.he  packs  her  bandboxes;  clear  for  flight  in  a  private 
manner.  Her  beloved  Princess  she  will— leave  here,  with  the 
Prmce  Chatres  Egaiite  her  Brother.  In  the  cold  grey  of  the  Apri^ 
mornmg,  we  find  her  accordingly  established  in  her  hired  vehicle, 
on  the  street  of  Saint-Amand  ;  postilions  just  cracking  their  whips 
to  go,  — when  behold  the  young  Princely  Brother,  struggling  hither- 
ward,,  hastily  calling  ;  bearing  the  Princess  in  his  arms  !  Hastily 
he  hao  clutched  the  poor  young  ladv  up,  in  her  very  night-gown, 
nothing  saved  of  iicr  -oods  except  tlie' watch  from  the  pillow  :  with 
brotherly  despair  lie  flings  her  in,  among  the  bandboxes,  into 
<  rcnhs's  chaise,  into  (Icnlis's  arm.;  .  Leave'  her  not,  in  the  name 
of  Merry  and  Heaven  !  A  shrill  scene,  but  a  brief  one  the 
postilions  crack  and  go.  Ah,  whither  ?  Through  by-roads  and 
''''  Dumouriez,  Mc'molrcs,  iv.  c.  7-10. 


THE  TRAITOR. 


103 


broken  hill-passes  :  seeking  their  way  with  lanterns  after  nightfall ; 
through  perils,  and  Cobourg  Austrian s,  and  suspicious  French 
Nationals  ;  finally,  into  Switzerland  ;  safe  though  nigh  moneyless.^ 
The  brave  young  Egalite  has  a  most  wild  Iviorrow  to  look  lor  ; 
but  now  only  himself  to  carry  through  it. 

,  For  indeed  over  at  that  Village  named  of  the  Mudbaths,  Sainr- 
Amand  des  Boues,  matters  are  stili  worse.  About  four  o'clock  on 
Tuesday  afternoon,  the  2d  of  April  1793,  two  Couriers  come 
galloping  as  if  for  life:  Moji  General !  Four  National  Represen- 
tatives, War-Minister  at  their  head,  are  posting  hitherward,  from 
Valenciennes  :  are  close  at  hand,~wath  what  intents  one  may 
guess  !  While  the  Couriers  are  yet  speaking,  War- Minister  and 
National  Representatives,  old  Camus  the  Archivist  for  chief 
speaker  of  them,  arrive.  Hardly  has  Mon  General  had  time  to 
order  out  the  Huzzar  Regiment  de  Berchigny  ;  that  it  take  rank 
and  wait  near  by,  in  case  of  accident.  And  so,  enter  War-Minister 
Beurnonville,  with  an  embrace  of  friendship,  for  he  is  r-:  old 
friend  ;  enter  Archivist  Camus  and  the  other  three,  following 
him. 

They  produce  Papers,  invite  the  General  to  the  bar  of  the  Con- 
vention :  merely  to  give  an  explanation  or  two.  The  General  finds 
it  unsuitable,  not  to  say  impossible^  and  that  "  the  service  will 
suffer."  Then  comes  reasoning  ;  the  voice  of  the  old  Archivist 
getting  loud.  Vain  to  reason  loud  with  this  Dumouriez ;  he 
answers  mere  angry  irreverances.  And  so,  amid  plumed  staff- 
officers,  very  gloomy-looking  ;  in  jeopardy  and  uncertainty,  these 
poor  National  messengers  debate  and  consult,  .retire  and  re-enter, 
for  the  space  of  some  two  hours  ;  without  effect.  W^hereupon 
Archivist  Camus,  getting  quite  loud,  proclaims,  in  the  name  of  the 
National  Convention,  for  he  has  the  power  to  do  it.  That  General 
Dumouriez  is  arrested:  "Will  you  obey  the  National  Mandate, 
General!"  Pas  dans  ce  nwment-ci,  ''Not  at  this  particular 
moment,"  ansu^ers  the  General  also  aloud  ;  then  glancing  the  other 
way,  utters  certain  unknown  vocables,  in  a  mandatory  manner  ; 
seemingly  a  German  word-of-command.f  Hussars  clutch  the 
Four  National  Representatives,  and  Beurnonville  the  War- 
minister  ;  pack  them  out  of  the  apartment  ;  out  of  the  Village 
over  the  lines  to  Cobourg,  in  two  chaises  that  very  night, — as  host- 
ages,  prisoners  ;  to  lie  long  in  Maestricht  and  Austrian  strong- 
holds !  J  J  acta  est  alea. 

This  night  Dumouriez  prints  his  '  Proclamation  •/  this  night  and 
the  morrow  the  Dumouriez  Army,  in  such  darkness  visible,  and 
rage  of  semi-desperation  as  there  is,  shall  meditate  what  the 
General  is  doing,  what  they  themselves  will  do  in  it.  Judge 
whether  this  Wednesday  was  of  halcyon  nature,  for  any  one  ! 
But,  on  the  Thursday  morning,  we  discern  Dumouriez  with  small 
escort,  with  Chartres  Egalite  and  a  few  staff-officers,  ambling  along 

*  Genlis,  iv.  139. 

I Dumouriez,  iv.  159,  &c. 
Their  Narrafive,  written  by  Camus  (in  Toulongeon,  iii.  app.  60-87). 


.  104 


THE  GIRONDINS, 


the  Condc  Highway  :  perhaps  they  r.rc  for  Conde,  and  trying  to 
persuade  the  Garrison  there  ;  at  pJl  events,  they  are  for  an  inter- 
view with  Cobourg,  who  waits  in  the  woods  by  appointment,  in 
that  quarter.  Nigh  the  Village  of  Drqmet,  thre;.  Nr::icnal  Bat- 
talions, a  set  of  men  always  full  of  Jacobinism,  sweep  past  u?, ; 
marching  rather  swiftly,—  seemin{;;ly  in  mistake,  by  a  way  we  had 
not  ordered.  The  General  cismoiints,  steps  into  a  cottage,  a  little 
from  the  wayside  ;  will  give  them  rigliu  order  in  writing.  Hark  : 
^  what  strange  groi.iing  is  heard  :  vAiat  barkings  are  heard,  loud 
^yoilz  oi"  Traitors  ''  of  Arrest -r  the  National  Battalions  have 
wheeled  rounds  are  emitting  shot  !  Mount,  Dumouriez,  and  spring 
for  life  !  Dum.ouriez  and  Staff  strike  the  spurs  in.  deep  ;  vault 
over  ditches,  into  the  fields,  which  prove  to  be  morasses  ;  sprawl 
and  plunge  for  life  ;  bew^histled  with  curses  and  lead.  Sunk  to  the 
middle,  with  or  without  horses,  several  servants  killed,  they  escape 
out  of  shot-range,  to  General  Mack  the  Austrian's  quarters.  Nay 
they  return  on  the  morrow,  to  Saint- Amand  and  faithful  foreign 
Berchigny  ;  but  v.ii..c  i-oots  it.^  The  Artillery  has  all  revolted,  is 
jingling  off  to  Valenciennes  :  n'l  have  revolted,  are  revolting  ;  ex- 
cept only  foreign  Berchigny,  to  the  extent  of  some  poor  fifteen 
hundred,  none  will  follow  Dumouriez  against  France  and  Indivi- 
sible Republic  :  Dumouriez's  occupation's  gone."^ 

Such  an  instinct  of  Frenehhood  and  Sansculottism  dwells  in  these 
men  :  they  will  follow].  3  Dumouriez  nor  Lafayette,  nor  any  mortal 
on  such  errand.  Shriek  may  be  of  Saitve-qui-peut^  but  will  also  be  of 
Vive4a-Republique.  New  National  Representatives  arrive  ;  new 
General  Dam]- ierre,  soon  killed  in  battle  ;  new  General  Custine  ;  the 
agitat  jd  Hosts  draw  back  to  some  Camp  of  Famars  ;  make  head 
against  Coboiirg  as  they  can. 

And  so  Dumourie  is  in  the  Austrian  quarters  ;  his  drama 
ended,  in  this  rather  sorry  manner.  A  most  shifty,  wiry  man* ; 
one  of  Heaven's  Swiss  that  wanted  only  woi  k.  Fifty  years  of  un- 
noticed toil  and  valour  ;  one  year  of  toil  and  valour,  not  unnoticed, 
but  seen  of  all  countries  and  centuries  ;  then  thirty  other  years 
again  unnoticed,  of  Memoir-writing,  English  Pension,  scheming 
and  projecting  to  no  purpose:  Adieu  thou. Swiss  of  Heaven, 
worthy  to  have  been  something  else  ! 

His  Staff  go  different  ways.  l^rave  young  Egalite  reaches 
Switzerland  and  the  (icnlis  Cottage  ;  n\  ith  a  strong  crabstick  in 
his  hand,  a  sti '>ng  heart  in  liis  body:  liis  Princedom  is  now  re- 
duced to  that.  Egalilc  the  I<^alli(^r  sat  playing  whist,  in  his  Palais 
Egalite,  at  Paris,  on  the  6th  day  of  thi-  san  montli  of  April,  when 
a  catchpole  entered  :  Citoyen  Egalite-  is  v.  led  at  the  Convention 
Committee  !t  Examination,  requiring  Arrestment  ;  finally  requir- 
ing Imprisonment,  transference  to  Marseilles  and  the  Castle  of  If! 
Orleansdom  has  sunk  in  the  black  waters  ;  Palais  Piigalit\$,  whichy 
was  Palais  Royal,  is  like  to  become  Palais  National.  | 

♦  Mimoires,  iv.  162-180.  f  See  Montgaillard,  iv.  144.  ■ 


IN  FIGHT. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

IN  FIGHT. 

Our  Republic,  by  paper  Decree,  maybe  '  One  and  Indivisible 
but  what  profits  it  while  these  things  are?  Federalists  in  the 
Senate,  renegadoes  in  the  Army,  traitors  everywhere  !  France,  alS. 
in  desperate  recruitment  since  the  Tenth  of  March,  does  not  fiy 
to  the  frontier,  but  only  flies  hither  and  thither.  This  defection  of 
contemptuous  diplomatic  Dumouriez  falls  heavy  on  the  fine-spoken 
high-sniffing  Homines  d'etat^  whom  he  consorted  with ;  forms  a 
second  epoch  in  their  destinies. 

Or  perhaps  more  strictly  we  might  say,  the  second  Girondin 
epoch,  though  little  noticed  then,  began  on  the  day  when,  in  refer- 
ence to  this  defection,  the  Girondins  broke  with  Danton.  It  was 
the  first  day  of  April ;  Dumouriez  had  not  yet  plunged  across  the 
morasses  to  Cobourg,  but  was  evidently  meaning  to  do  it,  and  our 
Commissioners  were  off  to  arrest  him  ;  when  what  does  the 
Girondin  Lasource  see  good  to  do,  but  rise,  and  jesuitically  ques- 
tion and  insinuate  at  great  length,  whether  a  main  accomplice  of 
Dumouriez  had  not  probably  been — Danton  ?  Gironde  grins  sar- 
donic assent  ;  Mountain  holds  its  breath.  The  figure  of  Danton, 
Levasseur  says,  while  this  speech  went  on,  was  noteworthy.  He 
sat  erect,  with  a  kind  of  internal  convulsion  strugghng  to  keep 
itself  motionless  ;  his  eye  from  time  to  time  flashing  wilder,  his 
Hp  curling  in  Titanic  scorn."^  Lasource,  in  a  firie-spoken  attorney- 
manner,  proceeds  :  there  is  this  probability  to  his  mind,  and  there 
is  that ;  probabilities  which  press  painfully  on  him,  which  cast  the 
Patriotism  of  Danton  under  a  painful  shade  ;  which'  painful  shade 
he,  Lasource,  will  hope  that  Danton  may  find  it  not  impossible  to 
dispel. 

Les  Scelerats  cries  Danton,  starting  up,  with  clenched  right- 
hand,  Lasource  having  done  :  and  descends  from  the  Mountain, 
like  a  lava-flood  ;  his  answer  not  unready.  Lasource's  probabili- 
ties fly  like  idle  dust ;  but  leave  a  result  behind  them.  "  Ye  were 
Hght,  friends  of  the  Mountain,''  begins  Danton,  "and  I  was 
wrong  :  there  is  no  peace  possible  with  these  men.  Let  it  be  war 
then  !  They  will  not  save  the  Republic  with  us  :  it  shall  be  saved 
without  them  ;  saved  in  spite  of  them."  Really  a  burst  of  rude 
Parliamentary  eloquence  this  ;  which  is  still  worth  reading,  in  the 
old  Mnniteiir  I  With  fire-words  the  exasperated  rude  Titan  rives 
and  smites  these  Girondins  ;  at  every  hit  the  glad  Mountain  utters 
chorus  :  Marat,  like  a  musical  bis^  repeating  the  last  phrase. t 
Lasource's  probabihcies  are  gone  :  but  Danton's  pledge  of  battle 
remains  lying. 

A  third  epoch,  or  scene  in  the  Girondin  Drama,  or  rather  it  is 

*  Mdmoires  de  Rend Levassevr  (Bruxelles,  1830),  i.  164.* 
•\  S^an(3e  du  \er  Avril,  1793  {in  Hist.  Pari.  xxv.  24-3^ 


io6 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


but  the  completion  of  this  second  epoch,  we  reckon  from  the  dat 
when  the  patience  of  virtuous  Petion  finally  boiled  over ;  and  the 
Girondins,  so  to  speak,  took  up  this  battle-pledge  of  Danton's,  and 
decreed  Marat  accused.  It  was  the  eleventh  of  the  same  month 
of  April,  on  some  effervescence  rising,  such  as  often  rose  ;  and 
President  had  covered  himself,  mere  Bedlam  now  ruhng ;  and 
Mountain  and  Gironde  were  rushing  on  one  another  with  clenched 
right-hands,  and  even  with  pistols  in  them;  when,  behold,  the 
Girondin  Duperret  drew  a  sword  !  Shriek  of  horror  rose,  instantly 
quenching  all  other  effervescence,  at  sight  of  the  clear  murderous 
steel  ;  whereupon  Duperret  returned  it  to  the  leather  again  ;— 
confessing  that  he  did  indeed  draw  it,  being  instigated  by  a  kind 
of  sacred  madness,  "  samte  fureur^'  and  pistols  held  at  him  ;  but 
that  if  he  parricidally  had  chanced  to  scratch  the  outmost  skin  of 
National  Representation  with  it,  he  too  carried  pistols,  and  would 
have  blown  his  brains  out  on  the  spot,* 

But  now  in  such  posture  of  affairs,  virtuous  Petion  rose,  next 
morning,  to  lament  these  effervescences,  this  endless  Anarchy 
invading  the  Legislative  Sanctuary  itself ;  and  here,  being  growled 
at  and  howled  at  by  the  Mountain,  his  patience,  long  tried,  did,  as 
we  say,  boil  over  ;  and  he  spake  vehemently,  in  high  key,  with 
foam  on  his  lips  ;  '  whence,'  says  Marat,  '  I  concluded  he  had  got 
'  la  rage,'  the  rabidity,  or  dog-madness.  Rabidity  smites  others 
rabid  :  so  there  rises  new  foam-lipped  demand  to  have  Anarchists 
extinguished  ;  and  specially  to  have  Marat  put  under  Accusation. 
Send  a  Representative  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.?  Violate 
the  inviolability  of  a  Representative  ?  Have  a  care,  O  Friends  ! 
This  poor  Marat  has  faults  enough  ;  but  against  Liberty  or 
Equality,  what  fault  1  That  he  has  loved  and  fought  for  it,  not 
wisely  but  too  well.  In  dungeons  and  cellars,  in  pinching  poverty, 
under  anathema  of  men  ;  even  so,  in  such  fight,  has  he  grown  so 
dingy,  bleared  ;  even  so  has  his  head  become  a  Stylites  one  1 
Him  you  will  fling  to  your  Sword  of  Sharpness  ;  while  Cobourg 
and  Pitt  advance  on  us,  fire-spitting } 

The  Mountain  is  loud,  the  Gironde  is  loud  and  deaf ;  all  lips 
are  foamy.  With  '  Permanent-Session  of  twenty-four  hours,'  with 
vote  by  rollcall,  and  a  dead-lift  effort,  the  Gironde  carries  it : 
Marat  is  ordered  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  to  answer  for  that 
February  Paragraph  of  Forestallers  at  the  door-lintel,  with  other 
offences  ;  and,  after  a  little  hesitation,  he  obeys. + 

Thus  is  Danton's  battle-pledge  taken  up  :  there  is,  as  he  said 
there  would  be,  '  war  without  truce  or  treaty,  7ii  trcve  ni  composi- 
'  Hon?  Wherefore,  close  now  with  one  another,  Formula  and 
Reality,  in  death -grips,  and  wrestle  it  out ;  both  of  you  cannot 
live,  but  only  one  ! 

*  Hist.  Pari.  xv.  397. 

f  Moniteur  (du  16  Avril  1793,  seqq). 


IN  DEATH-GRIPS. 


CHAPTER  VII  r. 

IN  DEATH-GRIPS. 

It  proves  what  strength,  were  it  only  of  inertia,  there  is  in 
estabhshed  Formulas,  what  weakness  in  nascent  Realities,  and 
illustrates  several  things,  that  this  death-wrestle  should  still  have 
lasted  some  six  weeks  or  more.  National  business,  discussion  of 
the  Constitutional  Act,  for  our  Constitution  should  decidedly  be 
got  ready,  proceeds  along  with  it.  We  even  change  our  Locality  ; 
we  shift,  on  the  Tenth  of  May,  from  the  old  Salle  de  Manege, 
into  our  nev/  Hall,  in  the  Palace,  once  a  King's  but  now  the  Re- 
public's, of  the  Tuileries.  Hope  and  ruth,  flickering  against 
despair  and  rage,  still  struggles  in  the  minds  of  men. 

It  is  a  most  dark  confused  death- wrestle,  this  of  the  six  weeks. 
Formalist  frenzy  against  Ps.ealist  frenzy ;  Patriotism,  Egoism, 
Pride,  Anger,  Vanity,  Hope  and  Despair^  all  raised  to  the  frenetic 
pitch  :  Frenzy  meets  Frenzy,  like  dark  clashing  whirlwinds  ;  neither 
understands  the  other  ;  the  weaker,  one  day,  will  understand  that 
it  is  verily  swept  down  !  Girondism  is  strong  as  established 
Formula  and  Respectability^  :  do  not  as  many  as  Seventy-two  of 
the  Departments,  or  say  respectp.ble  Heads  of  Departments,  declare 
for  us  1  Calvados,  which  loves  its  Buzot,  will  even  rise  in  revolt, 
so  hint  the  Addresses  ;  Marseilles,  cradle  of  Patriotism,  will  rise  ; 
Bourdeaux  will  rise,  and  the  Gironde  Department,  as  one  man  ; 
in  a  word;  who  v*^ill  not  rise,  were  our  Representation  Nationale  to 
be  insulted,  or  one  hair  of  a  Deputy's  head  harmed  !  The  Moun- 
tain, again,  is  strong  as  Reality  and  Audacity.  To  the  Reality  of 
the  Mountain  are  not  all  furthersome  things  possible  ?  A  new 
Tenth  of  August,  if  needful  ;  nay  a  new  Second  of  September  ! — 

But,  on  Wednesday  afternoon,  twenty-fourth  day  of  April,  year 
1793,  what  tumult  as  of  fierce  jubilee  is  this?  It  i^  Marat  return- 
ing from  Revolutionary  Tribunal  !  A  week  or  more  of  death- 
peril  :  and  now  there  is  triumphant  acquittal ;  Revolutionary 
Tribunal  can  find  no  accusation  against  this  man.  And  so  the  eye 
of  History  beholds  Patriotism,  which  had  gloomed  unutterable 
things  ail  week,  break  into  loud  jubilee,  embrace  its  Marat ;  lift 
him  into  a  chair  of  triumph,  bear  him  shoulder-high  through  the 
streets.  Shoulder-high  is  the  injured  People's-friend,  crowned 
with  an  oak-garland  ;  amid  the  ^\  avy  sea  of  red  nightcaps,  car- 
magnole jackets,  grenadier  bonnets  and  female  mob-caps  ;  far- 
sounding  like  a  sea  !  The  injured  People's-friend  has  here  reached 
his  culminating-point ;  he  too  strikes  the  stars  with  his  sublime 
head. 

But  the  Reader  can  judge  with  what  face  President  Lasource, 
he  of  the  '  painful  prdbabilities,'  who  presides  in  this  Convention 
Hall,  might  welcome  such  jubilee-tide,  when  it  got  thither,  and  the 


toS 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


Decreed  of  Accusation  floating  on  the  top  of  it  !  A  National 
Sapper,  spokesman  on  the  occasion,  says,  the  People  know  their 
Fi'iend,  and  love  his  life  as  their  own  ;  ^'whosoever  wants  Marat's 
head  must  get  the  Sapper's  first."*  Lasource  answered  with  some 
vague  painful  mumblement, — which,  says  Levasseur,  one  could  not 
help  tittering  at.f  Patriot  Sections,  Volunteers  not  yet  gone  to 
the  Frontiers,  come  demanding  the  "  purgation  of  traitors  from 
your  own  bosomx  ; ''  the  expulsion,  or  even  the  trial  and  sentence, 
of  a  factious  Twenty-two. 

Nevertheless  the  Gironde  has  got  its  Commission  Df  Tw^elve  ; 
a  Commission  specially  appointed  for  investigating  these  troubles 
of  the  Legislative  Sanctuary  :  let  Sansculottism  say  what  it  will, 
Law  shall  triumph.  Old- Constituent  Rabaut  Saint-Etienne  pre- 
sides over  this  Commission  :  "  it  is  the  last  plank  whereon  a 
wrecked  Republic  may  perhaps  still  save  herself.'"  Rabaut  and 
they  therefore  sit,  intent  ;  examining  witnesses  ;  launching  arrest- 
ments ;  looking  out  into  a  w^aste  dim  sea  of  troubles. — the  womb 
of  Fonnula,  or  perhaps  her  grave  !  Enter  not  that  sea,  O 
Reader  !  There  are  dim  desolation  and  confusion  ;  raging  women 
and  raging  men.  Sections  come  demanding  Twenty-two  ;  for  the 
munber  first  given  by  Section  Bonconseil  still  holds,  though  the 
names  should  even  vary.  Other  Sections,  of  the  wealthier  kind, 
come  denouncing  such  dem.and  ;  nay  the  same  Section  will  demand 
to-day,  and  denounce  the  demand  tO'morrow\  according  as  the 
wealthier  sit,  or  the  poorer.  Wherefore,  indeed,  ths  C^irondins 
decree  that  all  Sections  shall  close  '  at  ten  in  the  evening  ; '  before 
the  working  people  come  :  which  Decree  remains  without  effect. 
And  nightly  the  Mother  of  Patriotism  wails  doleful ;  doleful,  but 
her  eye  kindling  !  And  Fournier  I'Americain  is  busy,  and  the  two 
Banker  Freys,  and  Varlet  Apostle  of  Liberty  ;  the  bull-voice  of 
Marquis  Saint-Hnruge  is  heard.  And  shrill  women  vociferate 
from  all  Galleries,  the  Convention  ones  and  dow^nwards.  Nay  a 
*  Central  Committee  '  of  all  the  Forty-eight  Sections,  looms  forth 
huge  and  dubious  ;  sitting  dim  in  the  ArcheiJ^chc,  sending  Reso- 
ludons,  receiving  them  :  a  Centre  of  the  Sections  ;  in  dread  de- 
hberation  as     a  New  Tenth  of  August  ! 

One  thing  we  will  specify  to  throw  light  on  many  :  the  aspect 
under  which,  seen  through  the  eyes  of  these  Girondin  Twelve,  or 
even  seen  through  one's  own  eyes,  the  Patriotism  of  the  softer 
sex  presents  itself.  There  are  Female  Patriots,  whom  the  Giron- 
dins  call  Megxras,  and  count  to  the  extent  of  eight  thousand  ; 
with  serpent-hair,  all  out  of  curl  ;  who  have  changed  the  distaff 
for  the  dagger.  They  are  of  *  the  Society  called  Brotherly,' 
Frater7iclle,  say  Sistc7'ly,  which  meets  under  the  roof  of  the 
Jacobins.  *  Two  thousand  daggers,'  or  so^  have  been  ordered,-— 
doubtless,  for  them.  They  rush  to  Versailles,  to  raise  more 
v/omen  ;  but  the  Versailles  women  will  not  rise.J 

*  S(^aTice  (in  Moniteiir,  No.  i  i6  du  26  Avril,  An  \er, 
f  Levasseur,  Mdmuircs,  i.  c.  6. 

J  Buzot,  Mi^.moires,  pp.  69,  84  ;  Meillan,  Mhnoircs,  pp.  192,  195,  196.  Ssf 
Commission  des  Douzc  (in  Choix  dcs  Rapports,  xii.  69  -131.) 


IN  DEATH-GRIPS. 


Nay  behold,  in  National  Garden  of  Tuileries, — Demoisellt 
Theroigne  herself  is  become  as  a  brown-locked  Diana  (were  that 
possible)  attacked  by  her  own  dogs,  or  she-dogs  !  The  Demoiselle, 
keeping  her  carriage,  is  for  Liberty  indeed,  as  she  has  full  well 
shewn  ;  but  then  for  Liberty  with  Respectability  :  whereupon 
these  serpent-haired  Extreme  She-Patriots  now  do  fasten  on  her, 
tatter  her,  shamefully  fustigate  her,  in  their  shameful  way  ;  almost 
fling  her  into  the  Garden-ponds,  had  not  help  intervened.  Help, 
alas,  to  small  purpose.  The  poor  Demoiselle's  head  and  nervous- 
system,  none  of  the  soundest,  is  so  tattered  and  fluttered  that  it 
will  never  recover  ;  but  flutter  worse  and  worse,  till  it  crack  ;  and 
within  year  and  day  we  hear  of  her  in  madhouse,  and  straitwaist- 
coat,  which  proves  permanent ! — Such  brownlocked  Figure  did 
flutter,  and  inarticulately  jabber  and  gesticulate,  little  able  to  speak 
the  obscure  meaning  it  had,  through  some  segm.ent  of  that 
Eighteenth  Century  of  Time.  She  disappears  here  from  the 
Revolutv^n  and  Public  History,  for  evermore."^ 

Another  thing  we  will  not  again  specify,  yet  again  beseech  the 
Reader  to  imagine  :  the  reign  of  Fraternity  and  Perfection. 
Imagine,  we  o:iy,  O  Reader,  that  the  Millennium  were  struggling 
on  the  threshold,  and  yet  not  so  much  as  groceries  could  be  had, 
—owing  to  traitors.  With  what  impetus  would  a  man  strike 
traitors,  in  that  case  ?  Ah,  thou  canst  not  imagine  it  :  thou  hast 
thy  groceries  safe  in  the  shops,  and  little  or  no  hope  of  a  Mil- 
lennium ever  coming  ! — But  indeed,  as  to  the  temper  there  was  in 
men  and  women,  does  not  this  one  fact  say  enough  :  the  height 
Suspicion  had  risen  to  ?  Preternatural  we  often  cafled  it  ;  seem- 
ingly in  the  language  of  exaggeration  :  but  listen  to  the  cold 
deposition  of  witnesses.  Not  a  musical  Patriot  can  blow  himself 
a  snatch  of  melody  from  the  French  Horn,  sitting  mildly  pensive 
on  the  housetop,  but  Mercier  will  recognise  it  to  be  a  signal  which 
one  Plotting  Committe  is  making  to  another.  Distraction  has 
possessed  Harmony  herself ;  lurks  in  the  sound  of  Marseillese 
and  qa-ira.\  Louvet,  w^ho  can  see  as  deep  into  a  millstone  as 
the  most,  discerns  that  we  shall  be  invited  back  to  our  old  Hall  of 
the  Manege,  by  a  Deputation  ;  and  then  the  Anarchists  will 
massacre  Twenty-two  of  us,  as  we  walk  over.  It  is  Pitt  and 
Cobourg  ;  the  gold  of  Pitt.— Poor  Pitt  !  They  little  know  what 
work  he  has  with  his  own  Friends  of  the  People  ;  getting  them 
bespied,  beheaded,  their  habeas-corpuses  suspended,  and  his  own 
Social  Order  and  strong-boxes  kept  tight, — to  fancy  him  raising 
mobs  among  his  neighbours  ! 

But  the  strangest  fact  connected  with  French  or  indeed  with 
human  Suspicion,  is  perhaps  this  of  Camille  Desmoiflins. 
Camille's  head,  one  of  the  clearest  in  France,  has  got  itself  so 
saturated  through  every  fibre  with  Preternaturalism  of  Suspicion, 
that  looking  back  on  that  Twelfth  of  July  1789,  when  the  thousands 

^  *  Deux  Amis,  vii.  77-80;  Forster,  i.  514;  Moore,  i.  70.    She  did  not  die 
till  1817  ;  in  the  Salpotriere,  in  the  most  abject  state  of  insanity  ;  see  Esquirol, 
£^es  Maladies  Mentales  (Paris,  1838),  i.  445-50. 
f  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris,  vi.  63. 


no 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


r©se  round  him,  yelling  responsive  at  his  word  in  the  Palais  Royal 
Garden,  and  took  cockades,  he  finds  it  explicable  only  on  this 
hypothesis,  Thr^t  they  were  all  hired  to  do  it,  and  set  on  bv  the 
Foreign  and  other  Plotters.  '  It  was  not  for  nothing,'  says  Camille 
with  insight,  'that  this  multitude  burst  up  round  me  when  I  spoke!' 
No,  not  for  nothing.  Behind,  around,  before,  it  is  one  huge  Pre- 
^  ternatural  Puppet-play  of  Plots  ;  Pitt  pulling  the  wires.*  Almost 
I  conjecture  that  I  Camille  myself  am  a  Plot,  and  wooden  with 
wires. — The  force  of  insight  could  no  further  go. 

Be  this  as  it  will,  History  remarks  that  the  Commission  of 
Twelve,  now  clear  enough  as  to  the  Plots ;  and  luckily  having 
\  got  the  threads  of  them  all  by  the  end,'  as  they  say,— are  launch- 
mg  Mandates  of  Arrest  rapidly  in  these  May  days ;  and  carrymg 
matters  with  a  high  hand  ;  resolute  that  the  sea  of  troubles  shall 
be  restrained.  What  chief  Patriot,  Section-President  even,  is 
safe  They  can  arrest  him  ;  tear  him  from  his  warm  bed,  because 
he  has  made  irregular  Section  Arrestments  !  They  arrest  Varlet 
rVpostle  of  Liberty.  They  arrest  Procureur- Substitute  Hebert, 
Pere  Diichesne ;  a  Magistrate  of  the  People,  sitting  in  Townhall ; 
who,  with  high  solemnity  of  martyrdom,  takes  leave  of  his  col- 
leagues ;  prompt  he,  to  obey  the  Law ;  and  solemnly  acquiescent, 
disappears  into  prison. 

The  swifter  fly  the  Sections,  energetically  demanding  him  back; 
demanding  not  arrestment  of  Popular  Magistrates,  but  of  a  traitor- 
ous Twfenty-two.  Section  comes  flying  after  Section  --defiling 
energetic,  with  their  Cambyses'  vein  of  oratory  :  nay  the  Com- 
mune Itself  comes,  with  Mayor  Pache  at  its  head  ;  and  with 
question  not  of  Hebert  and  the  Twenty-two  alone,  but  with  this 
ominous  old  question  made  new,  Can  you  save  the  Repubhc,  or 
must  we  do  it.?''  To  whom  President  Max  Jsnard  makes  fiery 
answer  :  If  by  fatal  chance,  in  any  of  those  tumults  which  since 
the  Tenth  of  March  are  ever  returning,  Paris  were  to  lift  a  sacri- 
legious finger  against  the  National  Representation,  France  would 
rise  as  one  man,  in  never-imagined  vengeance,  and  shortly  "the 
traveller  would  ask,  on  which  side  of  the  Seine  Paris  had  stood  !"[• 
Whereat  the  Mountain  bellows  only  louder,  and  every  Gallery  ; 
Patriot  Paris  boiling  round. 

And  Girondin  Valaze  has  nightly  conclaves  at  his  house  ;  sends 
billets,  '  Come  punctually,  and  well  armed,  for  there  is  to  be  busi- 
ness.' And  Megccra  women  perambulate  the  streets,  with  flags, 
with  lamentable  allclcH.\  And  the  Convention-doors  are  ob- 
structed by  roaring  multitudes  :  fine-spoken  hommes  cVdtat  are 
hustled,  maltreated,  as  they  pass  •  Marat  will  apostrophise  you,  in 
such  death-peril,  and  say,Thou  too  art  o£them.  If  Roland  ask  leave 
to  quit  J'ans,  there  is  order  of  the  day.  What  help.?  Substitute 
Hebert,  Apostle  Varlet,  must  be  given  back  ;  to  be  crowned  with 

*  See  Hist  aire  de.s  IJrissolins,  par  Camille  Desmoulins  (a  Pamphlet  of 
Caniille's,  Paris,  1793). 

t  Monitcur,  Seance  du  25  Mai,  1793. 

t  Meillan,  Memoires,  p.  195 ;  Buzoi,  pp.  69,  84. 


EX  n ACT.  Ill 


oak-garlands.  The  Commission  of  Twelve,  in  a  Convention  over- 
whelmed with  roaring  Sections,  is  broken;  then  on  the  morrow,  in 
a  Convention  of  rallied  Girondins,  is  reinstated.  Dim  Chaos,  or 
the  sea  of  troubles,  is  struggling  through  all  its  elements  ;  writhing 
and  chafing  towards  some  creation. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EXTINCT. 

Accordingly,  on  Friday,  the  Thirty-first  of  May  1793,  there 

comes  forth  into  the  summer  sunlight  one  of  the  strangest  scenes. 
Major  Pache  with  Municipality  arrives  at  the  Tuileries  Hall  of 
Convention  ;  sent  for,  Paris  being  in  visible  ferment  ;  and  gives 
the  strangest  news. 

How,  in  the  grey  of  this  morning,  while  we  sat  Permanent  in 
Townhall,  watchful  for  the  commonweal,  there  entered,  precisely 
as  on  a  Tenth  of  August,  some  Ninety-six  extraneous  persons  ;  who 
declared  themselves  to  be  in  a  state  of  Insurrection  ;  to  be  plenipo- 
tentiary Commissioners  from  the  Forty-eight  Sections,  sections  or 
members  of  the  Sovereign  People,  all  in  a  state  of  Insurrection  ; 
and  further  that  we,  in  the  name  of  said  Sovereign  in  Insurrec- 
tion, were  dismissed  from  office.  How  we  thereupon  laid  off  our 
sashes,  and  withdrew  into  the  adjacent  Saloon  of  Liberty.  How 
in  a  moment  or  two,  we  were  called  back  ;  and  reinstated  ;  the 
Sovereign  pleasing  to  think  us  still  worthy  of  confidence.  Where- 
by, having  taken  new  oath  of  office,  we  on  a  sudden  find  ourselves 
Insurrectionary  Magistrates,  with  extraneous  Committee  of  Ninety- 
six  sitting  by  us  ;  and  a  Citoyen  Henriot,  one  whom  some  accuse 
of  Septemberism,  is  made  Generalissimo  of  the  National  Guard  ; 
and,  since  six  o'clock,  the  tocsins  ring  and  the  drums  beat  : — 
Under  which  peculiar  circumstances,  what  would  an  august 
National  Convention  please  to  direct  us  to  do  ?  ^ 

Yes,  there  is  the  question  !  "  Break  the  Insurrectionary 
Authorities,"  answers  some  with  vehemence.  Vergniaud  at  least 
will  have  the  National  Representatives  all  die  at  their  post  ; " 
this  is  sworn  to,  with  ready  loud  acclaim.  But  as  to  breaking  the 
Insurrectionary  Authorities, — alas,  while  we  yet  debate,  what  sound 
is  that?  Sound  of  the  Alarm-Cannon  on  the  Pont  Neuf  ;  which  it 
is  death  by  the  Law  to  fire  without  order  from  us  ! 

It  does  boom  off  there,  nevertheless  ;  sending  a  sound  through 
all  hearts.  And  the  tocsins  discourse  stern  music  ;  and  Henriot 
with  his  Armed  F'orce  has  enveloped  us  !  And  Section  succeeds 
Section,  the  lifelong  day  ;  demanding  with  Cambyses' -oratory, 
with  the  rattle  of  muskets,  That  traitors.  Twenty-two  or  more,  be 

*  Compare /AV^,7/.c  de  l<t  Convcution  (Paris,  1828),  iv^  187-223;  M&nifeur, 
'  -  152.  3.  4.  An  icv  . 


112 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


punished  ;  that  the  Commission  of  Twelve  be  irrecoverably  broken. 
The  heart  of  the  Gironde  dies  within  it  ;  distant  are  the  Seventy- 
two  respectable  Departments,  this  fiery  Municipality  is  near ! 
Barrere  is  for  a  middle  course  ;  granting  something.  The  Com- 
mission of  Twelve  declares  that,  not  waiting  to  be  broken,  it  hereby 
breaks  itself,  and  is  no  more.  Fain  would  Reporter  Rabaut  speak 
his  and  its  last-words;  but  he  is  bellowed  off.  Too  happy  that 
the  Twenty-two  are  still  left  unviolated  !--*Vergniaud,  carrying  the 
laws  of  refinement  to  a  great  length,  moves,  to  the  amazement  of 
some,  that  '  the  Sections  of  Paris  have  deserved  well  of  their 
'country.'  Whereupon,  at  a  late  hour  of  the  evening,  the 
deserving  Sections  retire  to  their  respective  Dlaces  of  abode. 
Barrere  shall  report  on  it.  With  busy  quill  and  brain  he  sits, 
secluded  ;  for  him  no  sleep  to-night.  Friday  the  last  of  May  has 
ended  in  this  manner. 

The  Sections  have  deserved  well  :  but  ought  they  not  to  deserve 
better?  Faction  and  Girondism  is  struck  down  for  the  momeni;, 
and  consents  to  be  a  nullity  ;  but  will  it  not,  at  another  favourabler 
moment  rise,  still  feller  ;  and  the  Republic  have  to  be  saved  in 
spite  of  it?  So  reasons  Patriotism,  still  Permanent;  so  reasons 
the  Figure  of  Marat,  visible  in  the  dim  Section-world,  on  the 
morrow.  To  the  conviction  of  men  !— And  so  at  eventide  of 
Saturday,  when  Barrere  had  just  got  it  all  varnished  in  the  course 
of  the  day,  and  his  Report  was  setting  off  in  the  evening  mail-bags, 
tocsm  peals  out  ^z^^/;^ Generale  \'s>h^2Xmg  \  armed  men  takmg 
station  in  the  Place  Vendome  and  elsewhere  for  the  night ;  sup- 
plied with  provisions  and  liquor.  There  under  the  summer  stars 
will  they  wait,  this  night,  what  is  to  be  seen  and  to  be  done,  Henriot 
and  Townhall  giving  due  signal. 

The  Convention,  at  sound  of  gcnerale,  hastens  back  to  its  Hall ; 
but  to  the  number  only  r»f  a  Hundred  ;  and  does  little  business, 
puts  off  business  till  the  morrow.  The  Girondins  no  not  stir  out 
thither,  the  Girondins  are  abroad  seeking  beds.  Poor  Rabaut,  on 
the  morrow  morning,  returning  to  his  post,  with  Louvet  and  some 
others,  through  streets  all  in  ferment,  wrings  his  hands,  ejaculating, 

Ilia  siiprcma  diesi''^  It  has  become  Sunday,  the  second  day  of 
June,  year  1793,  by  the  old  style  ;  l)y  the  new  style,  year  One  of 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity.  We  have  gol  to  the  last  scene  of 
all,  that  ends  this  history  of  the  Girondin  Senatorship. 

It  seems  doubtful  whether  any  terrestrial  Convention  had  ever 
met  in  such  circumstances  as  this  National  one  now  does.  Tocsin 
is  pealing  ;  Barriers  shut  ;  all  Paris  is  on  the  gaze,  or  under  arms. 
As  many  as  a  Hundred  Thousand  under  arms  they  count  :  Na- 
tional Force  ;  and  the  Armed  Volunteers,  who  should  have  flown 
to  the  Frontiers  and  La  Vendee  ;  but  would  not,  treason  being 
unpunished  ;  and  only  flew  hither  and  thither  !  So  many,  steadv 
under  arms,  environ  the  National  Tuileries  and  Garden.  There 
are  horse,  foot,  artillery,  sappers  with  beards  :  the  artillery  one 
Louvet,  Mdmoipcs,  p.  89. 


EXTINCT. 


113 


can  see  with  their  camp-furnaces  in  this  National  Garden,  heating 
bullets  red,  and  their  match  is  lighted.  Henriot  in  plumes  rides, 
amid  a  plumed  Staff :  all  posts  and  issues  are  safe ;  reserves  lie 
out,  as  far  as  the  Woods  of  Boulogne;  the  choicest  Patriots  nearest 
the'scene.  One  other  circumstance  we  will  note:  that  a  careful 
Municipahty,liberal  of  camp-furnaces,  has  not  forgotten  provision- 
carts.  No  member  of  the  Sovereign  need  now  go  home  to  dinner; 
but  can  keep  rank,— plentiful  victual  circulating  unsought.  Does 
not  this  People  understand  Insurrection  ?  Ye,  not  uninventive, 
Gualchcs  ! — 

Therefore  let  a  National  Representation,  '  mandatories  of  the 
'  Sovereign,'  take  thought  of  it.  Expulsion  of  your  Twenty-two, 
and  your  Commission  of  Twelve :  we  stand  here  till  it  be  done ! 
Deputation  after  Deputation,  in  ever  stronger  language,  comes 
with  that  message.  Barrere  proposes  a  middle  course  :— Will  not 
perhaps  the  inculpated  Deputies  consent  to  w^ithdraw  voluntarily  ; 
to  make  a  generous  demission,  and  self-sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
one's  country  }  Isnard,  repentant  of  that  search  on  which  river- 
bank  Paris  stood,  declares  himself  ready  to  demit.  Ready  also  is 
Te-Deum  Fauchet ;  old  Dusaulx  of  the  Bastille,  '  vienx  radoteur^ 
'  old  dotard,'  as  Marat  calls  him,  is  still  readier.  On  the  con- 
trary, Lanjuinais  the  Breton  declares  that  there  is  one  man  who 
never  will  demit  voluntarily ;  but  will  protest  to  the  uttermost, 
while  a  voice  is  left  him.  And  he  accordingly  goes  on  protesting  ; 
amid  rage  and  clangor;  Legendre  crying  at  last :  '  Lanjuinais, 
come  down  from  the  Tribune,  or  I  will  fling,  thee  down,  ou  je  te 
jette  en  bas  !  "  For  matters  are  come  to  extremity.  Nay  they  do 
clutch  hold  of  Lanjuinais,  certain  zealous  mountain •  men  ;  but 
cannot  fling  him  down,  for  he  '  cramps  himself  on  the  railing  ;'  and 
*  his  clothes  get  torn.'  Brave  Senator,  worthy  of  pity  !  Neither 
will  Barbaroux  demit ;  he  "  has  sworn  to  die  at  his  post,  and  will 
keep  that  oath."  Whereupon  the  Galleries  all  rise  with  explosion, 
brandishing  weapons,  some  of  them,  and  rush  out  saying: 

Allans,  then  ;  we  must  save  our  country  !  "  Such  a  Session  is 
this  of  Sunday  the  second  of  June. 

Churches  fill,  over  Christian  Europe,  and  then  empty  them- 
selves ;  but  this  convention  empties  not,  the  while  :  a  day  of 
shrieking  contention,  of  agony,  humiliation  and  tearing  of  coat- 
skirts  ;  illasupreina  dies  !  Round  stand  Henriot  and  his  Hundred 
Thousand,  copiously  refreshed  from  tray  and  basket :  nay,  he  is 
'  distributing  live  francs  a-piece  ;'  we  Girondins  sa^y  it  with  our 
eyes  ;  five  francs  to  keep  them  in  heart !  And  distraction  of  armed 
riot  encumbers  our  borders,  jangles  at  our  Bar ;  \Ye  are  prisoners 
in  our  own  Hall :  Bishop  Gregoire  could  not  get  out  for  a  besoin 
actuel  without  four  gendarni^es  to  wait  on  him !  What  is  the 
character  of  a  National  Representative  become  ?  And  now  the 
sunlight  falls  yellower  on  western  windows,  and  the  chimney-tops 
are  flinging  longer  shadows;  the  refreshed  Hundred  Thousand, 
nor  their  shadows,  stir  not !  What  to  resol  ;eon?  .  Motion  rises, 
'^nperfluous  one  would  thinks  TOat  the  Convention  go  forth  in  a 

')dy  ;  ascertain  with  its  own  eyes  whether  it  is  free  or  not.  Lo, 


THE  GIRONDINS. 


therefore,  from  the  Eastern  Gate  of  the  Tuileries,  a  distressed 
Convention  issuing  ;  handsome  Herault  Sechelles  at  their  head  ; 
he  with  hat  on,  in  sign  of  pubhc  calamity,  the  rest  bareheaded,— 
towards  the  Gat:  of  the  Carrousel;  wondrous  to  see:  towards 
Henriot  and  his  plumed  staff.  In  the  name  of  the  National 
Convention,  make  way  V  Not  an  inch  of  the  way  does  Henriot 
make  :  "  I  receive  no  orders,  till  the  Sovereign,  yours  and  mine, 
has  been  obeyed."  The  Convention  presses  on  ;  Henriot  prances 
back,  with  his  staff,  some  fifteen  paces,  "  To  arms  1  Cannoneers 
to  your  guns  flashes  out  his  puissant  sword,  as  :h'j  Staff  all  do, 
and  the  Hussars  all  do.  Cannoneers  brandish  the  lit  match ; 
Infantry  present  arms, — alas,  in  the  level  way,  as  if  for  firing  ! 
Hatted  Herault  leads  his  distressed  Hock,  through  their  pinfold  of 
a  Tuileries  again  ;  across  the  Garden,  to  the  Ja:o  on  the  opposite 
side.  H  ere  is  Feuillans  Terrace,  alas,  there  is  our  old  Salle 
de  Manege  ;  but  neither  at  this  Gate  of  the  Pont  Tournant  is 
there  egress.  Try  the  other  ;  and  the  other  :  no  egress  :  We 
wander  disconsolate  through  armed  ranks  i  who  indeed  salute 
with  Livj  the  Republic,  but  also  with  Die  the  Gironde.  Other  such 
sight,  in  the  year  One  of  Liberty,  the  westering  sun  never  saw. 

And  now  behold  Marat  meets  ns  ;  for  he  lagged  in  this  Suppliant 
Procession  of  ours  :  he  has  got  some  hundred  elect  Patriots  at  his 
heels  :  he  orders  us  in  the  Sovereign's  name  to  return  to  our  place, 
and  do  as  we  are  bidden  and  bound.  The  Convention  returns. 
"  Does  not  the  Convention,"  says  Couthon  with  a  singular  power 
of  face, see  that  it  is  free  .^^ ''—none  but- friends  round  it  ?  The 
Convention,  overflowing  with  friends  and  armed  Sectioners,  pro- 
ceeds to  vote  as  bidden.  Many  will  not  vote,  but  remain  silent ; 
some  oiic  or  .wo  protest^  in  v^ord^  :  the  Mountain  has  a  clear 
unanimity.  Commission  of  Twelve,  and  the  denounced  Twenty- 
two,  to  whom  we  add  Ey-Ministers  Claviere  and  Lebrun  :  these, 
with  come  I'ight  jxtci/iporc  alterations  (this  or  that  orator  pro- 
posing, but  i.iarat  disposing),  are  voted  to  be  under  "^Arrestment 
^  in  their  own  Iiouses.'  Brissoi,  Buzot,  Vcrgniaud,  Guadet,  ^..uvet, 
Gensonne,  Barbaroux,  Lasourc^;,  Lanjuinaie,  Rabaut, — Thirty-two, 
by  the  tale  ;  all  that  v/e  hav::  kno\\  n  as  Girondins,  and  more  than 
we  have  known.  They,  ^  under  the  safeguard  of  the  French  People 
by  and  by,  under  the  safeguara  of  .  ./^"Gendarmes  each,  snail  dwell 
peaceably  in  their  own  houses :  ai:>  Non-Senators  \  till  further 
order.    Herewith  ends  Seance  of  Sunday  the  second  of  June  1/9;:;. 

At  ten  o'clock,  under  mild  stars,  the  Hundred  Hiousand,  their 
work  well  finished,  turn  homewai'ds.  This  same  day,  Ccnti  ;  ! 
Insurrection  "Committee  has  arrested  Madnme  Roland  ;  im- 
prisoned her  in  the  Abbaye.  Roland  has  fled,  no  one  knows 
whither. 

Thus  fell  the  Girondins,  by  Insurrection  ;  and  became  extinct  a  . 
a  Party  :  not  without  a  sigh  from  most  Historians.    The  men  wci 
men  of  j^arts,  of  Philosophic  culture,  decent  behaviour  ;  not  con 
flemnable  in  that  they  were  Pedants  and  had  not  better  parti.  ; 
rot  condemnable,  but  most  unfortunate.    They  wanted  a  Republic 


EXTINCT.  1^5 


''V  the  Virtues,  wherein  themselves  should  be  head  ;  and  they 
could  only  get  a  Republic  of  the  Strengths,  wherein  others  than 

they  were  head.  r        -t-u      •  i.*. 

For  the  rest,  Barrfere  shall  make  Report  of  it.  The  night 
con-ludes  with  a  '  civic  promenade  by  torchlight :  *  surely  tne 
true  reign  of  Fraternity  is  now  not  far  ? 

*  Riirot  Mimotres  n  qio.    See  Pieces  Justificatives,  of  Narratives  Coin- 

BisU  Pari,  xxviii.  i-ySi 


ii6 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

TERROR. 


CHAPTER  I. 

CHARLOTTE  CORDAY. 

In  the  leafy  months  of  Juue  and  July,  several  French  Depart- 
ments germinate  a  set  of  rebellious  ^^/<?r-leaves,  named  Procla- 
mations, Resolutions,  Journals,  or  Diurnals  '  of  the  Union  for 

*  Resistance  to  Oppression.'  In  particular,  the  Town  of  Caen,  in 
Calvados,  sees  its  paper-leaf  of  Bulletin  de  Caen  suddenly  bud, 
suddenly  establish  itself  as  Newspaper  there ;  under  the  Editor- 
ship of  Girondin  National  Representatives  ! 

For  among  the  proscribed  Girondins  are  certain  of  a  more 
desperate  humour.  Some,  as  Vergniaud,  Valaze,  Gensonne, 
'  arrested  in  their  own  houses  '  will  await  with  stoical  resignation 
w4iat  the  issue  may  be.  Some,  as  Brissot,  Rabaut,  will  take  to 
flight,  to  concealment ;  which,  as  the  Paris  Barriers  are  opened 
again  in  a  day  or  two,  is  not  yet  difficult.  But  others  there  are 
who  will  rush,  with  Buzot,  to  Calvados  ;  or  far  over  France,  ^ 
Lyons,  Toulon,  Nantes  and  elsewhither,  and  then  rendezvous'  at 
Caen  :  to  awaken  as  with  war-trumpet  the  respectable  Depart- 
ments ;  and  strike  down  an  anarchic  Mountain  Faction  ;  at  least 
not  yield  without  a  stroke  at  it.  Of  this  latter  temper  we  count 
some  score  or  more,  of  the  Arrested,  and  of  the  Not-yet-arrested 
a  ljuzot,  a  Barbaroux,  Louvet,  Guadet,  Petion,  w^ho  have  escaped 
from  Arrestment  in  their  own  homes;  a  Salles,  a  Pythagorean 
Valady,  a  Duchatel,  the  Duchatel  that  came  in  blanket  and  night 
cap  to  vote  for  the  life  of  Louis,  who  have  escaped  from  dange 
and  likelihood  of  arrestment.  These,  to  the  number  at  one  tim 
of  Twenty- seven,  do  accordingly  lodge  here,  at  the  *  Intendance 

*  or  Departmental  Mansion,'  of  the  Town  of  Caen  ;  welcomed  b 
Persons  in  Authority  ;  welcomed  and  defrayed,  having  no  mone 
of  their  own.  And  the  Jrullefm  de  Caen  comes  forth,  with  th 
most  animating  paragraphs:  Mow  the  Bourdeaux  Department 
the  Lyons  Department,  this  Department  after  the  other  is  declar- 
ing itself :  sixty,  or  say  sixty-nine,  or  seventy-two*  respectable 

*  Meillan,  p.  72,  73  ;  Louvet,  p.  129. 


117 


Departments  either  dec-laring,  or  ready  to  declare.  Nay  Marseilles, 
it  seems,  will  march  on  Paris  by  itself,  if  need  be.  So  has  Mar 
seilles  Town  said,  That  she  will  march.  But  on  the  other  hand^ 
that  Montelimart  Town  has  said,  No  thoroughfare  ;  and  means 
even  to  *  bury  herself '  under  her  own  stone  and  m.ortar  first— of 
this  be  no  mention  in  Bulletin  of  Caen. 

Such  animating  paragraphs  we  read  in  this  new  Newspaper  ; 
and  fervours,  and  eloquent  sarcasm  :  tirades  against  the  Moun- 
tain, from  the  pen  of  Deputy  Salles  ;  which  resemble,  say  friends, 
Pascal's  Provincials .  What  is  more  to  the  purpose,  these 
Girondins  have  got  a  General  in  chief,  one  Wimpfen,  formerly 
under  Dumouriez  ;  also  a  secondary  questionable  General 
Pui^aye,  and  others  ;  and  are  doing  their  best  to  raise  a  force  for 
war.  National  Volunteers,  whosoever  is  of  right  heart :  gather  in, 
ye  National  Volunteers,  friends  of  Liberty  ;  from  our  Calvados 
Townships,  from  the  Eure,  from  Brittany,  from  far  and  near  ; 
forward  to  Paris,  and  extinguish  Anarchy  !  Thus  at  Caen,  in  the 
early  July  days,  there  is  a  drumming  and  parading,  a  perorating 
and  consulting  :  Staff  and  Army  ;  Council  ;  Club  of  Carabois^ 
Anti-jacobin  friends  of  Freedom,  to  denounce  atrocious  Marat. 
With  all  which,  and  the  editing  of  Bidletins^  a  National  Repre- 
sentative has  his  hands  full.  * 

At  Caen  it  is  most  animated  ;  and,  as  one  hopes,  more  or  less 
animated  in  the  ^  Seventy-two  Departments  that  adhere  to  us.' 
And  in  a  France  begirt  with  Cimmerian  invading  Coalitions,  and 
torn  with  an  internal  La  Vendee,  this  is  the  conclusion  we  have 
arrived  at  :  To  put  down  Anarchy  by  Civil  War  !  Diiriiin  H 
duriini^  the  Proverb  says,  non  faciit7tt  nmritm.  La  Vendee  burns  : 
Santerre  can  do  nothing  there  ;  he  may  return  home  and, brew 
beer.  Cimmerian  bombshells  fly  all  along  the  North.  Tha.t  Siege 
of  Mentz  is  become  famed  ; — lovers  of  the  Picturesque  (as  Goethe 
will  testify),  washed  country-people  of  both  sexes,  stroll  thither  on 
Sundays,  to  see  the  artillery  work  and  counterwork  ;  ^  you  only 
^  duck  a  little  while  the  shot  whizzes  past.'^  Conde  is  capitula- 
ting to  the  Austrians  ;  Royal  Highness  of  York,  these  several 
weeks,  fiercely  batters  Valenciennes.  For,  alas,  our  fortified  Camp 
of  Famars  was  stormed  ;  General  Dampierre  was  killed  ;  General 
Custines  was  blamed, — and  indeed  is  now  come  to  Paris  to  give 
^  explanations.' 

Against  all  which  the  Mountain  and  atrocious  Marat  must  even 
make  head  as  they  can.  They,  anarchic  Convention  as  they  are, 
publish  Decrees,  expostulatory,  explanatory,  yet  not  without 
severity  ;  they  ray  forth  Commissioners,  singly  or  in  pairs,  the 
olive-branch  in  one  hand,  yet  the  sword  in  the  other.  Com- 
missioners come  even  to  Caen  ;  but  without  effect.  Mathemati- 
cal Romme,  and  Prieur  named  of  the  Cote  d'Or,  venturing  thither, 
with  their  olive  and  sword,  are  packed  into  prison  :  there  may 
Romme  lie.  under  lock  and  key,  '  for  fifty  days  ; '  and  meditate  his 
New  Calendar,  if  he  please.  Cimmeria  and  Civil  War  !  Never 
was  Republic  One  and  Indivisible  at  a  lower  ebb. — 

*  Belagerujig  von  Mainz  (Goethe's  Wcrke,  xxx.  278-334). 


TERROR. 


Amid  which  dim  ferment  of  Caen  and  the  World,  History  spe- 
cially notices  one  thing  :  in  the  lobby  of  the  Mansion  de  I'/nten- 
dance,  where  busy  Deputies  are  coming  and  going,  a  young  Lady 
with  an  aged  valet,  taking  grave  graceful  leave  of  Deputy  Bar- 
baroux.^  She  is  of  stately  Norman  figure  ;  in  her  tweniy-fifth 
year  of  beautiful  still  countenance  :  her  name  is  Charlotte  Cor- 
day,  heretofore  styled  d'Armans,  while  Nobility  still  was.  Barba^ 
roux  has  given  her  a  Note  to  Deputy  Duperret,— him  who  once 
drew  his  sword  in  the  effervescence.  Apparently  she  will  to  Paris 
on  some  errand  ?  '  She  was  a  Repubhcan  before  the  Revolution, 
'  and  never  wanted  energy.'  A  completeness,  a  decision  is  in  this 
fair  female  Figure  :  '  by  energy  she  means  the  spirit  that  will 
'  prompt  one  to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  country.'  What  if  she, 
this  fair  young  Charlotte,  had  emerged  from  her  secluded  still- 
ness, suddenly  like  a  Star  ;  cruel-lovely,  with  half-angelic,  half- 
demonic  splendour  ;  to  gleam  for  a  moment,  and  in  a  moment  be 
extinguished  :  to  be  held  in  memory,  so  bright  complete  was  she, 
through  long  centuries  !— Quitting  Cimmerian  Coalitions  without, 
and  the  dim-simmering  Twenty-five  millions  within.  History  will 
look  fixedly  at  this  one  fair  Apparition  of  a  Charlotte  Corday  ; 
will  note  whither  Charlotte  moves,  ow  the  little  Life  burns  forth 
so  radiant,  then  vanishes  swallowed  of  the  Night. 

With  Barbaroux's  Note  of  Introduction,  and  slight  stock  of 
luggage,  we  see  Charlotte,  on  Tuesday  the  ninth  of  July,  seated 
in  the  Caen  Diligence,  with  a  place  for  Paris.  None  takes  fare- 
well of  her,  wishes  her  Good-journey  :  her  Father  will  find  a  line 
left,  signifying  that  she  is  gone  to  England,  that  he  must  pardon 
her  and  forget  her.  The  drowsy  Diligence  lumbers  along ;  amid 
drowsii  talk  of  PoHtics,  and  praise  of  the  Mountain  ;  in  which  she 
mingles  not  ;  all  night,  all  day,  and  again  all  night.  On  Thurs- 
day, not  long  before  noon,  we  are  at  the  Bridge  of  Neuilly  ;  here 
is  Paris  with  her  thousand  black  domes,~the  goal  and  purpose  of 
thy  journey  !  Arrived  at  the  Inn  de  la  Providence  in  the  Rue  des 
Vieux  Augustins,  Charlotte  demands  a  room;  hastens  to  bed; 
sleeps  all  afternoon  and  night,  till  the  morrow  morning. 

(Jn  the  morrow  morning,  she  delivers  her  Note  to  Duperret.  It 
relates  to  certain  Family  Papers  which  are  in  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior's  hand  ;  which  a  Nun  at  Caen,  an  old  Convent-friend  of 
Charlotte's,  has  need  of ;  which  Duperret  shall  assist  her  in  get- 
ting :  this  then  was  Charlotte's  errand  to  Paris  She  has  finished 
this,  m  the  course  of  Friday  ;— yet  says  nothing  of  returning.  She 
Ikis  seen  and  silently  investigated  several  things.  The  Convention, 
in  bodily  reality,  she  has  seen  ;  what  the  Mountain  is  like.  The 
living  physiognomy  of  Marat  she  could  not  see  ;  he  is  sick  at 
jjresent,  and  confme'd  to  home. 

About  eight  on  the  Saturday  morning,  she  purchases  a  large 
sheath-knife  in  the  Palais  Royal  ;  then  straightway,  in  the  Place 
des  Victoires,  takes  a  hackney-coach  :  To  the  Rue  de  I'Ecole  de 
Medecine,  No.  44."  It  is  the  residence  of  the  Citoyen  Marai  '  - 
The  Citoyen  Marat  is  ill,  and  cannot  be  seen  ;  which  seems  to 
*  Meillan,  p.  75;  Louvet,  p.  114. 


CHARLOTTE  CORD  AY. 


119 


disappoint  her  much.  -  Her  business  is  with  Marat,  then  ?  Hap- 
less beautiful  Charlotte  ;  hapless  squalid  Marat  !  From  Caen  in 
the  utmost  West,  from  Neuchatel  in  the  utmost  East,  they  two  are 
drawing  nigh  each  other  ;  they  two  have,  very  strangely,  business 
together. —  Charlotte,  returning  to  her  Inn,  despatches  a  short  Note 
to  Marat  ;  signifying  that  she  is  from  Caen,  the  seat  of  rebellion  ; 
that  she  desires  earnestly  to  see  him,  and  '  will  put  it  in  his  power 
*  to  do  France  a  great  service.'  No  answer.  Charlotte  writes 
another  Note^  still  more  pressing  ;  sets  out  with  it  by  coach,  about 
seven  in  the  evening,  herself.  Tired  day-labourers  have  again 
finished  their  Week  ;  huge  Paris  is  circling  and  simmering,  mani- 
fold, according  to  its  vague  wont  :  this  one  fair  f^igure  has  decision 
in  it  ;  drives  straight, — towards  a  purpose. 

It  is  yellow  July  evening,  we  say,  the  thirteenth  of  the  month  ; 
eve  of  the  Bastille  day, — when  *  M.  Marat,'  four  years  ago,  in  the 
crowd  of  the  Pont  Neuf,  shrewdly  required  of  that  Besenval 
Hussar-party,  which  had  such  friendly  dispositions,  to  dismount, 
and  give  up  their  arms,  then  ;  "  and  became  notable  among  Patriot 
men  !  Four  years  :  what  a  road  he  has  travelled  ; — and  sits  now, 
about  half-past  seven  of  the  clock,  stewing  in  slipper-bath  ;  sore 
afflicted  ;  ill  of  Revolution  Fever, — of  what  other  malady  this 
History  had  rather  not  name.  Excessively  sick  and  worn,  poor 
man  :  with  precisely  elevenpence-halfpenny  of  ready  money,  in 
paper  ;  with  slipper-bath  ;  strong  three-footed  stool  for  writing  on, 
the  while  ;  and  a  squalid — Washerwoman,  one  may  c^ill  her  :  that 
is  his  civic  establishment  in  Medical-School  Street ;  thither  and 
not  elsewhither  has  his  road  led  him.  Not  to  the  reign  of  Brother- 
hood and  Perfect  Felicity  ;  yet  surely  on  the  way  towards  that  ? 
- — Hark,  a  rap  again  !  A  musical  woman's-voice,  refusing  to  be 
rejected  :  it  is  the  Citoynne  who  would  do  France  a  service. 
Marat,  recognising  from  within,  cries.  Admit  her.  Charlotte  Cor- 
day  is  admitted. 

Citoyen  Marat,  I  am  from  Caen  the  seat  of  rebellion,  and 
wished  to  speak  with  you. — Be  seated,  7?ion  enfant.  Now  what 
are  the  Traitors  doing  at  Caen  ?  What  Deputies-  are  at  Caen? — 
Charlotte  names  some  Deputies.  "  Their  heads  shall  fall  within 
a  fortnight,"  croaks  the  eager  People's-Friend,  clutching  his  tab- 
lets to  write  :  Barbaroux,  Petion^  writes  he  with  bare  shrunk  arm, 
turning  aside  in  the  bath  :  Petion,,  and  Louvet,  and — Charlotte 
has  drawn  her  knife  from  the  sheath  ;  plunges  it,  with  one  sure 
stroke,  into  the  writer's  heart.  ''A  moi,  chere  atnic^  Help,  dear 
no  more  could  the  Death-choked  say  or  shriek.  The  helpful 
W^asberwoman  running  in,  there  is  no  Friend  of  the  People,  or 
Friend  of  the  Washerwoman,  left ;  but  his  life  with  a  groan  gushes 
out,  indignant,  to  the  shades  below. 

And  so  Marat  People's-Friend  is  ended  ;  the  lone  Stylites  has 
got  hurled  down  suddenly  from  his  Pillar,-— w/f/M^r  He  that  made 
him  does  know.  Patriot  Paris  may  sound  triple  and  tenfold,  in 
dole  and  wnil  ;  re-echoed  by  Patriot  France  ;  and  the  Convention, 

*  Mo7utcur,  Nos.  197,  198,  199 ;  Hist,  Pari,  xxviii.  301-5  ;  Deux  Amis,  Sc 
868-374. 


I20 


TERROR, 


'  Chabot  pale  with  terror  declaring  that  they  are  to  be  all  assassin^ 
'ated/  may  decree  him  Pantheon  Honours,  Pubhc  Funeral, 
Mirabeau's  dust  maKmg  way  for  him  ;  and  Jacobin  Societies,  in 
lamentable  oratory,  summing  up  his  characterj'^parallel  him  to  One, 
whom  they  think  it  honour  to  call  '  the  good  Sansculotte,'— whom 
we  name  not  here.^  Also  a  Chapel  may  be  made,  for  the  urn 
that  holds  his  Heart,  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel ;  and  new-born 
children  be  named  Marat  ;  and  Lago-de-Como  Hawkers  bake 
mountains  of  stucco  into  unbeautiful  Busts  ;  and  David  paint  his 
Picture,  or  Death-scene  ;  and  such  other  Apotheosis  take  place  as 
the  human  genius,  in  these  circumstances,  can  devise  :  but  Marat 
returns  no  more  to  the  light  of  this  Sun.  One  sole  circumstance 
we  have  read  with  clear  sympathy,  in  the  old  Moniie7ir  News- 
paper :  how  Marat's  brother  comes' from  Neuchatel  to  ask  of  the 
Convention  '  that  the  deceased  Jean-Paul  Marat's  musket  be  given 
*  him.'t  For  Marat  too  had  a  brother,  and  natural  affections  ; 
and  was  wrapt  once  in  swaddling-clothes,  and  slept  safe  in  a 
cradle  like  the  rest  of  us.  Ye  children  of  men  ! — A  sister  of  his, 
they  say,  lives  still  to  this  day  in  Paris. 

As  for  Charlotte  Corday  her  work  is  accomplished  ;  the  recom- 
pense of  it  is  near  and  sure.  The  chere  amie,  and  neighbours  of 
the  house,  flying  at  her,  she  '  overturns  some  movables,'  entrenches 
herself  till  the  gendarmes  arrive  ;  then  quietly  surrenders  ;  goes 
quietly  to  the  Abbaye  Prison  :  she  alone  quiet,  all  Paris  sounding 
in  wonder,  hi  rage  or  admiration,  round  her.  Duperret  is  put  in 
arrest,  on  account  of  her  ;  his  Papers  sealed,— which  may  lead  to 
consequences.  Fauchet,  in  like  manner  ;  though  Fauchet  had  not 
so  much  as  heard  of  her.  Charlotte,  confronted  with  these  two 
Deputies,  praises  the  grave  firmness  of  Duperret,  censures  the 
dejection  of  Fauchet. 

On  Wednesday  morning,  the  thronged  Palais  de  Justice  and 
Revolutionary  Tribunal  can  see  her  face  ;  beautiful  and  calm  :  she 
dates  it  ^fourth  day  of  the  Preparation  of  Peace.'^  A  strange 
murmur  ran  through  the  Hall,  at  sight  of  her  ;  you  could  not  say 
of  what  character.;]:  Tinville  has  his  indictments  and  tape-papers 
the  cutler  of  the  Palais  Royal  will  testify  that  he  sold  iicr  the 
sheath-knife  ;  "  all  these  details  are  needless,"  interrupted  Char- 
lotte ;  "  it  is  I  that  killed  Marat."  By  whose  instigation  ?— "  By 
no  one's."  What  tempted  you,  then  ?  His  crimes.  "  I  killed  one 
man,"  added  she,  raising  her  voice  extremely  {extrememe7it)^  as 
they  went  on  with  their  questions,  "  I  killed  one  man  to  save  a 
hundred  thousand  ;  a  villain  to  save  innocents  ;  a  savage  wild- 
beast  to  give  repose  to  my  country.  I  was  a  Republican  before 
the  Revolution  ;  I  never  wanted  energy."  There  is  therefore  no- 
thing to  be  said.  I1ic  public  gazes  astonished  :  the  hasty  limners 
sketch  her  features,  Charlotte  not  disapproving  ;  the  men  of  law 
proceed  with  their  formalities.    The  doom  is  Death  as  a  mur- 

*  See  FJo(^e  funtbre  de  ycan-Panl  Marat,  prunonc^  {\  ShuubQuyg  (in  Bar* 
baroux,  p.  125-131);  Mcrcier,  &c. 

JScancie  du  16  JSeptembre  1793. 
Proctr^  dc  Charlotte  Corday,  cKc.  [Hist.  Pari,  xxviii.  311-338). 


12! 


deress.  To  her  Advocate  she  gives  thanks  ;  in  gentle  phrase,  in 
high-flown  classical  spirit.  To  the  Priest  they  send  her  she  gives 
thanks  ;  but  needs  not  any  shriving,  or  ghostly' or  other  aid  from 
him. 

On  this  same  evening,  therefore,  about  half-past  seven  o'clock, 
from  the  gate  of  the  Conciergerie,  to  a  City  all  on  tiptoe,  the  fatal 
Cart  issues  :  seated  on  it  a  fair  young  creature,  sheeted  in  red 
smock  of  Murderess  ;  so  beautiful,  serene,  so  full  of  life  ;  journey- 
ing towards  death, — alone  amid  the  world.  Many  take  off  their 
hats,  saluting  reverently  ;  for  what  heart  but  must  be  touched  P*^ 
Others  growl  and  howl.  Adam  Lux,  of  Mentz,  declares  that  she 
is  greater  than  Brutus  ;  that  it  were  beautiful  to  die  with  her  :  the 
head  of  this  young  man  seems  turned.  At  the  Place  de  la  Revo- 
lution, the  countenance  of  Charlotte  wears  the  same  still  smile. 
The  executioners  proceed  to  bind  her  feet  ;  she  resists,  thinking  it 
meant  as  an  insult ;  on  a  word  of  explanation,  she  submits  with 
cheerful  apology.  As  the  last  act,  all  being  now  ready,  they  take 
the  neckerchief  from  her  neck  :  a  blush  of  maidenly  shame  over- 
spreads that  fair  face  and  neck  ;  the  cheeks  were  still  tinged  with 
it,  when  the  executioner  lifted  the  severed  head,  to  shew  it  to  the 
people.    '  It  is  most  true,'  says  Foster,  '  that  he  struck  the  cheek 

*  insultingly ;  for  I  saw  it  with  my  eyes  :  the  Police  imprisoned 

*  him  for  it.'f 

In  this  manner  have  the  BeautifuUest  and  the  Squalidest  come 
in  collision,  and  extinguished  one  another.  Jean-Paul  Marat  and 
Marie- Anne  Charlotte  Cordayboth,  suddenly,  are  no  more.    *  Day 

*  of  the  Preparation  of  Peace  ? '  Alas,  how  were  peace  possible  or 
preparable,  while,  for  example,  the  hearts  of  lovely  Maidens,  in 
their  convent-stillness,  are  dreaming  not  of  Love-paradises,  and 
the  light  of  Life  ;  but  of  Codrus'-sacrifices,  and  death  well  earned  ? 
That  Twenty-five  million  hearts  have  got  to  such  temper,  this  is 
the  Anarchy  ;  the  soul  of  it  lies  in  this  :  whereof  not  peace  can  be 
the  embodyment  !  The  death  of  Marat,  whetting  old  animosities 
tenfold,  will  be  worse  than  any  hfe.  O  ye  hapless  Two,  mutually 
extinctive,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Squalid,  sleep  ye  well, — in  the 
Mother's  bosom  that  bore  you  both  ! 

This  was  the  History  of  Charlotte  Corday  ;  most  definite,  most 
complete  ;  angelic-demonic  :  like  a  Star  !  Adam  Lux  goes  home, 
half-delirious  ;  to  pour  forth  his  Apotheosis  of  her,  in  paper  and 
print  ;  to  propose  that  she  have  a  statue  with  this  inscription, 
Greater  than  Bruius.  Friends  represent  his  danger ;  Lux  is 
reckless  ;  thinks  it  were  beautiful  to  die  with  her. 


*  Deux  Amis,  x.  374-384.  f  Briefwechsd,  i.  508. 


222 


TERROR, 


CHAPTER  IL 

IN*   CIVIL  WAR. 

But  .during  these  same  hours,  another  guillotine  is  at  work^  on 
another :  Charlotte,  for  the  Girondins,  dies  at  Paris  to-day ; 
Chalier,  by  the  Girondins,  dies  at  Lyons  to-morrow. 

From  rumbling  of  cannon  along  the  streets  of  that  City,  it  has 
-come  to  firing  of  them,  to  rabid  fighting  :  Nievre  Choi  and  the 
Girondins  triumph  ; — behind  whom  there  is,  as  everywhere,  a 
Royalist  Faction  waiting  to  strike  in.  Trouble  enough  at  Lyons  ; 
and  the  dominant  party  carrying  it  with  a  high  hand  !  For,  indeed, 
the  whole  South  is  astir  ;  incarcerating  Jacobins  ;  arming  for 
Girondins  :  wherefore  we  have  got  a  '  Congress  of  Lyons  ; '  also  a 
'  Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  Lyons,^  and  Anarchists  shall  tremble. 
So  Chalier  was  soon  found  guilty,  of  Jacobinism,  of  murderous 
Plot,  '  address  with  drawn  dagger  on  the  sixth  of  February  last ; ' 
and,  on  the  morrow^  he  also  travels  his  final  road,  along  the  streets 
of  Lyons,  '  by  the  side  of  an  ecclesiastic,  with  whom  he  seems  to 
*  speak  earnestly,' — the  axe  now  ghttering  nigh.  He  could  weep, 
in  old  years,  this  man,  and  '  fall  on  his  knees  on  the  pavement,' 
blessing  Heaven  at  sight  of  Federation  Programs  or  the  like  ; 
then  he  pilgrimed  to  Paris,  to  worship  Marat  and  the  Mountain  : 
now  Marat  and  he  are  both  gone  ; — we  said  he  could  not  end  well. 
Jacobinism  groans  inwardly,  at  Lyons  ;  but  dare  not  outwardly. 
Chalier.  when  the  Tribunal  sentenced  him,  made  answer  :  "  My. 
death  will  cost  this  City  dear.'' 

Montelimart  Town  is  not  buried  under  its  ruins  ;  yet  Marseilles 
is  actually  marching,  under  order  of  a  '  Lyons  Congress  ; '  is  in- 
carcerating Patriots  ;  the  very  Royalists  now  shewing  face. 
Against  which  a  General  Cartaux  fights,  though  in  small  force  ; 
and  with  him  an  Artillery  Major,  of  the  name  of— Napoleon 
Buonaparte.  This  Napoleon,  to  prove  that  the  Marseillese  have 
no  chance  ultimately,  not  only  fights  but  writes  ;  pubhshes  his 
Supper  of  Beaucaire,  a  Dialogue  which  has  become  curious.* 
Unfortunate  Cities,  with  their  actions  and  their  reactions! 
^Violence  to  be  paid  with  violence  in  geometrical  ratio  ;  Royalism 
antl  Anarchism  both  striking  in  ;— the  final  net-amount  of  which 
geometrial  series,  what  man  shall  sum  ? 

The  P^ar  of  Iron  has  never  yet  floated  in  Marseilles  Harbour; 
but  the  Body  of  Rebecqui  was  found  floating,  self-drowned  there. 
Hot  Rebecqui  seeing  how  confusion  deepened,  and  Respectability 
grew  piosoned  with  Royalism,  felt  that  there  was  no  refuge  for  a 
Republican  but  death.  Rebecqui  disappeared :  no  one  knew 
whither  ;  till,  one  morning,  they  found  the  empty  case  or  body  of 
him  risen  to  the  top,  tumbling  on  the  salt  waves  ;t  and  perceived 

*  See  Hazlitt,  ii,  529-41.  f  Barbaroux,  p,  29. 


IN  CIVIL  WAR. 


123 


that  Rebecqui  had  withdrawn  forever.— Toulon  hkewise  is  incar- 
cerating Patriots  ;  sending  delegates  to  Congress  ;  intriguing,  in 
case  of  necessity,  with  the  Royahsts  and  English.  Montpellier, 
Bourdeaux,  Nantes:  all  France/that  is  not  under  the  swoop  of 
A^u^tria  and  Cimmeria,  seems  rushing  into  madness,  and  suicidal 
ruin.  The  Mountain  labours  ;  like  a  volcano  in  a  burning  volcamc 
^  d.  Convention  Committees,  of  Surety,  of  Salvation,  are  busy 
and  day  :  Convention  Commissioners  whirl  on  all  highways; 
mg  olive-branch  and  sword,  or  now  perhaps  sword  only. 
Ciiaumette  and  Municipals  come  daily  to  the  Tuileries  demanding 
a  Constitution  :  it  is  some  weeks  now  since  he  resolved,  in  Town- 
hall,  that  a  Deputation  '  should  go  every  day '  and  demand  a  Con- 
stitution, till  one  were  got  whereby  suicidal  France  might  rally 
and  pacify  itself ;  a  thing  inexpressibly  desirable. 

This  then  is  the  fruit  your  Anti-anarchic  Girondins  have  got 
from  that  Levying  of  War  in  Calvados?  This  fruit,  we  may  say  ; 
and  no  other  whatsoever.  For  indeed,  before  either  Charlotte's  or 
Clialier's  head  had  fallen,  the  Calvados  War  itself  had,  as  it  were, 
vanished,  dreamhke,  in  a  shriek  !  With  '  seventy-two  Departments' 
en  one's  side,  one  might  have  hoped  better  things.  But  it  turn3 
o'.it  that  Respectabilities,  though  they  -will  vote,  will  not  %ht. 
Possession  is  always  nine  points  in  Law  ;  but  in  Lawsuits  of  this 
kind,  one  may  say^  it  is  ninety-and-nine  points.  ^  Men  do  what 
tliev  were  wont  to  do  ;  and  have  immense  irresolution  and  inertia: 
they  obey  him  who  has  the  symbols  that  claim  obedience.  Con- 
sider what,  in  modern  society,  this  one  fact  means  :  the  Metropolis 
is  with  our  enemies  !  Metropolis,  M other- city j  xi'^^y  so  named: 
all  the  rest  are  but  as  her  children,  her  nurslings.  Why,  there  is 
not  a  leathern  Diligence,  with  its  post-bags  and  luggage-boots, 
that  lumbers  out  from  her,  but  is  as  a  huge  life-pulse  ;  she  is  the 
heart  of  all.  Cut  short  that  one  leathern  Diligence,  how  much  is 
cut  short !— General  \yimpfen,  looking  practically  into  the  matter, 
can  see  nothing  for  it  but  that  one  should  fall  back  on  Royalism  ; 
get  into  communication  with  Pitt  !  Dark  innuendoes  he  flings 
out,  to  that  effect  :  whereat  we  Girondins  start,  horrorstruck.  He 
produces  as  his  Second  in  command  a  certain  '  Ci-devant^  one 
Comte  Puisaye  ;  entirely  unknown  to  Louvet ;  greatly  suspected 
by  him. 

Few  wars,  accordingly,  were  ever  levied  of  a  more  insufficient 
Jiaracter  than  this  of  Calvados.   He  that  is  curious  in  such  things 
may  read  the  details  of  it  in  the  Memoirs  of  that  same  Ci-dcvajvi- 
isaye,  the  much-enduring  man  and  Royahst  :  How  our  Girondin 
ional  Forces,  marching  off  with  plenty  of  wind-music,  were 
iv/n  out  about  the  old  Chateau  of  Brecourt,  in  the  wood-country 
near  Vernon,  to  meet  the  Mountain  National  forces  advancing 
f   m  Paris.  How  on  the  fifteenth  afternoon  of  July,  they  did  meet, 
ad,  as  it  were,  shrieked  mutually,  and  took  mutually  to  fligh. 
tout  loss.   Hov/  Puisaye  thereafter,  for  the  Mountain  Nationals 
;  first,  and  we  thought  ourselves  the  victors, — was  roused  from 
warm  bed  in  the  Castle  of  Brecourt  ;  and  had  to  gallop  with- 
*  Deux  Ainis,  x.  345. 


124 


TERROR. 


out  boots  ;  our  Nationals,  in  the  night-watches,  having  fallen  un- 
expectedly into  saicvc  qui  fieiit  .'—md  in  brief  the  Calvados  War 
had  burnt  priming  ;  and  the  only  question  now  was,  Whitherward 
to  vanish,  in  what  hole  to  hide  oneself ! 

The  National  Volunteers  rush  homewards,  faster  than  they 
came.  The  Seventy-two  Respectable  Departments,  says  Meillan, 
*  all  turned  round,  and  forsook  us,  in  the  space  of  four-and-twenty 
^  hours.'  Unhappy  those  who,  as  at  Lyons  for  instance,  have  gone 
too  far  for  turning  !  '  One  morning,'  we  find  placarded  on  our 
Intendance  Mansion,  the  Decree  of  Convention  which  casts  us 
Hors  la  loi.  into  Outlawry  :  placarded  by  our  Caen  Magistrates  ; 
— clear  hint  that  we  also  are  to  vanish.  Vanish,  indeed  :  but' 
whitherward  ?  Gorsas  has  friends  in  Rennes  ;  he  will  hide  there, 
— unhappily  will  not  lie  hid.  Guadet,  Lanjuinais  are  on  cross 
roads  ;  making  for  Bourdeaux.  To  Bourdeaux  !  cries  the  general 
voice,  of  Valour  alike  and  of  Despair.  Sonie  flag  of  Respecta- 
bility still  floats  there,  or  is  thought  to  float. 

Thitherward  therefore  ;  each  as  he  can  !  Eleven  of  these  ill-^ 
fated  Deputies,  among  whom  we  may  count,  as  twelfth.  Friend' 
Riouffe  the  Man  of  Letters,  do  an  original  thing  .  Take  the  uni- 
form of  National  Volunteers,  and  retreat  southward  with  the' 
Breton  Battalion,  as  private  soldiers  of  that  corps.  These  brave. 
Bretons  had  stood  truer  by  us  than  any  other.  Nevertheless,  at 
the  end  of  a  day  or  two,  they  also  do  now  get  dubious,  self-divided; 
we  must  part  from  them  ;  and,  with  some  half-dozen  as  convoy  or 
guide,  retreat  by  ourselves, — a  solitary  marching  detachmentp 
through  waste  regions  of  the  West.f 


CHAPTER  in. 

RETREAT  OF  THE  ELEVEN. 

It  is  one  of  the  notablest  Retreats,  this  of  the  Eleven,  that 
History  presents  :  The  handful  of  forlorn  Legislators  retreating 
there,  continually,  with  shouldered  firelock  and  well-filled  cart- 
ridge-box, in  the  yellow  autumn  ;  long  hundreds  of  miles  between 
them  and  Bourdeaux  ;  the  country  all  getting  hostile,  suspicious 
of  the  truth  ;  simmering  and  buzzing  on  all  sides,  more  and  more. 
Lou  vet  has  preserved  the  Itinerary  of  it ;  a  piece  worth  all  the  rest 
he  ever  wrote. 

O  virtuous  Potion,  with  thy  early-white  head,  O  brave  youn:, 
Barbaroux,  iias  it  come  to  this  ?  Weary  ways,  worn  shoes,  light 
purse  ;— encompassed  with  perils  as  with  a  sea  !  Revolutionary 
Committees  are  in  every  Township  ;  of  Jacobin  temper ;  our 
friends  all  cowed,  our  cause  the  losing  one.  In  the  I^orough  of 
Moncontour,  by  ill  chance,  it  is  market-day  :  to  the  gaping  public 

*  Mdmoires  de  Puisayc  [\.or\(\ov\,  1803),  ii.  142-67, 
+  Lou  vet,  pp.  101-37  ;  Meillan,  pp.  8i,  241-70. 


RETREAT  OF  THE  ELEVEN. 


such  transit  of  a  solitary  Marching  Detachment  is  suspicious  ;  we 
have  need  of  energy,  of  promptitude  and  kick,  to  be  allowed  to 
march  through.  Hasten,  ye  weary  pilgrims  !  The  country  is  get- 
ting up  ;  noise  of  you  is  bruited  day  after  day,  a  solitary  Twelve 
retreating  in  this  mysterious  manner  :  with  every  new  day,  a  wider 
wave  of  inquisitive  pursuing  tumult  is  stirred  up  till  the  whole 
West  will  be  in  motion.  '  Cussy  is  tormented  with  gout,  Buzot  is 
'  too  fat  for  marching.'  Riouffe,  blistered,  bleeding,  marching  only 
on  tiptoe  ;  Barbaroux  limps  v/ith  sprained  ancle,  yet  ever  cheery, 
full  ot  hope  and  valour.  Light  Louvet  glances  hare-eyed,  not  hare- 
hearted  :  only  virtuous  Petion's  serenity  '  vVas  but  once  seen 
*  ruffled.'  They  lie  in  straw-lofts,  in  woody  brakes  ;  rudest  pail- 
lasse on  the  floor  of  a  secret  friend  is  luxury.  They  are  seized  in 
the  dead  of  night  by  Jacobin  mayors  and  tap  of  drum  ;  get  off  by 
firm  countenance,  rattle  of  muskets,  and  ready  wit. 

Of  Bourdeaux.  through  fiery  La  Vendee  and  the  long  geographi- 
cal spaces  that  remain,  it  were  madness  to  think  :  well,  if  you  can 
get  to  Quimper  on  the  sea-coast,  and  take  shipping  there.  Faster, 
ever  faster  !  Before  the  end  of  the  march,  so  hot  has  the  country 
grown,  it  is  found  advisible  to  march  all  night.  They  do  it  ;  under 
the  still  night-canopy  they  plod  along  ; — and  yet  behold,  Rumour 
has  outplodded  them.  In  the  paltry  Village  of  Carhaix  (be  its 
thatdhed  huts,  and  bottomless  peat-bogs,  long  notable  to  the 
Traveller),  one  is  astonished  to  find  light  still  glimmering:  citizens 
are  awake,  with  rush-lights  burning,  in  that  nook  of  the  terrestrial 
Planet ;  as  we  traverse  swiftly  the  one  poor  street,  a  voice  is  heard 
saying,  "  There  they  are,  Z<?^  voila  qui  pas  sent,!  \  Swifter,  ye 
doomed  lame  Twelve  :  speed  ere  they  can  arm  ;  gain  the  Woods 
of  Quimper  before  day,  and  lie  squatted  there  ! 

The  doomed  Twelve  do  it ;  though  with  difficulty,  with  loss  of 
road,  with  peril,  and  the  mistakes  of  a  night.    In  Quimper  are 
Girondin  friends,  who  perhaps  will  harbour  the  homeless,  till  a 
Bourdeaux  ship  weigh.    Wayworn,  heartworn,  in  agony  of  sus- 
pense, till  Quimper  friendship  get  warning,  they  lie  there,  squatted 
,  under  the  thick  wet  boscage;  suspicious  of  the  face  of  man.  Some 
pity  to  the  brave;  to  the  unhappy  !    Unhappiest  of  all  Legislators, 
O  wnen  ye  packed  your  luggage,  some  score,  or  two-score  months 
ago  ;  and  mounted  this  or  the  other  leathern  vehicle,  to  be  Con- 
script Fathers  of  a  regenerated  France,  and  reap  deathless  laurels, 
— did  ye  think  your  journey  was  to  lead  hither  ?    The  Quimper 
Samaritans  find  them  squatted  ;  lift  them  up  to  help  and  comfort  ; 
I  will  hide  them  in  sure  places.    Thence  let  them  dissipate  gradu- 
\  ally  ;  or  there  they  can  lie  quiet,  and  write  Afenioirs,  till  a  Bour- 
deaux ship  sail. 

And  thus,  in  Calvados  all  is  dissipated  ;  Romme  is  out  of  prison, 
meditating  his  Calendar  ;  ringleaders  are  locked  in  his  room.  At 
Caen  the  Corday  family  mourns  in  silence;  Buzot's  House  is  a 
heap  of  dust  and  demolition  ;  and  amid  the  rubbish  sticks  a 
Gallows,  with  this  inscription,  Here  dwelt  the  Traitor  Bicsot  wh& 
*  Meillan,  pp.  1 19-137.  f  Louvet,  pp.  138-164. 


126 


TERROR. 


conspired  against  the  Republic.  Buzot  and  the  other  vanished 
Deputies  are  hors  la  loi,  as  we  saw  ;  their  hves  free  to  take  where 
they  can  be  found.  The  worse  fares  it  with  the  poor  Arrested 
visible  Deputies  at  Paris.  ''Arrestment  at  home'  threatens  to 
become  ^  Confinement  in  the  Luxembourg  ; '  to  end  :  where  f  For 
example,  what  pale-visaged  thin  man  is  this,  journeying  towards 
Switzerland  as  a  Merchant  cf  Neuchatel,  whom  they  arrest  in  the 
town  of  Moulins  ?  To  Revolutionary  Committee  he  is  suspect. 
To  Revolutionary  Committee,  on  probing  the  matter,  he  is  evi* 
dently:  Deputy  Brissot !  Back  to  thy  Arrestment,  poor.Brissot  5 
or  indeed  to  strait  confinement, — whither  others  are  fated  to 
folloi^.  Rabaut  has  built  himself  false-partition,  in  a  friend's 
house:  lives,  in  invisible  darkness,  between  two  walls.  It  will 
end,  tkis  s2.mo  Arrestment  business,  in  Prison,  and  the  Revolu* 
tionary  Tribunal. 

Nor  must  we  forget  Duperret,  and  the  seal  put  on  his  papers  by 
reasom  of  Charlotte.  One  Paj-  :r  is  there,  fit  to  breed  woe  enough: 
A  secret  £:olemn  Protest  against  that  suprema  dies  of  the  Second 
of  June  !  This  Secret  Protest  our  poor  Duperret  had  drawn  up, 
the  same  week,  in  all  plainness  of  speech;  waiting  the  time  for 
publishing  it  :  to  which  Secret  Protest  his  signature,  and  that  of 
other  honourable  Deputies  not  a  few,  stands  legibly  appended. 
And  now,  if  die  seals  were  once  broken,  the  Mountain  still  vie* 
torious  ?  Such  Protestors,  your  Merciers,  Bailleuls,  Seventy-thred 
by  the  taie,  what  yet  remains  of  Respectable.  Girondism  ' in  the 
Convention,  may  tremble  to  think  ! — These  are  the  fruits  of  levying 
civil  war. 

Also  we  find,  thalp  in  these  last  days  of  July,  the  famed  Siege  of 
Ment::  \z  finished;  the  Garrison  to  march  out  with  honours  of 
war  •  not  to  serve  against  die  Coalition  for  a  yearf!  Lovers  of  the 
Picturesque,  and  Goethe  standing  on  the  Chaussee  of  Mentz,  saw, 
with  due  interest,  the  Procession  issuing  forth,  in  all  solemnity  : 

*  Escorted  by  Prussian  horse  came  'first  the  French  Garrison. 

*  Nothing  could  look  stranger  than  this  latter  :  a  column  of  Mar- 
'  seillese,  slight,  swarthy,  party-coloured,  in  patched  clothes,  came 

*  tripping  on  ; — as  if  King  Edwin  had  opened  the  Dwarf  Hill,  and 
^  sent  out  his  nimble  Host  of  Dwarfs.  Next  followed  regular 
^troops  ;  serious,  sullen  ;  not  a^  if  downcast  or  ashamed.  But 

*  the  rcmarkablest  appearance,  v/hich  struck  every  one,  was  that 
^  of  the  Chasers  {Chasseurs)  coming  out  mounted  :  they  had  ad- 
^  vanced  quite  silent  to  where  we  stood,  when  their  Band  struck 
'\x\)\ki(t  Marseillaise.  This  revolutionary  Te~Dciun  has  in  itself 
'  something  mournful  and  bodefuL,  however  briskly  played  ;  but  at 

'  present  they  jave  it  in  altogether  slow  time,  proportionate  to  the  ^ 

*  creeping  step  they  rode  at.  It  was  pie  cing  and  fearful,  and  a 
^mo3t  serious-looking  tiling,  as  these  cavaliers,  long,  lean  men,  of 
^a  certain  age,  with  mien  suitable  to  the  music,  came  pacing  on 

*  singly  you  might  have  likened  them  to  Don  Ouixoto;  in  mas 
*they  were  higlily  dignified. 

*  But  now  a  single  troop  became  notable  :  that  of  the  Commi: 

'  sioners  or  Rcprcscntans.    Merlin  of  Thionville,  in  hussar  uniform, 


O  NA  TLTRE. 


distinguishing  himself  by  wild  beard  and  look,  had  another  person 
*in  similar  costume  on  his  left  ;  the  crowd  shouted  out,  with  rage, 

*  at  sight  of  this  latter,  the  name  of  a  Jacobin  Townsman  and 
^Clubbist;  and  shook  itself  to  seize  him.  Merlin  drew  bridle  ; 
'  referred  to  his  dignity  as  French  Representative,  to  the  vengeance 
*that  should  follow  any  injury  done  ;  he  w^ould  advise  every  one  to 

*  compose  himself,  for  this  was  not  the  last  time  they  w^ould  see 
^him  here."^  Thus  rode  Merlin  ;  threatening  in  defeat.  But  what 
'  now  shall  stem  that  tide  of  Prussians  setting  in  through  the  open 
''North-East?'  Lucky,  if  fortified  Lines  of  VVeissembourg,  and 
impassibilities  of  Vosges  Mountains,  confine  it  to  French  Alsace, 
keep  it  from  submerging  the  very  heart  of  the  country  ! 

Furthermore,  precisely  in  the  same  days,  Valenciennes  Siege  is 
finished,  in  the  North-West  : — fallen,  under  the  red  hail  of  York  1 
Conde  fell  some  fortnight  smce.  Cimmerian  Coalition  presses  on. 
What  seems  very  notable  too,  on  al]  these  captured  French  Towns 
there  flies  not  the  Royahst  fleur-de-lys,  in  the  name  of  a  new  Louis 
the  Pretender  ;  but  the  Austrian  flag  flies  ;  as  if  Austria  meant  to 
keep  them  for  herself  !  Perhaps  General  Custines,  still  in  Paris, 
can  give  some  explanation  of  the  fall  of  these  strong-places  ?  Moth^er 
Society,  from  tribune  and  gallery,  growls  loud  that  he  ought  to  do 
it; — remarks,  however,  in  a  splenetic  manner  X\i?i\^  \\\^  Monsieur s 
of  the  Palais  Royal/  are  calling,  Long-life  to  this  General. 

The  Mother  Society,  purged  now,  by  successive  'scrutinies  or 
epuratio7is^  from  all  taint  of  Girondism,  has  become  a  great 
Authority  :  w^hat  we  can  call  shield-bearer,  or  bottle-holder,  nay 
call  it  fugleman,  to  the  purged  National  Convention  itself.  The 
Jacobins  Debates  are  reported  in  the  Moniteiir^  like  Parliamentary 
ones. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

O  NATURE. 

But  looking  more  specially  into  Paris  City,  w^hat  is  this  that 
History,  on  the  loth  of  August,  Year  One  of  Liberty,  M)y  old- 
*  style,  year  1793/  discerns  there  ?  Praised  be  the  Heavens,  a  new- 
Feast  of  Pikes  ! 

For  Chaum.ette's  '  Deputation  every  day  '  has  worked  out  its 
result  :  a  Constitution.  It  was  one  of  the  rapidest  Constitutions 
ever  put  together  ;  made,  some  say  in  eight  days,  by  Herault 
Sechelles  and  others:  probai)ly  a  v\ orkmanlike,  roadwprthy  Con- 
stitution enough ; — on  which  point,  however,  we  are,  for  some 
reasons,  little  called  to  form  a  judgment  Workmanlike  or  not, 
the  Forty-four  Thousand  Communes  of  F*rance,  by  overwhelming 
1  majorities,  did  hasten  to  accept  it  ;  glad  of  any  Constitution  what- 
'  soever.  Nay  Departmental  Deputies  have  come,  the  venerablest 
Republicans  of  each  Department,  with'solemn  message  of  Accept" 

Br.la^crunq  von  Malutz  (Goethe's  Wcrkc,  xxx.  315). 

i 


128 


ance ;  and  now  what  remains  but  that  our  new  Final  Constitution 
be  proclaimed,  and  sworn  to,  in  Feast  of  Pikes?  The  Depart- 
mental Deputies,  we  say,  are  come  some  time  ago ; — Chaumette 
very  anxious  abont  them,  lest  Girondin  Monsieurs^  Agio-jobbers, 
or  were  it  even  Filles  de  joie  of  a  Girondin  temper,  corrupt  their 
morals.^  Tenth  of  August,  immortal  Anniversary,  greater  almost 
than  Bastille  July,  is  the  Day. 

Painter  David  has  not  been  idle.  Thanks  to  David  and  the 
French  genius,  there  steps  forth  into  the  sunlight,  this  day,  a 
Scenic  Phantasmagory  unexampled : — whereof  History,  so  occu- 
pied with  Real-Phantasmagories,  will  say  but  httle. 

For  one  thing,  History  can  notice  with  satisfaction,  on  the  ruins 
of  the  Bastille,  a  Statue  of  Nature ;  gigantic,  spouting  water  from 
her  two  7nammelles.  Not  a  Dream  this  ;  but  a  Fact,  palpable 
visible.  There  she  spouts,  great  Nature  ;  dim,  before  daybreak. 
But  as  the  coming  Sun  ruddies  the  Easf,  come  countless  Multi- 
tudes, regulated  and  unregulated  ;  come  Departm(Vital  Deputies, 
come  Mother  Society  and  Daughters  ;  comes  National  Conven- 
tion, led  on  by  handsome  Herault ;  soft  wind-music  breathing 
note  of  expectation.  Lo,  as  great  Sol  scatters  his  first  fire-hand- 
ful, tipping  the  hills  and  chimney-heads  with  gold,  Herault  is  at 
great  Nature's  feet  (she  is  Plaster  of  Paris  merely)  \  Herault  lifts, 
in  an  iron  saucer,  water  spouted  from  the  sacred  breasts ;  drinks 
of  it,  with  an  eloquent  Pagan  Prayer,  beginning,  "  O  Nature  !  " 
and  all  the  Departmental  Deputies  drink,  each  with  what  best 
suitable  ejaculation  or  prophetic-utterance  is  in  him; — amid 
breathings,  which  become  blasts,  of  wind-music  ;  and  the  roar  of 
artillery  and  human  throats:  finishing  well  the  first  act  of  this 
solemnity. 

Next  are  processionings  along  the  Boulevards  :  Deputies  or 
Officials  bound  together  by  long  indivisible  tricolor  riband  ; 
general  ^members  of  the  Sovereign'  walking  pellmell,  with  pikes, 
with  hammers,  with  the  tools  and  emblems  of  their  crafts ;  among 
which  we  notice  a  Plough,  and  ancient  Baucis  and  Philemon 
seated  on  it,  drawn iDy  their  children.  Many- voiced  harmony  and 
dissonance  filling  the  air.  Through  Triumphal  Arches  enough  : 
at  the  basis  of  the  first  of  which,  we  descry — whom  thinkest  thou  ? 
— the  Heroines  of  the  Insurrection  of  Women.  Strong  Dames 
of  the  Market,  they  sit  there  (Theroigne  too  ill  to  attend,  one 
fears),  with  oak-branches,  tricolor  bedizenment  •  firm-seated  on 
their  Cannons.  To  \,hom  Iiandsome  Herault,  making  pause  of 
admiration,  addresses  sootliing  eloquence;  wherer.pon  they  rise 
and  fall  into  the  march. 

And  now  mark,  in  the  IMace  de  la  Revolution,  what  other 
August  Statue  may  this  be  ;  veiled  in  canvas, — which  swiftly  we 
shear  off  by  pulley  and  cord  ?  The  Statue  of  Liberty  !  She  too 
is  of  plaster,  hoping  to  become  of  metal ;  stands  where  a  Tyrant 
Louis  Quinzc  once  stood.  ^  Three  thousand  birds  '  are  let  loose, 
into  the  whole  world,  with  labels  round  their  neck,  We  are  free; 
imitate  MS,  Plolocaust  of  Royalist  and  ci-devaiU  trumpery,  such 
*  Deux  Amis^  xi,  73. 


O  NATURE.  129 

as  one  could  still  gather,  is  burnt  ;  pontifical  eloquence  must  be 
uttered,  by  handsome  Herault,  and  Pagan  orisons  offered  up. 

And  then  forward  across  the  River;  where  is  new  enormous 
Statuary;  enormous  plaster  Mountain;  RQxculQs-Petiple,  with  up- 
lifted all-conquering  club ;  '  manry-headed  Dragon  of  Girondin 
'  Federalism  rising  from  fetid  marsh  ;'~needing  new  eloqueace 
from  Herault.  To  say  nothing  of  Champ-de-Mars,  and  Father- 
land's Akar  there ;  with  urn  of  slain  Defenders,  Carpenter's-level 
of  the  Law  ;  and  such  exploding,  gesticulating  and  perorating,  that 
Herault's  lips  must  be  growing  white,  and  his  tongue  cleaving  to 
the  roof  of  his  mouth."^ 

Towards  six  o'clock  let  the  wearied  President,  let  Paris  Patriot- 
ism generally  sit  down  to  what  repast,  and  social  repasts,  can  be 
had;  and  with  flowing  tankard  or  light-mantling  glass,  usher  in 
this  New  and  Newest  Era.  In  fact,  is  not  Romnie's  New  Calen- 
dar getting  ready  ?  On  all  housetops  flicker  little  tricolor  Flags, 
their  flagstaff  a  Pike  and  Liberty- Cap.  On  all  house-walls,  for  no 
Patriot,  not  suspect,  wili  be  behind  another,  there  stand  printed 
these  words  :  Republic  one  and  indivisible,  Liberty,  Equality 
Fraternity,  or  Death.  ^ 

As  to  the  New  Calendar,  we  may  say  here  rather  than  else- 
where that  speculative  men  have  long  been  struck  with  the  ine- 
qualities and  incongruities  of  the  Old  Calendar  ;  that  a  New  one 
has  long  been  as  good  as  determined  on.  Marechal  the  Atheist 
almost  ten  years  ago,  proposed  a  New  Calendar,  free  at  least  from' 
superstition  :  this  the  Paris  Municipality  would  now  adopt,  in 
defect  of  a  better ;  at  all  events,  let  us  have  either  this  of  Mare- 
chaFs  or  a  better,— the  New  Era  being  come.  Petitions,  more 
than  once,  have  been  sent  to  that  effect ;  and  indeed,  for  a  year 
past,  all  Public  Bodies,  Journahsts,  and  Patriots  in  general,  have 
dcit^d  First  Year  of  the  Republic.  It  is  a  subject  not  without 
difhculties.  But  the  Convention  has  taken  it  up  ;  and  Romme  as 
we  say,  has  been  meditating  it ;  not  Marechal's  New  Calendar 
but  a  better  New  one  of  Romme's  and  our  own.  Romme,  aided 
^,??^^'  ^  Lagrange  and  others,  furnishes  mathematics; 

abre  d  Eglantine  furnishes  poetic  nomenclature  :  and  so,  on  the 
5th  of  October  1793,  after  trouble  enough,  they  bring  forth  this 
New  Republican  Calendar  of  theirs,  in  a  complete  state;  and  by 
Law,  get  it  put  in  action. 

Four  equal  Seasons,  Twelve  equal  Months  of  thirtv  days  each  • 
this  makes  three  hundred  and  sixty  days  ;  and  five  odd  days 
remain  to  be  disposed  of.  The  five  odd  days  we  will  make  Festi- 
vals, and  name  the  five  Sansczdottides,  or  Days  without  Breeches. 

estival  of  Genius  ;  Festival  of  Labour  ;  of  Actions  ;  of  Rewards  ; 

)t   Opinion  :  these  are  the  five  Sansculottides.    Wherebv  the 

.rreat  Circle,  or  Year,  is  made  complete  :  solelv  everv  fourth' year, 

.vhilom  called  Leap-year,  we  introduce  a  sixth  Sansculottide  ;  and 

lame  it  Festival  of  the  Revolution.    Now  as  to  the  day  of  com- 

nencement,  which  offers  difficulties,  is  it  not  one  of  the  luckiest 

*  Choix  des  Rapports,  xii.  4cj2-42. 
V(M-.  III.  ^/^      '       4J  ^ 


130 


coincidences  tliat  the  Republic  herself  commenced  on  the  2T5t  of 
September  ;  close  on  the  Vernal  Equinox  ?  Vernal  Equinox,  at 
midnight  for  the  meridian  of  Paris,  in  the  year  whilom  Christian 
1792,  from  that  moment  shall  the  New  Era  reckon  itself  to  begin, 
Vendemiaire,  Brumaire,  Friinaire ;  or  as  one  might  say,  in  mixed 
English,  Vintagearloiis,  Fogarious^  Frostarious :  these  are  our 
three  Autumn  months.  Nivose,  Phiviosc,  Ventose,  or  id.y  Snow  oris. ^ 
Rainous.  Windoics,  make  our  Winter  season.  Germinal,  Floreal^ 
Prahiai,  or  Buddal,  Floweral,  Meadowal,  are  our  Spring  season. 
Messidor,  Therinidor^  Fmctidor,  that  is  to  say  {dor  being  Greek 
iox gift)  Reapidor,  Heatidor,  Frttitidor.^^x^  Republican  Summer. 
These  Twelve,  in  a  singular  manner,  divide  the  Republican  Year, 
Then  as  to  minuter  subdivisions,  let  us  venture  at  once  on  a  bold 
stroke  :  adopt  your  decimaj  subdivision  ;  and  instead  of  the  world- 
old  Week,  or  Se'e^tnight,  make  it  a  Tmnight  or  Decade;— not 
without  results.  There  are  three  Decades,  then,  in  each  of  the 
months  ;  which  is  very  regular  ;  and  the  Decadi,  or  Tenth-day, 
shall  always  be  '  the  Day  of  Rest.'  And  the  Christian  Sabbath,  in 
that  case  ?    Shall  shift  ,  for  itself  ! 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  New  Calendar  of  -Romme  and  the  Conven- 
don  ;  calculated  for  the  meridian  of  Paris,  and  Gospel  of  Jean 
Jacques  :  not  one  of  the  least  afflicting  occurrences  for  the  actual 
British  reader  of  French  History  confusing  the  soul  with  Messi- 
dors,  Meadowals;  till  at  last,  in  self-defence,  one  is  forced  to  con- 
struct some  ground-scheme,  or  rule  of  Commutation  from  New- 
style  to  Old-style,  and  have  it  lying  by  him.  Such  ground-scheme, 
almost  worn  out  in  our  serv  ice,  but  still  legible  and  printable,  we 
Ghall  now,  in  a  Note,  present  to  the  reader.  For  the  Romme 
Calendar,  in  so  many  Newspapers,  Memoirs,  Public  Acts,  has 
stamped  itself  deep  into  that  section  of  Time  :  a  New  Era  that 
lasts  some  Twelve  years  and  odd  is  not  to  be  despised.      Let  the 


*  September  22nd  of  1792  is  Vendemiaire  1st  of  Year  One,  and  the  new 
months  are  all  of  30  days  each  ;  therefore  :  


ADD 

.3 

DAYS 

.2"  ^ 

Venddmiaire 

.    .  21 

September  , 

.     .     .  30 

Brumaire     ,  . 

.    .  21 

October  .  . 

.     .      .  31 

day 

November  , 

.     .      .  30 

% 

December  . 

.     .      .  31 

Pluviose  .    .  . 

.    .  19 

Jarraary  .  . 

.      .     .  31 

0 

.    „  18 

Cl> 

Februar)^ 

.     .     .  28 

1 
S 

Germinal     .  . 

.    .  20 

num 

March    .  . 

.     .     .  31 

3 

0) 

April  ,    .  ^ 

.     .     .  30 

c: 

<U 

■5 

May  ,    .  . 

.     .      .  31 

•S 

June  .    .  . 

0 

Messidor     .  . 

.    .  t8 

rt 
Xi 

...  30 

H 

Thermidor  .  . 

.    .  18 

July    .    .  . 

.     .      .  31 

Fructidor    .  . 

.    .  17 

August    .  . 

.     .     .  31 

Tiiere  are  5  Sansculottides,  and  in  leap-year  a  sixth,  tQ  be  added  at  the  end 
Fructidor. 

The  New  v;:alendar  ceased  on  the  ist  of  January  1806.  See  Chotx 
Rapports,  xiii.  83-99  ;  xix.  iqq. 


SWORD  OF  SHARPNESS. 


reader,  therefore,  with  such  ground-scheme,  help  himself,  where 
needful,  out  of  New-style  into  Old-style,  called  also  '  slave-style 
shle-esdave J '—v^'h^rtoi  we,  in  these  pages,  shall  as  much  as 
possible  use  the  latter  only. 

Thus  with  new  Feast  of  Pikes;  and  New  Era  or  New  Calendar 
did  France  accept  her  New  Constitution  :  the  most  Democratic 
Constitution  ever  committed  to  paper.  How  it  will  work  in  prac- 
tice Patriot  Deputations  from  time  to  time  solicit  fruition  of  it  - 
that  It  be  set  a-going.  Always,  however,  this  seems  questionable ; 
for  the  moment,  unsuitab^  ^  Till,  in  some  w^eeks.  Saint  Public 
through  the  organ  of  Saint-Just,  makes  report,  that,  in  the  present 
alarming  circumstcaces,  the  state  of  France  is  Revolutionary  ;  that 
her  Government  must  be  Revolutionary  till  the  Peace  ! '  Solely 
as^  Paper,  then,  and  as  a  Hope,  must  this  poor  New  Constitution 
exist  ;— in  which  shape  we  may  conceive  it  lying,  even  now,  with 
an  infinity  of  other  things,  in  that  Limbo  near  the  Moon.  Further 
than  paper  it  never  got,  nor  ever  will  get. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SWORD  OF  SHARPNESS. 

^  In  fact  it  is  something  quite  other'  than  paper  theorems,  it  is 
iron  and  audacity  that  France  now  needs. 
^  Is  not  La  Vendee  still  blazing  ;— alas  too  literallv  ;  rogue  Ros- 
signol  burnmgthe  very  corn-mills?  General  Santerre  could  do 
nothing  there  ;  General  Rossignol,  in  bhnd  fury,  often  in  Hquor, 
can  do  less  than  nothing.  Rebellion  spreads,  grows  ever  madder. 
Happily  those  lean  Ouixute-figures,  whom  we  saw  retreating  out 
of  Mentz,  '  bound  not  to.  serve  against  the  Coalition  for  a  year,' 
have  got  to  Paris.  National  Convention  packs  them  into  post- 
vehicles  and  conveyances  ;  sends  them  swiftly,  bv  post,  into  La 
Vendee  !  There  valiantly  struggling,  in  obscure  battle  and  skir- 
mish, under  rogue  Rossignol,  let  them,  unlaurelled,  save  the  Re- 
public, and  ^  be  cut  down  gradually  to  the  last  man.'^ 

Does  not  the  Coalition,  hke  afire-tide,  pour  in  ;  Prussia  through 
the  opened  North-East ;  Austria,  England  through  the  North- 
west ?  General  Houchard  prospers  no  better  there  than  General 
Custine  did  :  let  him  look  to  it  !  Through  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western  Pyrenees  Spain  has  deployed  itself;  spreads,  rustling 
with  Bourbon  banners,  over  the  face  of  the  South.  Ashes  and 
embers  of  confused  Girondin  civil  war  covered  that  region  already. 
Marseilles  is  damped  down,  not  quenched  ;  to  be  quenched  in 
blood.  Toulon,  terrorstruck,  too  far  gone  for  turning,  has  flung  itself, 
ye  righteous  Powers,— into  the  hands  of  the  English  !  On  Toulon 
Arsenal  there  flies  a  Flag,— nay  not  even  the  Fleur-de-lys  of  a 
Louis  Pretender ;  there  flies  that  accursed  St.  George's  Cross  of 
*  Deux  Amis,  xi.  147  ;  xiii.  160-92,  &c. 

F  2 


132 


l^ERROR, 


the  English  and  Admiral  Hood  !    What  remnants  of  sea-craft, 

arsenals,  roperies,  war-navy  France  had,  has  given  itself  to  these 
enemies  of  human  nature,  '  ennemis  du  s^enre  humam.'  Beleaguer 
it,  bombard  it,  ye  Commissioners  Barras,  Freron,  Robespierre 
Junior  ;  thou  General  Cartaux,  General  Dugommier  ;  above  all, 
thou  remarkable  Artillery- Major,  Napoleon  Buonaparte  !  Hood 
is  fortifying  himself,  victualhng  himself ;  means,  apparently,  to 
make  a  new  Gibraltar  of  it. 

But  lo,  in  the  Autumn  night,  late  night,  among  the  last  of 
August,  what  sudden  red  sunblaze  is  this  that  has  risen  over  Lyons 
City  ;  with  a  noise  to  deafen  the  world  ?  It  is  the  Powder-tower 
of  Lyons,  nay  the  Arsenal  with  four  Powder-towers,  which  has 
caught  fire  in  the  Bombardment ;  and  sprung  into  the  air,  carry mg 
'  a  hundred  and  seventeen  houses  '  after  it.  With  a  light,  one 
fancies,  as  of  the  noon  sun  ;  with  a  roar  second  only  to  the  Last 
Trumpet  !  All  living  sleepers  far  and  wide  it  has  awakened. 
What  a  sight  was  that,  which  the^ye  of  History  saw,  in  the  sudden 
nocturnal  sunblaze  !  The  roofs  of  hapless  Lyons,  and  all  its  domes 
and  steeples  made  momentarily  clear  ;  Rhone  and  Soane  streams 
flashing  suddenly  visible  ;  and  height  and  hollow,  hamlet  and 
smooth  stubblefield,  and  all  the  region  round  ;— heights,  alas,  all 
scarped  and  counterscarped,  into  trenches,  curtains,  redouts  ;  blue 
Artillery-men,  little  Powder-devilkins,  plying  their  hell-trade  there, 
through  the  not  ambrosial  night  !  Let  the  darkness  cover  it  again  ; 
for  it  pains  the  eye.  Of  a  truth,  Chalier's  death  is  costing  this  City 
dear.  Convention  Commissioners,  Lyons  Congresses  have  come 
and  gone  \  and  action  there  was  and  reaction  ;  bad  ever  growing 
worse  ;  till  it  has  come  to  this  :  Commissioner  Dubois-Crancc, 
*with  'seventy  thousand  men,  and  all  the  Artillery  ef  several 
*  Provinces,'  bombarding  Lyons  day  and  night. 

Worse  things  still  are  in  store.  Famine  is  in  Lyons,  and  ruin, 
and  fire.  Desperate  are  the  sallies  of  the  besieged  ;  brave  Precy, 
their  National  Colonel  and  Comanandant,  doing  what  is  in  man  : 
desperate  but  ineffectual.  Provisions  cut  off ;  nothing  entering 
our  city  but  shot  and  shells  !  The  Arsenal  has  roared  aloft  ;  the 
very  Hospital  will  be  battered  down,  and  the  sick  buried  alive.  A 
Black  Flag  hung  on  this  latter  noble  Edifice,  appealing  to  the 
pity  of  the  besiegers  ;  for  though  maddened,  were  they  not  still 
our  brethren?  In  their  blindNvrath,  they  took  it  for  a  flag  of 
defiance,  and  aimed  thitherward  the  more.  Bad  is  growmg  ever 
worse  here  :  and  how  will  the  worse  stop,  till  it  have  grown  worst 
of  all?  Commissioner  Dubois  will  hsten  to  no  pleading,  to  no 
speech,  save  this  only,  'We  surrender  at  discretion.'  Lyons  con- 
tains in  it  subdued  Jacobins  ;  dominant  Girondins  ;  secret  Royal- 
ists. And  now,  mere  deaf  madness  and  cannon-shot  envelopmg 
them,  will  not  the  desperate  Municipality  fly,  at  last,  into  the  arms 
of  Royalism  itself?  Majesty  of  Sardinia  was  to  bring  help,  but  it 
failed.  Emif^^rant  Autichnmp,  in  name  of  tlie  Tv^'o  Pretender 
Royal  Highnesses,  is  coming  through  Switzerland  with  help  5 
coming,  not  yet  come  ;  Precy  hoists  the  Flcur-de-lys  1 


RISEN  AGAINST  TYRANTS, 


133 


At  sight  of  which,  air  true  Girondins  sorrowfully  fling  down 
their  arms  : — Let  our  Tricolor  brethren  storm  us,  then,  and  slay 
US  in  their  wrath  :  with  yoic  we  conquer  not.  The  fa^mishing 
women  and  children  are  sent  forth:  deaf  Dubois  sends  them 
back  ; — rains  in  mere  hre  and  madness.  Our  '  redouts  of  cotton- 
*  bags '  are  taken,  retaken  ;  Precy  under  his  Fleur-de-lys  is  valiant 
as  Despair.  What  will  become  of  Lyons  ?  It  is  a  siege  of  seventy 
days.^ 

Or  see,  in  these  same  weeks,  far  in  the  Western  waters  :  breast- 
ing through  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  a  greasy  dingy  little  M-erchant- 
ship,  with  Scotch  skipper  ;  under  hatches  whereof  sit,  disconso- 
late,—the  last  forlorn  nucleus  of  Girondism,  the  Deputies  from 
Quimper  !  Several  have  dissipated  themselves,  whithersoever 
they  could.  Poor  Riouffe  fell  into  the  talons  of  Revolutionary 
Committee^  and  Paris  Prison.  The  rest  'sit  here  under  hatches  ; 
reverend  Petion  v/ith  his  grey  hair,  angry  Buzot,  suspicious 
Louvet,  brave  young  Barbaroux,  and  others.  They  have  escaped 
from  Quimper,  in  this  sad  craft ;  are  now  tacking  and  struggling  ; 
in  danger  from  the  waves,  in  danger  from  the  English,  in  still 
worse  danger  from  the  French  ; — banished  by  Heaven  and  Earth 
to  the  greasy  belly  of  this  Scotch  skipper's  Merchant-vessel,  un- 
fruitful Atlantic  raving  round.  They  are  for  Bourdeaux,  if  perad- 
venture  hope  yet  linger  there.  Enter  not  Bourdeaux,  O  Friends  ! 
Bloody  Convention  Representatives,  Tallien  and  such  like,  with 
their  Edicts,  wdth  their  Guillotine,  have  arrived  there  ;  Respect- 
ability is  driven- under  ground  ;  Jacobinism  lords  it  on  high.  From 
that  Pvcole  landingplace,  or  Beak  of  Ainbes.  as  it  were.  Pale 
Death,  waving  his  Revolutionary  Sword  of  sharpness,  waves  you 
elsewhither  ! 

On  one  side  or  the  other  of  that  Bee  d'Ambes,  the  Scotch 
Skipper  with  difficulty  moors,  a  dexterous  greasy  man  ;  with  diffi- 
culty lands  his  Girondins  ; — who,  after  reconnoitring,  must  rapidly 
burrow  in  the  Earth  ;  and  so,  in  subterranean  ways,  in  friends' 
back-closets,  in  cellars,  barn-lofts,  in  Caves  of  Saint-Emilion  and 
Libourne,  stave  off  cruel  Death.f    Unhappiest  of  all  Senators  1 


CHAPTER  VL 

RISEN  AGAINST  TYRANTS. 

Against  all  which  incalcuable  impediments,  horrors  and 
disasters,  what  can  a  Jacobin  Convention  oppose  ?  The  uncalcu- 
lating  Spirit  of  Jacobinism,  and  Sansculottic  sans-formulistic 
Frenzy  !  Our  Enemies  press  in  on  us,  says  Danton,  but  they 
shall  not  conquer  us,  "  we  will  burn  France  to  ashes  rather^  7ious 
orulerons  la  France^ 

Deux  Amis,  xi.  80-143.  f  Louvet,  p.  180-199. 


134 


TERROR. 


Committees,  of  Sttrete  or  Salut^  have  raised  themselves  'a  la 
^hauteur,  to  the  height  of  circumstances.'  Let  all  mortals  raise 
themselves  d  la  hauteur.  Let  the  Forty-four  thousand  Sections 
and  their  Revolutionary  Committees  stir  every  fibre  of  the  Re- 
public ;  and  every  Frenchman  feel  that  he  is  to  do  or  die.  They 
are  the  life-circulation  of  Jacobinism,  these  Sections  and  Com- 
mittees :  Danton,  through  the  organ  of  Barrere  and  Sahit  Public^ 
gets  decreed.  That  there  be  in  Paris,  by  law,  two  meetings  of 
Section  weekly  ;  also,  that  the  Poorer  Citizen  paid  for  attend- 
mg,  and  have  his  day's-wages  of  Forty  Sous.*^  This  is  the  cele- 
brated '  Law  of  the  Forty  Sous  fiercely  stimulant  to  Sansculot- 
tism,  to  the  life-circulation  of  Jacobinism. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  August,  Committee  of  Public  Salvation, 
as  usual  through  Barrere,  had  promulgated,  in  words  not  unworthy 
of  remembering,  their  Report,  which  is  soon  made  into  a  Law,  of 
Levy  in  Mass.  '  All  France,  and  whatsoever  it  contains  of  men 
^  or  resources,  is  put  under  requisition/  says  Barrere  ;  really  in 
Tyrtaean  words,  the  best  we  know  of  his.  '  The  Republic  is  'one 
^  vast  besieged  city.'  Two  hundred  and  fifty  Forges  shall,  in  these 
days,  be  set  up  in  the  Luxembourg  Garden,  and  round  the  outer 
wall  of  the  Tuileries  ;  to  make  gun-barrels  ;  in  sight  of  Earth 
and  Heaven  !  From  all  hamlets,  towards  their  Departmental 
Town  ;  from  all  their  Departmental  Towns,  towards  the  appointed 
Camp  and  seat  of  war,  the  Sons  of  Freedom  shall  march  ;  their 
banner  is  to  bear  :  * Le  Peuple  Francais  debou'  contres  les  Ij/rar^s, 
*The  French  People  risen  against  Tyrants.'  'The  young  men 
'  shall  go  to  the  battle  ;  it  is  their  task  to  conquer  :  the  married 

*  men  shall  forge  arms,  transport  baggage  and  artillery;  provide 

*  subsistence  :  the  women  shall  work  at  soldiers'  clothes,  make 

*  tents;  serve  in  the  hospitals.  The  children  shall  scrape  old- 
'  linen  into  surgeon's-lint  :  the  aged  men  shall  have  themselves 

*  carried  into  pubUc  places  ;  and  there,  by  their  words,  excite  the 

*  courage  of  the  young  ;  preach  hatred  to  Kings  and  unity  to  the 
'  Republic/t  Tyrtaeanwords ;  which  tingle  through  all  French  hearts. 

In  this  humour,  then,  since  no  other  serves,  will  France  rush 
against  its  enemies.  Headlong,  reckoning  no  cost  or  conse- 
quence ;  heeding  no  law  or  rule  but  that  supreme  law,  Salvation 
of  the  People  !  The  weapons  are  all  the  iron  that  is  in  P>ance  ; 
the  strength  is  that  of  all  the  men,  women  and  children  that  are 
in  France.  There,  in  their  two  hundred  and  fifty  shed-smithies,  in 
Garden  of  Luxembourg  or  Tuileries,  let  them  forge  gun-barrels, 
in  sight  of  Heaven  and  Earth. 

Nor  with  heroic  daring  against  the  Foreign  foe,  can  black  ven- 
geance against  the  Domestic  be  wanting.  Life  circulation  of  the 
Revolutionary  Committees  being  quickened  by  that  Z.a7V  of  the 
Forty  Sous^  Deputy  Merlin,  not  the  Thionvillcr,  whom  we  saw 
ride  out  of  Mentz,  but  Merlin  of  Douai,  named  subsequently 
Merhn  ^'/^^y^tr/,— comes,  about  a  week   after,  with  his  world- 

*  Moniicur^  Sc'ance  du  5  Seplembrc,  1793. 
f  Ddbats,  Sdunce  dii  23  Auut  1793, 


135 


famou*  Law  of  the  Suspect :  ordering  all  Sections,  by  their 
Committees,  instantly  to  arrest  all  Persons  Suspect ;  and  explain- 
ing withal  who  the  Arrestable  and  Suspect  specially  are.  "  Are 
Suspect,"  says  he,  "  all  who  by  their  actions,  by  their  connexions, 
speakings,  writings  have'' — in  short  become  Suspect."^  Nay 
Chaumette,  illuminating  the  matter  still  further,  in  his  Municipal 
Placards  and  Proclamations,  will  bring  it  about  that  you  may 
almost  recognise  a  Suspect  on  the  streets,  and  clutch  him  there, — 
off  to  Committee,  and  Prison.  Watch  well  your  words,  watch 
■well  your  looks  :  if  Suspect  of  nothing  else,  you  may  grow,  as 
came  to  be  a  saying,  '  Suspect  of  being  Suspect  ! '  For  are  we 
not  in  a  State  of  Revolution  ? 

No  frightfuller  Law  ever  ruled  in  a  Nation  of  men.  All  Prisons 
and  Houses  of  Arrest  in  French  land  are  getting  crowded  to  the 
ridge-tile  :  Forty-four  thousand  Committees,  like  as  many  com- 
panies of  reapers  or  gleaners,  gleaning  France,  are  gathering 
their  harvest,  and  storing  it  in  these  Houses.  Harvest  of  Aris- 
tocrat tares  !  Nay,  lest  the  Forty-four  thousand,  each  on  its  own 
harvest-field,  prove  insufficient,  we  are  to  have  an  ambulant  ^  Re- 

*  volutionary  Army  : '  six  thousand  strong,  under  right  captains, 
this  shall  perambulate  the  country  at  large,  and  strike  in  wherever 
it  finds  such  harvest-work  slack.  So  have  Municipality  and 
Mother  Society  petitioned  ;  so  has  Convention  decreed.f  Let 
Aristocrats,  Federalists,  Monsieurs  vanish,  and  all  men  tremble  : 

*  the  Soil  of  Liberty  shall  be  purged,' — with  a  vengeance  ! 

Neither  hitherto  has  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  been  keeping 
holyday.    Blanchelande,  for  losing  Saint-Domingo  ;  *  Conspirators 

*  of  Orleans,'  for  '  assassinating,'  for  assaulting  the  sacred  Deputy 
Leonard-Bourdon  :  these  with  many  Nameless,  to  whom  life  was 
sweet,  have  died.  Daily  the  great  Guillotine  has  its  due.  Like  a 
black  Spectre,  daily  at  eventide,  glides  the  Death-tumbril  through 
the  variegated  throng  of  things.  The  variegated  street  shudders 
at  it,  for  the  moment  ;  next  moment  forgets  it  :  The  Aristocrats  ! 
They  were  guilty  against  the  Republic  ;  their  death,  were  it  only 
that  their  goods  are  confiscated,  will  be  useful  to  the  Republic  ; 
Vive  la  Republique  I 

In  the  last  days  of  August,  fell  a  notabler  head  :  General  Cus- 
tine's.  Custine  was  accused  of  harshness,  of  unskilfulness,  per- 
fidiousness  ;  accused-  of  many  things  :  found  guilty,  we  may  say, 
of  one  thing,  unsuccessfulness.  Hearing  his  unexpected  Sentence, 
^  Custine  fell  down  before  the  Crucifix,'  silent  for  the  space  of  two 
hours  :  he  fared,  with  moist  eyes  and  a  book  of  prayer,  towards 
the  Place  de  la  Revolution  ;  glanced  upwards  at  the  clear  suspended 
axe  ;  then  mounted  swiftly  aloft,J  swiftly  was  struck  away  from 
the  lists  of  the  Living.  He  had  fought  in  America ;  he  was  a 
proud,  brave  man  ;  and  his  fortune  led  him  hither. 

On  the  2nd  of  this  same  month,  at  three  in  the  morning,  a 
vehicle  rolled  off,  with  closed  blinds,  from  the  Temple  to  the  Con- 

*  Moniteur,  Seance  du  17  Septembre  1793. 
•f*  Ibid.  Seances  du  5,  9,  11  Septembre. 
J  Deux  Amis,  xi.  148-18S. 


t36 


TERROR. 


ciergerie.  Within  it  were  two  Municipals  ;  and  Marie-Antoinette, 
once  Queen  of  France  !  There  in  that  Conciergerie^  in  igno- 
minious dreary  cell,  she,  cut  off  from  children,  kindred,  friend  and 
hope,  sits  long  weeks  ;  expecting  when  the  end  will  be.  ^ 

The  Guillotine,  we  find,  gets  always  a  quicker  motion,  as  other 
things  are  quickening.  The  Guillotine,  by  its  speed  of  going,  will 
give  index  of  the  general  velocity  of  the  Republic.  The  clanking 
of  its  huge  axe,  rising  and  faUing  there,  in  horrid  systole-diastole, 
is  portion  of  the  whole  enormous  Life-movement  and  pulsation  of 
the  Sansculottic  System  ! — '  Orleans  Codspirators '  and  Assaulters 
had  to  die,  in  spite  of  much  weeping  and  entreating  ;  so  sacred  is 
the  person  of  a  Deputy.  Yet  the  sacred  can  become  desecrated  : 
your  very  Deputy  is  not  greater  than  the  Guillotine.  Poor  Deputy 
Journalist  Gorsas  :  we  saw  him  hide  at  Rennes,  when  the  Cal- 
vados War  burnt  priming.  He  stole  afterwards,  in  August,  to 
Paris  ;  lurked  several  weeks  about  the  Palais  ci-devant  Royal  ; 
was  seen  there,  one  day ;  was  clutched,  identified,  and  without 
ceremony,  being  already  *  out  of  the  Law,',  was  sent  to  the  Place 
de  la  Revolution.  He  died,  recommending  his  wife  and  children 
to  the  pity  of  the  Republic.  It  is  the  ninth  day  of  October  1793. 
Gorsas  is  the  first  Dieputy  that  dies  on  the  scaffold  ;  he  will  not 
be  the  last. 

Ex- Mayor  Bailly  is  in  prison  ;  Ex-Procureur  Manuel.  Brissot 
and  our  poor  Arrested  Girondins  have  become  Incarcerated  In- 
dicted Girondins  ;  universal  Jacobinism  clamouring  for  their 
pi>nishment.  Duperret's  Seals  are  broken  !  Those  Seventy- 
three  Secret  Protesters,  suddenly  one  day,  are  reported  upon,  are 
decreed  accused  ;  the  Convention-doors  being  ^  previously  shut,' 
that  none  implicated  might  escape.  They  were  marched,  in  a 
very  rough  manner,  to  Prison  that  evening.  Happy  those  of 
them  who  chanced  to  be  absent  !  Condorcet  has  vanished  into 
darkness  ;  perhaps,  like  Rabaut,  sits  between  two  walls,  in  the 
bouse  of  a  friend. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

M  A  R  I  E-ANTOI  NETTE. 

On  Monday  the  Fourteenth  of  October,  1793,  a  Cause  is  pend- 
ing in  the  Palais  de  Justice,  in  the  new  Revolutionary  Court,  such 
as  these  old  stone-walls  never  witnessed  :  the  Trial  of  Marie- 
Antoinette.    The  once  brightest  of  Queens,  now  tarnished,  de- 
faced, forsaken,  stands  here  at  Fouquier  Tinville's  Judgment-bar 
answering  for  her  life  1    The  Indictment  was  delivered  her  la: 
night.t    To  such  changes  of  human  fortune  what  words  ar 
adequate  t    Silence  alone  is  adequate. 

*  Sec  Mdmoires  particnliers  de  la  Captiviti  d  la  Tour  dti  Temple  (by  the 
Puchesse  d'Angouleme,  Paris  21  Janvier  1817). 
f  Prech  de  la  Keinc  (Deux  Amis,  xi.  251-381). 


ie- 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE. 


There  are  few  Printed  things  one  meets  with,  of  such  tragic 
almost  ghastly  significance  as  those  bald  Pages  of  the  Bulletin  du 
Tribunal  Revohitio7i7iaire^  which  bear  title,  Trial  of  the  Widow 
Capet,  Dim,  dim,  as  if  in  disastrous  eclipse  ;  like  the  pale  king- 
doms of  Dis  !  Plutonic  Judges,  Plutonic  Tinville  ;  encircled,  nine 
times,  with  Styx  and  Lethe,  with  Fire-Phlegethon  and  Cocytus 
named  of  Lamentation  !  The  very  witnesses  summoned  are  like 
Ghosts  :  exculpatory,  inculpatory,  they  themselves  are  ail  hovering 
over  death  and  doom  ;  they  are  knov/n,  in  our  imagination,  as  the 
prey  of  the  Guillotine.  Tall  ci-devant  Count  d'Estaing,  anxious 
to  shew  himself  Patriot,  cannot  escape  ;  nor  Bailly,  who,  when 
asked  If  he  knows  the  Accused,  answers  with  a  reverent  inchna- 
don  towards  her,  '"Ah,  yes,  I  know  Madame."  Ex-Patriots  are 
here,  sharply  dealt  with,  as  Procureur  Manuel  ;  Ex-Ministers, 
shorn  of  their  splendour.  We  have  cold  Aristocratic  impas- 
sivity, faithful  to  itself  even  in  Tartarus ;  rabid  stupidity,  of 
Patriot  Corporals,  Patriot  Washerwomen,  who  have  much  to  say 
of  Plots,  Treasons,  A^ugust  Tenth,  old  Insurrection  of  Women. 
For  all  now  has  become  a  crime,  in  her  who  has  lost. 

Marie-Antoinette,  in  this  her  utter  abandonment  and  hour  of 
extreme  need,  is  not  wanting  u  herself,  the  imperial  woman.  Her 
look,  they  say,  as  that  hideous  Indictment  was  reading,  continued 
calm  ;  ^  she  was  sometimes  observed  moving  her  fingers,  as  when 
*  one  plays  on  the  Piano.'  You  discern,  not  without  interest, 
across  that  dim  Revolutionary  Bulletin  itself,  how  she  bears  herself 
queenlike.  Her  answers  are  prompt,  clear,  often  of  Laconic 
'brevity;  resolution,  which  has  grown  contemptuous  without 
ceasing  to  be  dignified,  veils  itself  in  calm  words.  "  You  persist 
then  in  denial  1  — "  My  plan  is  not  denial  :  it  is  the  truth  I  have 
said,  and  I  persist  in  that/'  Scandalous  Hebert  has  borne  his 
testimony  as  to  many  things  :  as  to  one  thing,  concerning  Marie- 
Antoinette  and  her  little  Son, — wherewith  Human  Speech  had 
better  not  further  be  soiled.  She  has  answered  Hebert  ;  a  Jury- 
man begs  to  observe  that  she  has  not  answered  as  to  this.  "  I 
-have  not  answered,'^  she  exclaims  with  noble  emotion,  because 
Nature  refuses  to  answer  such  a  charge  brought  against  a  Mother. 
'  I  appeal  to  all  the  Mothers  that  are  here."  Robespierre,  when  he 
heard  of  it,  broke  out  into  something  almost  like  swearing  at  the 
brutish  blockheadism  of  this  Hebert  on  whose  foul  head  his 
foul  lie  has  recoiled.  At  four  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning, 
after  two  days  and  two  nights  of  interrogating,  jury-charging,  and 
other  darkening  of  counsel,  the  result  comes  out  :  Sentence  of 
Death.  "  Haye  you  anything  to  say  The  Accused  shook  her 
head,  without  speech.  Night's  candles  are  burning  out ;  and  with 
her  too  Time  is  finishing,  and  it  will  be  Eternity  and  Day.  This 
Hall  of  Tinville's  is  dark,  ill-lighted  except  where  she  stands. 
Silently  she  withdraws"  from  it,  to  die.  * 

Two  Processions,  or  Royal  Progresses,  three-and-twenty  years 
apart,  have  often  struck  us  with  a  strange  feeling  of  contrast.  The 

*  Villate,  Causes  secrHes  de  la  Revolution  dc  Therinidor  (Paris,  1825), 
179- 


TERROR. 


first  is  of  a  beautiful  Arcliduclicss  and  Dauphiness,  quitting  her 
Mother's  City,  at  the  age  of  fdftecn  :  towards  hopes  such  as  no 
other  Daughter  of  Eve  tlien  had  :  '  On  the  morro\v/  says  Weber 
an  eye  witness,  'the  Dauphiness  left  Vienna.  The  whole  Citv 
'crowded  out;  at  first  with  a  sorrow  which  was  silent.  She 
'  appeared  :  you  saw  her  sunk  back  into  her  carriage  ,  her  face 
'  bathed  in  tears  ;  hiding  her  eyes  now  with  her  handkerchief,  now 
'  with  her  hands  ;  several  times  putting  out  her  head  to  see  yet 
'  again  this  Palace  of  her  Fathers,  whither  she  was  to  return  no 
'more.  She  motioned  her  regret,  her  gratitude  to  the  good 
'  Nation,  which  was  crowding  here  to  bid  her  farewell.  Then 
'  arose  not  only  tears  ;  but  piercing  cries,  on  all  sides.    Men  and 

*  women  alike  abandoned  themselves  to  such  expression  of  their 
^  sorrow.    It  was  an  audible  sound  of  wail,  in  the  streets  and 

*  avenues  of  Vienna.    The  last  Courier  that  followed  her  dis- 

*  appeared,  and  the  crowd  melted  away.'^ 

I  The  young  imperial  Maiden  of  Fifteen  has  now  become  a  worn 
\  discrowned  Widow  of  Thirty-eight  ;  grey  before  her  time  :  this 
is  the  last  Procession  :  '  Few  minutes  after  the  Trial  ended,  the 
'  drums  were  beating  to  arms  in  all  Sections  ;  at  sunrise  the 
'armed  force  was  on  foot,  cannons  getting  placed  at  the  ex- 
'tremities  of  the  Bridges,  in  the  Squares,  Crossways,  all  along 
'from  the  Palais  de  Justice  to  the  Place  de  la  Revolution.  By 
'  ten  o'clock,  numerous  patrols  were  circulating  in  the  Streets  ; 
'thirty  thousand  foot  and  horse  drawn  up  under  arms.  At 
'eleven,  Marie-Antoinette  was  brought  out.  She  had  on  an 
'undress  of  pique  blanc :  she  was  led  to  the  place  of  execution,  in 
'the  same  manner  as  an  ordinary  criminal ;  bound,  on  a  Cart  ; 
'  accompanied  by  a  Constitutional  Priest  in  Lay  dress  ;  escorted 
^  by  numerous  detachments  of  infantry  and  cavalry.  These,  and 
'the  double  row  of  troops  all  along  her  road,  she  appeared  to 
'  regard  with  indifference.  On  her  countenance  there  was  visible 
^'neither  abashment  nor  pride,  To  the  cries  of  Vive  la  Re.publique 
'  and  Down  with  Tyra7i7ty^  which  attended  her  all  the  way,  she 
I  seemed  to  pay  no  heed.  She  spoke  little  to  her  Confessor.  The 
'  tricolor  Streamers  on  the  housetops  occupied  her  attention,  in  the 
'  Streets  du  Roule  and  Saint-Honore  ;  she  also  noticed  the  In- 
'scriptions  on  the  house-fronts.  On  reaching  the  Place  de  la 
'Revolution,  her  looks  turned  towards  the  Jardin  National^ 
Svhilom.  Tuileries  ;  her  face  at  that  moment  gave  signs  of  lively 
'emotion.  She  mounted  the  Scaffold  with  courage  enough  ;  at  a 
'  quarter  past  Twelve,  her  head  fell  ;  the  Executioner  shewed  it  to 
'  the  people,  amid  universal  long-continued  cries  of  ^  Vivs^  la 
'  Rdpublique^\ 

*  Weber,  i.  6. 

t  Deux  Amis,  xi.  301. 


9« 


THE  TWENTY-TWO. 


139 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  TWENTY-TWO. 

Whom  next,  O  Tinville  ?  The  next  are  of  a  different  colour  : 
our  poor  Arrested  Girondin  Deputies.  What  of  them  could  still  be 
laid  hold  of ;  our  Vergniaud,  Brissot,  Fauchet,  Valaze,  Gensonne  ; 
the  once  flower  of  French  Patriotism,  Twenty-two  by  the  tale,: 
hither,  at  Tinville's  Bar,  onward  from  '  safeguard  of  the  French 
'  People,'  from  confinement  in  the  Luxembourg,  imprisonment  in 
the  Conciergerie,  have  they  now,  by  the  course  of  things,  arrived. 
Fouquier  Tinville  must  give  what  account  of  them  he  can. 

Undoubtedly  this  Trial  of  the  Girondins  is  the  greatest  that 
Fouquier  has  yet  had  to  do.  Twenty-two,  ail  chief  Republicans, 
ranged  m  a  line  there  ;  the  most  eloquent  in  France  ;  Lawyers 
too  ;  not  without  friends  in  the  auditory.  How  will  Tinville 
prove  these  men  guilty  of  Royahsm,  Federalism,  Conspiracy 
against  the  Republic  1  Vergniaud's  eloquence  awakes  once  more ; 
'draws  tears,'  they  say.  And  JournaUsts  report,  and  the  Trial 
lengthens  itself  out  day  after  day  ;  '  threatens  to  become  eternal,' 
murmur  many.  Jacobinism  and  Municipality  rise  to  the  aid  of 
i^ouquier.  On  the  28th  flff  the  month,  Hebert  and  others  come  in 
deputation  to  inform  a  (Patriot  Convention  that  the  Revolutionary 
Tribunal  is  quite  'shackled  by  forms  of  Law  that  a  Patriot  Jury 
ought  to  have  '  the  power  of  cutting  short,  of  terijiiner  les  debais, 
'  when  they  feel  themselves  convinced.'  Which  pregnant  sugges- 
tion, of  cutting  short,  passes  itself,  with  all  despatch,  into  a 
Decree. 

Accordingly,  at  ten  o'clock  on  the  night  of  the  30th  of  October, 
the  Twenty-two,  summoned  back  once  more,  receive  this  informa- 
tion. That  the  Jury  feeling  themselves  convinced  hr^ve  cut  short, 
have  brought  in  their  verdict  ;  that  the  Accused  are  found  guilty, 
and  the  Sentence  on  one  and  all  of  them  is  Death  with  confisca- 
tion  of  goods. 

Loud  natural  clamour  rises  among  the  poor  Girondins  :  tumult ; 
which  can  only  be  repressed  by  the  gendarmes.  Valaze  stabs 
himself ;  falls  down  dead  "  on  the  spot.  The  rest,  amid  loud 
clamour  and  confusion^  are  driven  back  to  their  Conciergerie  ; 
Lasource  exclaiming,  "  I  die  on  the  da}  w^hen  the  People  have  lost 
their  reason  ;  ye  will  die  when  they  recover  it."^  No  help  ! 
Yielding  io  violence,  the  Doomed  uplift  the  Hymn  of  the  Mar- 
seillese  ;  return  singing  to  their  dungeon. 

Riouffe,  who  was  their  Prison-mate  in  these  last  days,  has 
lovingly  recorded  what  death  they  made.  To  our  notions,  it  is 
not  an  edifying  death.      Gay  satirical  Pot-pourri  by  Ducos ; 

*  AijfioaBeuovs  eiTToi/rd?,  ' \7Tokt€vov(tl  (re  AOrjpaiot  ^wk'kdv'  "Ap 
^v(o(TLv,  etTre,  (re  5,  iav  o-ox^poj/wcrt.— Plut.  Qhp.  i.  iv.  p.  310.  ed.  Reiske 


I40 


TERROR. 


rhymed  Scenes  of  Tragedy,  wherein  Barrere  and  Robespierre  dis- 
course with  Satan  ;  death's  eve  spent  in  '  singing  '  and  '  salhes  of 
*  gaiety/  with  'discourses  on  the  happiness  of  peoples:'  these 
things,  and  the  hke  of  these,  we  have  to  accept  for  what  they 
are  worth.  It  is  the  manner  in  which  the  Girondins  make  their 
Last  Supper.  Valaze,  u^ith  bloody  breast,  sleeps  cold  in  death  ; 
hears  not  their  singing.  V ergniaud  has  his  dose  of  poison  ;  but 
it  is  not  enough  for  his  friends,  it  is  enough  only  for  himself ; 
wherefore  he  flings  it  from  him  ;  presides  at  this  Last  Supper  of 
the  Girondins,  with  wild  coruscations  of  eloquence,  with  song  and 
mirth.  Poor  human  Will  struggles  to  assert  itself ;  if  not  in  this 
w^a)^,  then  in  that.  ^ 

But  on  the  morrow  morning  all  Paris  is  out  ;  such  a  crowd  as 
no  man  had  seen.  The  Death-carts,  Valaze's  cold  corpse  stretched 
among  the  yet  living  Twenty-one,  roll  along.  Bareheaded,  hands 
bound  ;  in  their  shirt-sleeves,  coat  flung  loosely  round  the  neck  : 
so  fare  the  eloquent  of  France  ;  bemurmured,  beshouted.  To 
the  shouts  of  Vive  la  Republique^  some  of  them  keep  answering 
with  counter-shouts  of  Vive  la  Rdpublique.  Others,  as  Brissot,  sit 
sunk  in  silence.  At  the  foot  of  the  scaffold  they  again  strike  up, 
with  appropriate  variations,  the  Hymn  of  the  Marseillese.  Such 
an  act  of  music ;  conceive  it  well  !  The  yet  Living  chant  there  ; 
the  chorus  so  rapidly  wearing  weak  !  Sanson's  axe  is  rapid  ; 
one  head  per  minute,  or  little  less.  The  chorus  is  worn  oiU ; 
farewell  for  evermore  ye  Girondins.  Te-Deum  Fauchet  has 
become  silent  ;  Valaze's  dead  head  is  lopped  :  the  sickle  of  the 
Guillotine  has  reaped  the  Girondins  all  away.  *  The  eloquent,  the 
^  young,  the  beautiful  and  brave  ! '  exclaims  Riouffe.  O  Death, 
what  feast  is  toward  in  thy  ghastly  Halls  ? 

Nor  alas,  in  the  far  Bourdeaux  region,  will  Girondism  fare 
better.  In  caves  of  Saint- Emihon,  in  loft  and  cellar,  the  weariest 
months,  roll  on  ;  apparel  worn,  purse  empty  ;  wintry  November 
come ;  under  Tallien  and  his  Guillotine,  all  hope  now  gone. 
Danger  drawing  ever  nigher,  difficulty  pressing  ever  straiter,  they 
deterrriine  to  separate.  Not  unpathetic  the  farewell  ;  tall  Bar- 
baroux,  cheeriest  of  brave  men,  stoops  to  clasp  his  Louvet  :  "  In 
what  place  soever  thou  flndest  my  mother,"  cries  he,  "  try  to  be 
instead  of  a  son  to  her  :  no  resource  of  mine  but  I  will  share  with 
thy  Wife,  should  chance  ever  lead  me  where  she  is."t 

Louvet  went  witli  (hiadet,  with  Salles  and  Valady  ;  Barbaroux 
with  ]3uzot  and  Pction.  Valady  soon  went  southward,  on  a  way 
of  his  own.  The  two  friends  and  Louvet  liad  a  miserable  day  and 
night;  the  14th  of  the  November  month,  1793.  Sunk  in  wet, 
weariness  and  hunger,  they  knock,  on  tlic  morrow,  for  help,  at  a 
friend's  country-house  ;  tlie  faintlicarted  friend  refuses  to  admit 
them.  They  stood  therefore  under  trees,  in  the  pouring  rain. 
Flying  desperate,  Louvet  thereupon  will  to  Paris.  He  sets  forth, 
there  and  then,  splashing  the  mud  on  each  side  of  him,  with  a 
fresh  strength  gathered  from  fury  or  frenzy.    He  passes  villages, 

*  Mdmoires  de  Riouffc  (in  Mdmoires  sur  les  Prisons,  Paris,  1823),  p. 

f  Louvet,  p,  213. 


THE  TWENTY-TWO, 


finding  'the  sentry  asleep  in  his  box  in  the  thick  rain  ; '  he  is  gone, 
before  the  man  can  call  after  him.  He  bilks  Revolutionary  Com- 
mittees ;  rides  in  carriers'  carts,  covered  carts  and  open;  lies 
hidden  in  one,  under  knapsacks  and  cloaks  of  soldiers'  wives  on 
the  Street  of  Orleans,  while  men  search  for  him  :  has  hairbreadth 
escapes  that  v/ould  fill  three  romances  :  finally  he  gets  to  Paris  to 
his  fair  Helpmate  ;  gets  to  Switzerland,  and  waits  better  days. 

Poor  Guadet  and  Salles  were  both  taken,  ere  long  ;  they  died 
by  the  Guillotine  in  Bourdeaux  ;  drums  beating  to  drown  their 
voice.  Valady  also  is  caught,  and  guillotined.  Barbaroux  and 
his  two  comrades  weathered  it  longer,  into  the  summer  of  1794  ; 
but  not  long  enough.  One  July  morning,  changing  their  hiding 
place,  as  they  have  often  to  do,  'about  a  league  from  Saint- 
'  Emilion,  they  observe  a  great  crowd  of  country-people  ; '  doubtless 
Jacobins  come  to  take  them Barbaroux  draws  a  pistol,  shoots 
himself  dead.  Alas,  and  it  was  not  Jacobins  ;  it  was  harmless 
villagers  going  to  a  village  wake.  Two  days  afterwards,  Buzot  and 
Petion  were  found  in  a  Corn-field,  their  bodies  half-eaten  with 
dogs.* 

Such  was  the  end  of  Girondism.  They  arose  to  regenerate 
France,  these  men  ;  and  have  accomplished  this.  Alas,  whatever 
quarrel  we  had  with  them,  has  not  their  cruel  fate  abolished  it  ? 
Pity  only  survives.  So  many  excellent  souls  of  heroes  sent  down 
to  Hades  ;  they  themselves  given  as  a  prey  of  dogs  and  all 
manner  of  birds  !  But,  here  too,  the  will  of  the  Supreme  Power 
was  accomphshed.  As  Vergniaud  said  :  '  the  Revolution,  like 
^  Saturn,  is  devouring  its  own  children 

*  Rccherches  Historiques  sur  les  Girondins  (in  Memoir es  de  Buzot),  p.  10^ 


i42 


BOOK  FIFTH. 

TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

RUSHING  DOWN, 

We  are  now,  therefore,  got  to  that  black  precipitous  Abyss ; 
whither  all  things  have  long  been  tending  ;  where,  having  now 
arrived  on  the  giddy  verge,  they  hurl  down,  in  confused  ruin  ; 
headlong,  pellmell,  down,  down  ; — till  Sansculottistn  have  con- 
summated itself ;  and  in  this  wondrous  French  Revolution^  as  in  a 
Doomsday,  a  World  have  been  rapidly,  if  not  born  again,  yet 
destroyed  and  engulphed.  Terror  has  long  been  terrible  :  but  to 
the  actors  themselves  it  has  now  becotne  manifest  that  their 
appointed  course  is  one  of  Terror  ;  and  they  say,  Be  it  so.  "  Que 
la  Te?reur  soit  a  Vordre  du  jotir.^^ 

So  many  centuries,  say  only  from  Hugh  Capet  downwards,  had 
been  adding  together,  century  transmitting  it  with  increase  to  cen- 
tury, the  sum  of  Wickedness,  of  Falsehood,  Oppression  of  man  by 
man.  Kings  were  sinners,  and  Priests  were,  and  People.  Open- 
Scoundrels  rode  triumphant,  bediademed,  becoronetted,  beniitred ; 
or  the  still  fataller  species  of  Secret-Scoundrels,  in  their  fair- 
sounding  formulas,  speciosities,  respectabilities,  hollow  within  :  the 
race  of  Quacks  was  grown  many  as  the  sands  of  the  sea.  Till  at 
length  such  a  sum  of  Quackery  had  accumulated  itself  as,  in  brief, 
the  Earth  and  the  Heavens  were  weary  of  Slow  seemed  the  Day 
of  Settlement  :  coming  on,  all  imperceptible,  across  the  bluster 
and  fanfaronade  of  Courtierisms,  Conquering-Heroisms,  Most- 
Christian  Grand  Monarque-isms,  Well-beloved  Pompadourisn^.s  : 
yet  behold  it  was  always  coming  ;  behold  it  has  come,  suddenly, 
unlooked  for  by  any  man  !  The  harvest  of  long  centuries  was 
ripening  and  whitening  so  rapidly  of  late  ;  and  now  it  is  grown 
white^  and  is  reaped  rapidly,  as  it  were,  in  one  day.  Reaped,  in 
this  Reign  of  Terror  ;  and  carried  home,  to  Hades  and  the  Pit  !  — 
Unhappy  Sons  of  Adam  :  it  is  ever  so  ;  and  never  do  they  know 
k,  nor  will  they  know  it.  With  cheerfully  smoothed  countenances, 
day  after  day,  and  generation  after  generation,  they,  calling  cheer- 
fully to  one  another,  "  Well-speed-ye,"  are  at  work,  sowing  the 


RUSHING  DOWN, 


H3 


'Wind.  And  yet,  as  God  lives,  they  shall  reap  the  whirlwind :  no 
other  thing,  we  say,  is  possible, — since  God  is  a  Truth  and  His 
World  is  a  Truth. 

History,  however,  in  dealing  with  this  Reign  of  Terror,  has  had 
her  own  difficulties.  While  the  Phenomenon  continued  in  its 
primary  state,  as  mere  '  Horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,'  there 
was  abundance  to  be  said  and  shrieked.  With  and  also  without 
profit.  Heaven  knows  there  were  terrors  and  horrors  enough  - 
yet  that  was  not  all  the  Phenomenon  ;  nay,  more  properly,  that 
was  not  the  Phenomenon  at  all,  but  rather  was  the  shadow  of  it, 
the  negative  part  of  it.  And  now,  in  a  new  stage  of  the  business, 
when  History,  ceasing  to  shriek,  would  try  rather  to  include  under 
her  old  Forms  of  speech  or  speculation  this  new  amazing  Thing  ; 
that  so  some  accredited  scientific  Law  of  Nature  might  suffice  for 
the  unexpected  Product  of  Nature,  and  History  might  get  to  speak 
of  it  articulately,  and  draw  inferences  and  profit  from  it ;  in  this 
new  stage.  History,  we  must  say,  babbles  and  flounders  perhaps  in 
a  still  painfuller  manner.  Take,  for  example,  the  latest  Form  of 
speech  we  have  seen  propounded  on  the  subject  as  adequate  to  it, 
almost  in  these  months,  by  our  worthy  M.  Roux,  in  his  Histoire 
Parlementaire.  The  latest  and  the  strangest  :  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  a  dead-hft  effort,  after  eighteen  hundred  years  of 
preparation,  to  realise — the  Christian  Religion  !  Unity,  Indivisi- 
dility,  Brotherhood  or  Death  did  indeed  stand  printed  on  all 
Houses  of  the  Living;  also,  on  Cemeteries,  or  Houses  of  the 
Dead,  stood  printed,  by  order  of  Procureur  Chaumette,  Here  is 
eternal  Sleep  :i  but  a  Christian  Religion  realised  by  the  Guillotine 
and  Death-Eternal,  '  is  suspect  to  me,'  as  Robespierre  was  wont 
to  say„  '  m^est  suspected 

Alas,  no,  M.  Roux  !  A  Gospel  of  Brotherhood,  not  according 
to  any  of  the  Four  old  Evangelists,  and  calhng  on  men  to  repent, 
and  amend  each  his  own  wicked  existence,  that  they  might  be 
saved  ;  but  a  Gospel  rather,  as  we  often  hint,  according  to  a  new 
Fifth  Evangelist  Jean-Jacques,  calling  on  men  to  amend  each  the 
whole  worlds  wicked  existence,  and  be  saved  by  making  the 
Constitution.  A  thing  different  and  distant  toto  ccelos  as  they 
say  :  the  whole  breadth  of  the  sky,  and  further  if  possible !— It 
is  thus,  however,  that  History,  and  indeed  all  human  Speech  and 
Reason  does  yet,  what  Father  Adam  began  life  by  doing  :  strive 
to  na^ne  the  new  Things  it  sees  of  Nature's  producing, — often 
helplessly  enough. 

But  what  if  History  were  to  admit,  for  once,  that  all  the  Names 
and  Theorems  yet  known  to  her  fall  short  ?  That  this  grand 
Product  of  Nature  was  even  grand,  and  new,  in  that  it  came  not 
to  range  itself  under  old  recorded  Laws-of-Nature  at  all  ;  but  to 
disclose  new  ones  ?  In  that  case,  History  renouncing  the  pre- 
tention to  7ia}ne  it  at  present,  will  look  honestly  at  it,  and  name 
what  she  can  of  it !  Any  approximation  to  the  right  Name  has 
value  :  were  Hic  right  name  itself  once  here,  the  Thing  is  known 
thenceforth  ;  the  Thing  is  then  ours,  and  can  be  dealt  with. 
*  m^t.  Pari.  (Introd.),  i.  i  et  seqq.  t  Dciix  Amis,  xii.  78. 


144        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


Now  surely  not  realization,  of  Christianity,  or  of  aught  earthly, 
do  we  discern  in  this  Reign  of  Terror,  in  this  French  Revolution 
of  which  it  is  the  consummating.  Distruction  rather  we  discern, 
— of  all  that  v/as  destructible.  It  is  as  if  Twenty-five  millions, 
risen  at  length  into  the  Pythian  mood,  had  stood  up  simultaneously 
to  say,  with  a  sound  which  goes  through  far  lands  and  times,  that 
this  Untruth  of  an  Existence  had  "become  insupportable.  O  ye 
Hypocrisies  and  Speciosities,  Royal  mantles,  Cardinal  plushcloaks, 
ye  Credos,  Formulas,  Respectabilities,  fair-painted  Sepulchres 
full  of  dead  men's  bones^ — behold,  ye  appear  to  us  to  be  altogether 
a  Lie.  Yet  our  Life  is  not  a  Lie  ■,  yet  our  Hunger  and  Misery  is 
not  a  Lie  !  Behold  we  lift  up,  one  and  all,  our  Twenty-five 
million  right-hands  ;  and  take  the  Heavens,  and  the  Earth  and 
also  the  Pit  of  Tophet  to  witness,  that  either  ye  shall  be  abolished, 
or  else  we  shall  be  abolished  ! 

No  inconsiderable  Oath,  truly  ;  forming,  as  has  been  often  said, 
the  most  remarkable  transaction  in  these  last  thousand  years. 
Wherefrom  likewise  there  follow,  and  will  follow,  results.  The 
fulfilment  of  this  Oath  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  black  desperate  battle 
of  Men  against  their  whole  Condition  and  Environment,— a  battle, 
alas,  withal,  against  the  Sin  and  Darkness  that  was  in  themselves 
as  in  others  :  this  is  the  Reign  of  Terror.  Transcendental  despair 
was  the  purport  of  it,  though  not  consciously  so.  False  hopes,  of 
Fraternity,  Politicial  Millennium,  and  what  not,  we  have  always 
seen :  but  the  unseen  heart  of  the  whole,  the  transcendental 
despair,  was  not  false  ;  neither  has  it  been  of  no  en'"ect.  Despair, 
pushed  far  enough,  completes  the  circle,  so  to  speak  ;  and  becomes 
a  kind  of  genuine  productive  hope  again. 

Doctrine  of  Fraternity,  out  of  old  Catholicism,  does,  it  is  true, 
very  strangely  in  the  vehicle  of  a  Jean-Jacques  Evangel,  suddenly 
plump  down  out  of  its  cloud-firmament ;  and  from  a  theorem 
determine  to  make  itself  a  practice.  But  just  so  do  all  creeds, 
intentions,  customs,  knowledges,  thoughts  and  things,  which  the 
French  have,  suddenly  plump  down  ;  Catholicism,  Classicism, 
Sentimentalism,  Cannibahsm  :  all  isms  that  make  up  Man  in 
France,  are  rushing  and  roaring  in  that  gulf ;  and  the  theorem  has 
become  a  practice,  and  whatsoever  cannot  swim  sinks.  Not 
Evangelist  Jean-Jacques  alone ;  there  is  not  a  Village  Schoolmaster 
but  has  contributed  his  quota  :  do  we  not  thou  one  another, 
according  to  the  Free  Peoples  of  Antiquity  ?  The  French  Patriot, 
in  red  Phrygian  nightcap  of  Liberty,  christens  his  poor  httle  red 
infant  Cato, — Censor,  or  else  of  Utica.  Gracchus  has  become 
Babocuf  and  edites  Newspapers  ;  Mutius  Sca^vola,  Cordwainer  of 
that  ilk,  presides  in  the  Section  Mutius-wSca^vola  :  and  in  brief, 
there  is  a  world  wholly  jumbling  itself,  to  try  what  will  swim  ! 

Wherefore  we  will,  at  all  events,  call  this  Reign  of  Terror  a  very 
strange  one.  Dominant  Sansculottism  makes,  as  it  were,  free 
arena  ;  one  of  the  strangest  temporary  states  Humanity  was  ever 
seen  in.  A  nation  of  men,  full  of  wants  and  void  of  habits  !  The 
old  habits  are  gone  to  wreck  because  they  were,  old  :  men,  driven 
forward  by  Necessity  and  fierce  Pythian  Madness,  have,  on  the 


D  EA  TH. 


U5 


spur  of  the  instant,  to.  devise  for  the  want  the  way  of  satisfying 
it.  The  wonted  tumbles  down  ;  by  imitation,  by  invention,  the 
Unwonted  hastily  builds  itself  up.  What  the  P^rench  National 
head  has  in  it  comes  out  :  if  not  a  great  result,  surely  one  of  the 
strangest. 

Neither  shall  the  reader  fancy  that  it  was  all  blank,  this  Reign 
of  Terror  :  far  from  it.  How  many  hammermen  and  squaremen, 
bakers  and  brewers,  washers  and  wringers,  over  this  France,  must 
ply  their  old  daily  work,  let  the  Government  be  one  of  Terror  or 
one  of  Joy  !  In  this  Paris  there  are  Twenty-three  Theatres 
nightly  ;  some  count  as  many  as  Sixty  Places  of  Dancing.*  The 
Play  wright  manufactures :  pieces  of  a  strictly  Republican  character. 
Ever  fresh  Noveigarbage,  as  of  old,  fodders  the  Circulating 
Libraries.t  The  '  Cesspool  of  Agio,'  now  in  the  time  of  Paper 
Money,  works  with  a  vivacity  unexampled,  unimagined  ;  exhales 
from  itself  *  sudden  fortunes,'  like  Alia  din- Palaces  :  really  a  kind 
of  miraculous  Fata-Morganas,  since  you  can  live  in  them,  for  a 
time.  Terror  is  as  a  sable  ground,  on  which  the  most  variegated 
of  scenes  paints  itself  In  startling  transitions,  in  colours  all 
intensated,  the  sublime,  the  ludicrous,  the  horrible  succeed  one 
another  ;  or  rather,  in  crowding  tumult,  accompany  one  another. 

Here,  accordingly,  if  anywhere,  the  '  hundred  tongues,'  which 
the  old  Poets  often  clamour  for,  were  of  supreme  service  !  In 
defect  of  any  such  organ  on  our  part,  let  the  Reader  stir  up  his 
own  imaginative  organ  :  let  us  snatch  for  him  this  or  the  other 
significant  glimpse  of  things,  in  the  fittest  sequence  we  can. 


CHAPTER  II. 

DEATH. 

In  the  early  days  of  November,  there  is  one  transient  glimpse 
of  things  that  is  to  be  noted  :  the  last  transit  to  his  long  home  of 
Philippe  d'Orleans  Egalite.  Philippe  was  decreed  accused,' 
along  with  the  Girondins,  miuch  to  his  and  their  surprise  ;  but  not 
tried  along  with  them„  They  are  doomed  and  dead,  some  three 
days,  when  Philippe,  after  his  long  half-year  of  durance  at  Mar- 
seilles, arrives  in  Paris.  It  is,  as  we  calculate,  the  third  of 
November  1793. 

On  which  same  day,  two  notable  f^emale  Prisoners  are  also  put 
in  ward  there  :  Dame  Dubarry  and  Josephine  Beauharnais  ! 
Dame  whilom  Countess  Dubarry,  Unfortunate-female,  had 
returned  from  London  ;  they  snatched  her,  not  only  as  Ex-harlot 
of  a  whilom  Majesty,  and  therefore  suspect  ;  but  as  havmg 
*  furnished  the  Emigrants  with  money.'  Contemporaneously  with 
whom,  there  comes  the  wife  of  Beauharnais,  soon  to  be  the 
widow  :  she  that  is  Josephine  Tascher  Beauharnais  ;  that  shall 
*  Mercier,  ii.  124.  f  Monitcur  of  these  months,  passim. 


145        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


be  Josephine  Empress  Buonaparte,  for  a  black  Divineress  of  the 
Tropics  prophesied  long  since  that  she  should  be  a  Queen  and 
more.  Likewise,  in  the  same  hours,  poor  Adam  Lux,  nigh  turned 
in  the  head,  who,  according  to  Foster,  '  has  taken  no  food  these 
*  three  weeks,'  marches  to  the  Guillotine  for  his  Pamphlet  on 
Charlotte  Corday  :  he  *  sprang  to  the  scaffold  ; '  said  '  he  died  for 
^  her  with  great  joy.'  Ainid  such  fellow-travellers  does  Philippe 
arrive.  For,  be  the  month  named  Brumaire  year  2  of  Liberty,  or 
November  year  1793  of  Slavery,  the  Guillotine  goes  always, 
Guillotine  va  toujours. 

Enough,  Philippe's  indictment  is  soon  drawn,  his  jury  soon 
convinced.  He  finds  himself  made  guilty  of  Royalism,  Con- 
spiracy and  much  else  ;  nay,  it  is  a  guilt  in  him  that  he  voted 
Louis's  Death,  though  he  answers,  "  1  voted  in  my  soul  and  con^ 
science."  The  doom  he  finds  is  death  forthwith  :  this  present 
sixth  dim  day  of  November  is  the  last  dav  that  Philippe  is  to  see. 
Philippe,  says  Montgaillard,  thereupon  called  for  breakfast  :  suffi- 
ciency of  '  oysters,  two  cutlets,  best  part  of  an  excellent  bottle  of 
claret  ;  '  and  consumed  the  same  with  apparent  -elish.  A  Revo- 
lutionary Judge,  or  some  official  Convention  Emissary,  then 
arrived,  to  signify  that  he  might  still  do  the  State  some  service  bv 
revealing  the  truth  about  a  plot  or  two.  Philippe  answered  that, 
on  him,  in  the  pass  things  had  come  to,  the  State  had,  he  thought, 
small  claim  ;  that  nevertheless,  in  the  interest  of  Liberty,  he,  hav- 
ing still  some  leisure  on  his  hands,  was  willing,  were  a  reasonable 
question  asked  him,  to  give  reasonable  answer.  And  so,  says 
Montgaillard,  he  leant  his  elbow  on  the  mantel-piece,  and  con- 
versed in  an  under-tone,  with  great  seeming  composure  ;  till  the 
leisure  was  done,  or  the  Emissary  went  his  ways. 

At  the  door  of  the  Conciergerie,  Philippe's  attitude  was  erect 
and  easy,  almost  commanding.  It  is  five  years,  all  but  a  few 
days,  since  Philippe,  within  these  same  stone  walls,  stood  up  with 
an  air  of  graciosity,  and  asked  King  Louis,  Whether  it  was  a 
Royal  Session,  then,  or  a  Bed  of  Justice  ? "  O  Heaven  !~Three 
poor  blackguards  were  to  ride  and  die  with  him  :  some  say,  they 
objected  to  such  company,  and  had  to  be  flung  in,  neck  and 
heels  but  it  seems  not  true.  Objecting  or  not  objecting,  the 
gallows-vehicle  gets  under  way.  Philippe's  dress  is  reir^arked  for 
its  elegance  ;  greenfrock,  waistcoat  of  white  pique,  yellow  buck- 
skins, boots  clear  as  Warren  :  his  air,  as  before,  entirely  com- 
posed, impassive,  not  to  say  easy  and  Brummellean-polite. 
Tln-ough  street  after  street ;  slowly,  amid  execrations  ;— past  the 
I'alais  Egalite  whilom  Palais-Royal  !  The  cruel  Populace  stopped 
him  there,  some  minutes  :  Dame  de  Buffon,  it  is  said,  looked  out 
on  him,  in  Jezebel  head-tire  ;  along  the  ashlar  Wall,  there  ran 
tliese  words  in  huge  tricolor  print.  Republic  one  and  tndivi- 
sini.K  ;  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity  or  Death  :  National 
Property.  Philippe's  eyes  flashed  hellfire,  one  instant ;  b'lt  the 
next  instant  it  was  gone,  and  he  sat  impassive,  Brummellean- 
polite.  On  the  scaffold,  Samson  was  for  drawing  of  his  bt»*it- 
*  Foster,  ii.  628  ;.  Montgaillard,  iv.  141-57. 


DEATH. 


147 


**tush,"  said  Philippe,  '' they  will  come  better  off  after j  let  us 
•have  done,  depecho7is-nons  ! 

So  Philippe  was  not  without  virtue,  then  ?  God  forbid  that  there 
should  be  any  Hving  man  without  it !  He  had  the  virtue  to  keep 
living  for  five-and-forty  years  ;— other  virtues  perhaps  more  than 
we  know  of.  Probably  no  mortal  ever  had  such  things  recorded 
of  him:  such  facts,  and  also  such  hes.  For  he  was  -^Jacobin 
Prince  of  the  Blood;  consider  what  a  combination  !  Also,  unlike 
any  Nero,  any  Borgia,  he  lived  in  the  Age  of  Pamphlets.  Enough 
for  us  :  Chaos  has  reabsorbed  him  ;  may  it  late  or  never  bear  his 
like  again  !— Brave  young  Orleans  Egahte,  deprived  of  all,  only 
not  deprived  of  himself,  is  gone  to  Coire  in  the  Grisons,  under  the 
name  of  Corby,  to  teach  Mathematics.  The  Egalite  Family  is  at 
the  darkest  depths  of  the  Nadir. 

A  far  nobler  Victim  follows  ;  one  who  will  claim  remembrance 
from  several  centuries  :  Jeanne-Marie  Phhpon,  the  Wife  of  Roland. 
Queenly,  sublime  in  her  uncomplaining  sorrow,  seemed  she  to 
Riouffe  in  her  Prison.  '  Something  more  than  is  usually  found 
'  in  the  looks  of  women  painted  itself/  says  Riouffe,"^  'in  those 

*  large  black  eyes  of  hers,  full  of  expression  and  sweetness.  She 
'  spoke  to  me  often,  at  the  Grate  :  we  were  all  attentive  round 
'  her,  in  a  sort  of  admiration  and  astonishment  ;  she  expressed 

*  herself  with  a  purity,  with  a  harmony  and  prosody  that  made  her 
^  language  like  music,  of  v/hich  the  ear  could  never  have  enough. 

Her  conversation  was  serious,  not  cold  ;  comi^ig  from  the  mouth 

*  of  a  beautiful  woman,  it  was  frank  and  courageous  as  that  of  a 
'  great  man/  '  And  yet  her  maid  said  :  "  Before  you,  she  collects 
'  her  strength  ;  but  in  her  own  room,  she  will  sit  three  hours 

*  sometimes,  leaning  on  the  window,  and  weeping.'"  She  had 
been  in  Prison,  liberated  once,  but  recaptured  the  same  hour,  ever 
since  the  first  of  June  :  in  agitation  and  uncertainty  ;  which  has 
gradually  settled  down  into  the  last  stern  certainty,  that  of  death. 
In  the  Abbaye  Prison,  she  occupied  Charlotte  Corday's  apartment. 
Here  in  the  Conciergerie,  she  speaks  with  Riouffe,  with  Ex- 
Minister  Claviere  ;  calls  the  beheaded  Twenty-two  "  Nos  amis, 
our  Friends,"— whom  we  are  soon  to  follow.  During  these  five 
months,  those  Meinoirs  of  hers  were  written,  which  all  the  world 

still  reads.  -d-  rr 

But  now,  on  the  8th  of  November,  '  clad  in  white,  says  Rioutte, 
'  with  her  long  black  hair  hanging  down  to  her  girdle,'  she  is  gone 
to  the  Judgment  Bar.  She  returned  with  a  quick  step  ;  hfted  her 
finger,  to  signify  to  us  that  she  was  doomed :  her  eyes  seemed^  to 
have  been  wet.  Fouquier-Tinville's  questions  had  been  '  brutal ; 
offended  female  honour  flung  them  back  on  him,  with  scorn,  not 
without  tears.  And  now,  short  preparation  soon  done,  she  shall 
go  her  last  road.    There  went  with  her  a  certain  Lamarche, 

*  Director  of  Assignat  printing  ; '  whose  dejection  she  endeavoured 
to  cheer.  Arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  scaftbld,  she  asked  for  pen 
and  paper;     to  write  the  strange  thoughts  that  were  rising  in 

MJmoires  {Sur  ks  Prisons,  i.),  pp.  55-7- 


X48        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


her  a  remarkable  request  ;  which  was  refused.  Looking  at 
the  Statue  of  Liberty  which  stands  there,  she  says  bitterly  :  O 
Liberty,  what  things  are  done  in  thy  name  P'or  Lamarche's 
sake,  she  will  die  first  ;  shew  him  how  easy  it  is  to  die  :  "  Contrary  ( 
to  the  order,"  said  Samson. — "  Pshaw,  you  cannot  refuse  the  last  ? 
request  of  a  Lady  ;  "  and  Samson  yielded 

Noble  white  Vision,  with  its  high  queenly  face,  its  soft  proud  \ 
eyes,  long  black  hair  flowing  down  to  the  girdle  ;  and  as  brave  a  | 
heart  as  ever  beat  in  woman's  bosom  !    Like  a  white  Grecian  \ 
Statue,  serenely  complete,  she  shines  in  that  black  v/reck  of  \ 
things  ; — long  memorable.    Honour  to  great  Nature  who,  in  Paris 
City,  in  the  Era  of  Noble- Sentiment  and  Pompadourism,  can 
make  a  Jeanne  Phlipon,  and  nourish  her  to   clear  perennial 
Womanhood,  though  but  on  Logics,  Encyclopedies,  and  the  Gospel 
according  to  Jean- Jacques  !    Biography  will  long  remember  that 
trait  of  asking  for  a  pen  "  to  write  the  strange  thoughts  that  were 
rising  in  her."    It  is  as  a  little  light-beam,  shedding  softness,  and 
a  kind  of  sacredness,  over  all  that  preceded  :  so  in  her  too  there 
was  an  Unnameable  ;  she  too  was  a  Daughter  of  the  Infinite  ; 
there  were  mysteries  which  Philosophism  had  not  dreamt  of  ! — 
She  left  long  written  counsels  to  her  little  Girl  ;  she  said  her 
Husband  would  not  survive  her. 

Still  crueller  was  the  fate  of  poor  Bailly,  First  National  Presi- 
dent, First  Mayor  of  Paris  :  doomed  now  for  Royalism,  Fayettism  ; 
for  that  Red-Flac^  Business  of  the  Champ  de  Mars  ;— one  may  say 
in  general,  for  leaving  his  Astronomy  to  meedle  with  Revolution. 
It  is  the  I oth  of  November  1793,  a  cold  bitter  drizzling  rain,  as 
poor  Bailly  is  led  through  the  streets  ;  howling  Populace  covering 
him  with  curses,  with  mud  ;  waving  over  his  face  1  burning  or 
smoking  mockery  of  a  Red  Flag.  Silent,  unpitied,  sits  the  inno- 
cent old  man.  Slow  faring  through  the  sleety  drizzle,  they  have 
got  to  the  Champ-de-Mars  :  Not  there  !  vociferates  the  cursing 
Populace  ;  Such  blood  ought  not  to  stain  an  Altar  of  the  P^ather- 
land  not  there  ;  but  on  that  dungheap  by  the  River-side  !  So 
vociferates  the  cursing  Populace  ;  Officiality  gives  ear  to  them. 
The  Guillotine  is  taken  down,  though  with  hands  numbed  by  the 
sleety  drizzle  ;  is  carried  to  the  River-side  ;  is  there  set  up  again, 
with  slow  numbness  ;  pulse  after  pulse  still  counting  itself  out  m 
the  old  man's  weary  heart.  For  hours  long ;  amid  curses  and 
bitter  frost-rain  !  "  P>ailly,  thou  tremblest,"  said  one  "  Mo7i  ami, 
it  is  for  cold,"  said  Bailly,  "  c'est  de  froid''  Crueller  e^id  had  no 
mortal. t 

Some  days  afterwards,  Roland  hearing  the  news  of  what 
happened  on  the  8th,  embraces  his  kind  Friends  at  Rouen,  leaves 
their  kind  house  which  had  given  him  refuge  ;  goes  forth,  with 
farewell  too  sad  for  tears.  On  the  morrow  morning,  i6th  of  the 
month,  ^  some  four  leagues  from  Rouen,  Paris-ward,  near  Bourg- 
*  Baudoin,  in  M.  Normand's  Avenue,'  there  is  seen  sitting  leant 
aigainst  a  tree,  the  figure  of  rigorous  wrinkled  man  ;  stiff  now  in 

*  Mlmoires  de  Madame  Roland  (Introd.),  i.  68. 
t  Vie  de  Bailly  (in  Mdmoires,  I),  p.  29. 


DEATH. 


149 


the  rigour  of  death  ;  a  cane-sword  run  through  his  heart  ;  and  at 
his  feet  this  writing  :  '  Whoever  thou  art  that  findest  mc  lying, 

*  respect  my  remains  :  they  are  those  of  a  man  who  consecrated 
'  all  his  life  to  being  useful  ;  arid  who  has  died  as  he  lived,  virtuous 
^  and  honest.'  '  Not  fear,  but'  indignation,  made  me  quit  my  re- 
^  treat,  on  learning  that  my  Wife  had  been  murdered.    I  wished 

*  not  to  remain  longer  on  an  Earth  polluted  with  crimes/"^ 
Barnave's  appearance  at  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  was  of  the 

bravest  ;  but  it  could  not  stead  him.  They  have  sent  for  him  from 
Grenoble  ;  to  pay  the  common  smart,  Vain  is  eloquence,  forensic 
or  other,  against  the  dumb  Clotho-shears  of  Tinville.  He  is  still 
but  two-and-thirty,  this  Barnave,  and  has  known  such  changes. 
Short  while  ago,  we  saw  him  at  the  top  gf  Fortune's  Wheel,  his 
word  a  law  to  all  Patriots  :  and  now  surely  he  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Wheel ;  in  stormful  altercation  with  a  Tinville  Tribunal,  whidh 
is  dooming  him  to  die  If  And  Petion,  once  also  of  the  Extreme 
Loft,  and  named  Petion  Virtue^  where  is  he  ?  Civilly  dead  ;  in 
the  Caves  of  Saint-Emilion  ;  to  be  devoured  of  dogs.  And  Robes- 
pierre, who  rode  along  with  him  on  the  shoulders  of  the  people, 
is  in  Committee  of  Salttt j  civilly  alive  :  not  to  live  always.  So 
giddy-swift  whirls  and  spins  this  immeasurable  torinentitni  of  a 
Revolution  ;  wild-booming  ;  not  to  be  followed  by  the  eye.  Bar- 
nave,  on  the  Scaffold,  stamped  with  his  foot  ;  and  looking  upwards 
was  heard  to  ejaculate,    This  then  is  my  reward?" 

Deputy  Ex-Procureur  Manuel  is  already  gone  ;  and  Deputy 
Osselin,  famed  also  in  August  and  September,  is  about  to  go  :  and 
Rabaut,  discovered  treacherously  between  his  tv/o  walls,  and  the 
Brother  of  Rabaut.  National  Deputies  not  a  few  !  And  Generals  : 
the  memory  of  General  Custine  cannot  be  defended  by  his  Son  ; 
his  Son  is  already  guillotined.  Custine  the  Ex-Noble  was  replaced 
by  Houchard  the  Plebeian  :  he  too  could  not  prosper  in  the  North ; 
for  him  too  there  was  no  mercy ;  he  has  perished  in  the  Place  de 
la  Revolution,  after  attempting  suicide  in  Prison.  And  Generals 
Biron,  Beauharnais,  Brunet,  whatsoever  General  prospers  not ; 
tough  old  Llickner,  with  his  eyes  grown  rheumy  ;  Alsatian  Wester- 
mann,  valiant  and  diligent  in  La  Vendee  :  none  of  them  ca7i,  as 
the  Psalmist  sings,  his  soul fro7n  death  deliver. 

How  busy  are  the  Revolutionary  Committees  ;  Sections  with 
their  Forty  Halfpence  a-day  !  Arrestment  on  arrestment  falls 
Cfuick,  continual  ;  followed  by  death.  Ex-Minister  Claviere  has 
killed  himself  in  Prison.  Ex-Minister  Lebrun,  seized  in  a  hay- 
loft, under  the  disguise  of  a  working  man,  is  instantly  conducted 
to  death.  J  Nay,  withal,  is  it  not  what  Barrere  calls  '  coining 
money  on  the  Place  de  la  Revolution  ? '  For  always  the  ^  property 
'  of  the  guilty,  if  property  he  have,'  is  confiscated.  To  avoid 
accidents,  we  even  make  a  Law  that  suicide  shall  not  defraud  us 
that  a  criminal  who  kills  himself  does  not  the  less  incur  forfeiture 
of  goods.    Let  the  guilty  tremble,  therefore,  ai-ud  the  suspect,  and 

*  M4moires  de  Madame  Roland  (Introd.),  i.  88.  f  Foster,  ii.  629. 

J  Mo7nienr,  11  Decembre,  30  Decembre,  1793;  Louvet,  p.  287. 


ISO        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


the  rich,  and  in  a  word  all  m^inner  of  culottic  men  !  Luxembourg 
Palace,  once  Monsieur's,  has  become  a  huge  loathsome  Prison"^; 
Chantilly  Palace  too,  once  Conde's  :— and  their  Landlords  are  at 
Blankenberg,  on  the  v/rong  side  of  the  Rhine.  In  Paris  are  now 
some  Twelve  Prisons  ;  in  France  some  Forty-four  Thousand  : 
thitherward,  thick  as  brown  leaves  in  Autumn,  rustle  and  travel 
the  suspect ;  shaken  down  by  Revolutionary  Committees,  they  are 
swept  thitherward,  as  into  their  storehouse,— to  be  consumed  br 
Samson  and  Tinville.  '  The  Guillotine  goes  not  ill,  ne  va  Ms 
mai'  ^  ^ 


CHAPTER  in. 

DESTRUCTIOK 

The  suspect  may  well  tremble  ;  but  how  much  niofe  the  open 
rebels  ;~the  Girondin  Cities  of  the  South  !  Revolutionary  Army 
is  gone  forth,  under  Ronsin  the  Playwright ;  six  thousand  strong  ; 
m  'red  nightcap,  in  tricolor  waistcoat,  in  black-shag  trousers, 
'black-shag  spencer,  with  enormous  moustachioes,  enormous 
'  sabre,— in  carmagjtale  co7nplete  ;  and  has  portable  guillotines. 
Representative  Carrier  has  got  to  Nantes,  by  the  edge  of  blazing 
La  Vende'e,  which  Rossignol  has  literally  set  on  fire  :  Carrier  will 
try  what  captives  you  make,  what  accomplices  they  have,  Royalist 
or  Girondin  :  his  guillotine  go6s  always,  va  toujours j  and  his 
wool-capped  '  Company  of  Marat/  Little  children  are  guillotined, 
and  aged  men.  Swift  as  the  machine  is,  it  will  not  serve  ;  the 
Headsman  and  all  his  valets  sink,  worn  down  with  work  ;  declare 
that  the  human  muscles  can  no  more.f  Whereupon  you  must  try 
fusillading;  to  which  perhaps  still  frightfuller  methods  may 
succeed. 

In  Brest,  to  like  purpose,  rules  Jean-Bon  Saint-Andr^  ;  with  an 
Army  of  Red  Nightcaps.  In  Bourdeaux  rules  Talhen,  with  his 
Isabeau  and  henchmen  :  Guadets,  Cussys,  Salleses,  may  fall ;  the 
bloody  Pike  and  Nightcap  bearing  supreme  sway  ;  the  Guillotine 
coining  money.  Bristly  fox-haired  Tallien,  once  Able  Editor, 
still  young  in  years,  is  now  become  most  gloomy,  potent;  a  Pluto 
on  Earth,  and  has  the  keys  of  Tartarus.  One  remarks,  however, 
that  a  certain  Senhorina  Cabarus,  or  call  her  rather  Scnhora  and 
wedded  not  yet  widowed  Dame  de  Fontenai,  brown  beautiful 
woman,  daughter  of  Carbarus  the  Spanish  Merchant,— has 
softened  the  red  bristly  countenance  ;  pleading  for  herself  and 
friends  ;  and  prevailing.  The  keys  of  Tartarus,  or  any  kind  of 
power,  are  something  to  a  woman  ;  gloomy  Pluto  himself  is  not 
msensible  to  love.  Like  a  new  Proserpine,  she,  by  this  red 
gloomy  Dis,  is  gathered  ;  and,  they  say,  softens  his  stone  heart  a 
little. 

Maignet,  at  Orange  in  the  South  ;  Lebon,  at  Arras  in  the  North, 
t  See  Louvet,  p.  30L.  %  Deux  Amis,  xii.  249-51, 


DESTRUCTION. 


become  world's  wonders.  Jacobin  Popular  Tribunal,  with  its 
National  Representative,  perhaps  where  Girondin  Popular  Tribunal 
had  lately  been,  rises  here  and  rises  there  ;  wheresoever  needed. 
Touches,  Maignets,  Barrases,  Frerons  scour  the  Southern 
Departrnents  ;  like  reapers,  with  their  guillotine- sickle.  Many 
are- the  labourers,  great  is  the  harvest.  By  the  hundred  and  the 
thousand,  men's  lives  are  cropl  ;  cast  like  brands  into  the  burn- 
ing. 

Marseilles  is  taken,  and  put  under  martial  law  :  lo,  at  Marseilles, 
what  one  besmutted  red-bearded  corn-ear  is  this  which  they  cut ; 
—one  gross  Man,  we  mean,  with  copper-studded  face  ;  plenteous 
beard,  or  beard-stubble,  of  a  tile-colour?  By  Nemesis  and  the 
Fatal  Sisters,  it  is  Jourdan  Coup-tete  !  Him  they  have  clutched, 
in  these  martial-law  districts  ;  him  too,  with  tbei/^  national  razor,' 
their  rasoir  national^  they  sternly  shave  away.  Low  now  is 
Jourdan  the  Headsman's  own  head  ; — low  as  Deshuttes's  and 
Varigny's,  which  he  sent  on  pikes,  in  the  Insurrection  of  Women  ! 
Ko  more  shall  he,  as  a  copper  Portent,  be  seen  gyrating  through 
the  Cities  of  the  South  ;  no  more  sit  judging,  with  pipes  and 
brandy,  in  the  Ice-tower  of  Avignon.  The  aK-hiding  Earth  has 
received  him,  the  bloated  Tilebeard  :  may  we  never  look  upon  his 
like  again  !— Jourdan  one  names  ;  the  other  Hundreds  are  not 
named.  Alas,  they,  like  confused  faggots,  lie  massed  together  for 
us  j  counted  by  the  cartload  :  and  yet  not  an  individual  faggot- 
twig  of  them  but  had  a  Life  and  History  ;  and  w^s  cut,  not  with- 
out pangs  as  when  a  Kaiser  dies  \ 

Least  of  all  cities  can  Lyons  escape.  Lyons,  which  we  saw  in 
dread  sunblaze,  that  Autumn  night  when  the  Powder-tower  sprang 
aloft,  was  clearly  verging  towards  a  sad  end.  Inevitable  :  what 
could  desperate  valour  and  Precy  do  ;  Dubois-Crance,  deaf  as 
Destiny,  stern  as  Doom,  capturing  cheir  '  redouts  of  cotton-bags 
hemming  them  in,  ever  closer,  with  his  Artillery-lava.^  Never 
would  that  Ci-devajtt  d'Auti champ  arrive  ;  never  any  help  from 
Blankenberg.  f  he  Lyons  Jacobins  were  hidden  in  cellars  ;  the 
Girondin  Municipality  waxed  pale,  in  famine,  treason  and  red  tire. 
Prdcy  drew  his  sword,  and  some  Fifteen  Hundred  with  him  ;  sprang 
to  saddle,  to  cut  their  way  to  Switzerland.  They  cut  fiercely  ;  and 
were  fiercely  cut,  and  cut  down  ;  not  hundreds,  hardly  units  of 
them  ever  saw  Switzerland.*  Lyons,  on  the  nth  of  October, 
surrenders  at  discretion  ;  it  is  become  a  devoted  Tow^n  Abbe 
Lamourette,  now  Bishop  Laniourette,  whilom  Legislator,  he  of  the 
cAoi  Baiser-V Ar.:ourctie  or  Delilah- Kiss,  is  seized  here  ;  is  sent  to 
Paris  to  be  guillotined  :  *  he  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,'  they  say 
when  Tinville  intimated  his  death-sentence  to  him  ;  and  died  as 
an  eloquent  Constitutional  Bishop.  But  wo  now  to  all  Bishops, 
Priests,  Aristocrats  and  Federalists  that  are  in  Lyons !  The 
maites  of  Chalier  are  to  be  appeased  ;  the  Republic,  rnaddened  to 
the  Sibylline  pitch,  has  bared  her  right  arm.  Behold  !  Repre- 
sentative Fouchd,  it  is  Fouche  of  Nantes,  a  name  to  become  wftU 
*  Deux  Amu,  xi.  145. 


TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


known  ;  he  with  a  Patriot  company  goes  duly,  in  wondrous  Pro- 
cession, to  raise  the  corpse  of  Chaher.  An  Ass,  housed  \\\  Priest's 
cloak,  with  a  mitre  on  its  head,  and  trailing  the  Mass-Books,  some 
say  the  very  Bible,  at  its  tail,  paces  through  Lyons  streets ; 
escorted  by  multitudinous  Patriotism^  by  clangour  as  of  the  Pit  ; 
towards  the  grave  of  Martyr  Chalier.  The  body  is  Jug  up  and 
burnt :  the  ashes  are  collected  in  an  Urn  ;  to  be  v/orshipped  of 
Paris  Patriotism.  The  Holy  Books  were  part  of  the  funeral  pile  ; 
their  ashes  are  scattered  to  the  wind.  Amid  cries  of  "  Vengeance  ! 
Vengeance       which,  vvTites  Fouche,  shall  be  satisfied."^ 

Lyons  in  fact  is  a  Town  to  be  abolished  ;  not  Lyons  henceforth 
but  '  Commune  Affranchze,  Township  Freed  the  very  name  of 
it  shall  perish.  It  is  to  be  razed,  this  once  great  City,  if  Jacobinism 
prophesy  right  ;  and  a  Pillar  to  be  erected  on  the  ruins,  with  this 
Inscription,  Lyons  rebelled  against  the  Republic j  Lyons,  is^  7to 
more.  Fouche,  Couthon,  Collot,  Convention  Representatives 
succeed  one  another  :  there  is  work  for  the  hangman  ;  work  for 
the  hammerman,  not  in  building.  The  very  Houses  of  Aristocrats, 
we  say,  are  doomed.  Paralytic  Couthon,  borne  in  a  chair,  taps^on 
the  wall,  with  emblematic  mallet,  saying,  ''La  Loi  ie  frappe,  ilie 
Law  strikes  thee  masons,  with  wedge  and  crowbar,  begin  demo- 
lition. Crash  of  downfall,  dim  ruin  and  dust-clouds  fly  in  the 
winter  wind.  Had  Lyons  been  of  soft  stuff,  it  had  all  vanished  in 
those  weeks,  and  the  Jacobin  prophecy  had  been  fulfilled.  But 
Towns  are  not  built  of  soap-froth  ;  Lyons  Town  is  built  of  stone. 
Lyons,  though  it  rebelled  against  the  Republic,  is  to  this  day. 

Neither  have  the  Lyons  Girondins  all  one  neck,  that  you  could 
despatch  it  at  one  swoop.  Revolutionary  Tribunal  here,  and 
Military  Commission,  guillotining,  fusillading,  do  what  they  can  : 
the  kennels  of  the  Place  des  Terreaux  run  red  ;  mangled  corpses 
roll  down  the  Rhone.  Collot  d'Herbois,  they  say,  was  once  hissed 
on  the  Lyons  stage  :  but  with  what  sibilation,  of  world-catcall  or 
hoarse  Tartarean  Trumpet,  will  ye  hiss  him  now,  in  this  his  new 
character  of  Convention  Representative —not  to  be  repeated  ! 
Two  hundred  and  nine  men  are  marched  forth  over  the  River,  to 
be  shot  in  mass,  by  musket  and  cannon,  in  the  Promenade  of  the 
Brotteaux.  It  is  the  second  of  such  scenes  ;  the  first  was  of  some 
Seventy.  The  corpses  of  the  first  were  flung  into  the  Rhone,  but 
tlie  Rhone  stranded  some  ;  so  these  now,  of  the  second  lot,  are  to 
be  buried  on  land.  Their  one  long  grave  is  dug  ;  they  stand 
ranked,  by  the  loose  mould-ridge  ;  the  younger  of  them  singing 
the  Marseillaise.  Jacobin  National  (niards  give  fire  ;  but  have 
again  to  giv^e  fire,  and  again  ;  and  to  take  the  bayonet  and  the 
spade,  for  though  the  doomed  all  fall,  they  do  not  all  die  ;— and 
it  becomes  a  butchery  too  horrible  for  speech.  So  that  the  very 
Nationals,  as  they  fire,  turn  away  their  faces.  Collot,  snatching 
the  musket  from  one  such -National,  and  levelling  it  with  unmoved 
countenance,  says,  "  It  is  tlius  a  Republican  ought  to  fire." 

This  is  the  second  Fusillade,  and  happily  the  last  :  it  is  lound 
too  hideous  ;  even  inconvenient.    There  were  Two  hundred  ana 
*  Monitcur  (du  17  Novumbrc  1793),  ice 


DESTRUCTION. 


nine  marched  out ;  one  escaped  at  the  end  of  the  Bridge  :  yet 
behold,  when  you  count  the  corpses,  they  are  Two  hundred  and 
ten.  Rede  us  this  riddle, .  O  Collot  ?  After  long  guessing,  it  is 
called  to  mind  that  two  individuals,  here  in*  the  Brotteaux  ground, 
did  attempt  to  leave  the  rank,  protesting  with  agony  that  they 
were  not  condemned  men,  that  they  were  Police  Commissanes: 
which  two  we  repulsed,  and  disbelieved,  and  shot  with  the  res-.  !^ 
Such  is  the  vengeance  of  an  enraged  Republic.  Surely  this, 
according  to  Barrere's  phrase,  is  Justice  '  under  rough  forms,  sous 

*  des  formes  acerbesJ  But  the  Republic,  as  Fouche  says,  must 
"  march  to  Liberty  over  corpses."  Or  again  as  Barrere  has  it  :^ 
"  None  but  the  dead  do  not  come  back,  //  a  que  les  morts  qui 
ne  reviennent pas?^    Terror  hovers  far  and  wide  :  '  the  Guillotine 

*  goes  not  ill.' 

But  before  quitting  those  Soufiiern  regions,  over  which  History 
can  cast  only  glances  from  aloft,  she  will  alight  for  a  moment,  and 
look  fixedly  at  one  point  :  the  Siege  of  Toulon.  Much  battering 
and  bombarding,  heating  of  balls  in  furnaces  or -farm-houses, 
serving  of  artillery  well  and  ill,  attacking  of  Ollioules  Passes,  Forts 
Malbosquet,  there  has  been  :  as  yet  to  small  purpose.  We  have 
had  General  Cartaux  here,  a  whilom  Painter  elevated  in  the 
troubles  of  Marseilles  ;  General  Doppet,  a  whilom  Medical  man 
elevated  in  the  troubles  of  Piemont,  who,  under  Crance,  took  Lyons, 
but  cannot  take  Toulon.  Finally,  we  have  General  Dugommier,  a 
pupil  of  Washington.  Convention  Representans  also  we  have  had  ; 
Barrases,  Salicettis,  Robespierres  the  Younger  :— also  an  Artillery 
Chefde  brigade,  of  extreme  diligence,  who  ofteA  takes  his  nap  of 
sleep  among  the  guns  ;  a  short  taciturn,  olive-complexioned  young 
man,  not  unknown  to  us,  by  name  Buonaparte  :  one  of  the  best 
Artillery- officers  yet  met  with.  And  still  Toulon  is  not  taken.  ^  It 
is  the  fourth  month  now  ;  December,  in  slave-style  ;  Frostarious 
or  Frimairc,  in  new-style  :  and  still  their  cursed  Red-Blue  Flag  flies 
there.  They  are  provisioned  from  the  Sea  ;  they  have  seized  all 
heights,  felling  wood,  and  fortifying  themselves ;  like  the  coney, 
they  have  built  their  nest  in  the  rocks. 

Meanwhile,  Frostarious  is  not  yet  become  Snowous  or  Nivose, 
when  a  Council  of  War  is  called  ;  Instructions  have  just  arrived 
from  Government  and  Salict  Public.  Carnot,  in  Salut  Public,  has 
sent  us  a  plan  of  siege  :  on  which  plan  General  Dugommier  has 
this  criticism  to  make,  Commissioner  Salicetti  has  that ;  and 
criticisms  and  plans  are  very  various  ;  when  that  young  Artillery 
Officer  ventures  to  speak  ;  the  same  whom  we  saw  snatching  sleep 
among  the  guns,  who  has  emerged  several  times  in  this  History, 
—the  name  of  him  Napoleon  Buonaparte.  It  is  his  humble 
opinion,  for  he  has  been  gliding  about  with  spy-glasses,  with 
thoughts.  That  a  certain  Fort  TEguillette  can  be  clutched,  as  with 
lion-spring,  on  the  sudden  ;  wherefrom,  were  it  once  ours,  the  very 
heart  of  Toulon  might  be  battered,  the  Enghsh  Lines  were,  so  to 
speak,  turned  inside  out,  and  Hood  and  our  Natural  Enemies 
must  next  day  cither  put  to  sea,  or  be  burnt  to  ashes.  Com* 
^  Deux  Amis,  xii.  251-62. 


?54 


TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY, 


missioners  arch  their  eyebrows,  with  negatory  sniff :  who  is  this 
young  gentleman  with  more  wit  than  we  all?  Brave  veteran 
Dugommier,  however,  thinks  the  idea  worth  a  word  ;  questions 
the  young  gentleman  ;  becomes  convinced  :  and  there  is  for  issue 
Try  It.  ' 

On  the  taciturn  bronze-countenance,  therefore,  things  being  now 
all  ready,  there  sits  a  grimmer  gravity  than  ever,  compressing  a 
hotter  central-fire  than  ever.  Yonder,  thou  seest,  is  Fort  TEguil- 
lette  ;  a  desperate  lion-spring,  yet  a  possible  one  ;  this  day  to  be 
tried  !— Tried  It  is  ;  and  iornid  good. ^  By  stratagem  and  valour 
stealing  through  ravines,  plunging  fiery  through  the  fire-tempest' 
t  ort  1  Eguillette  is  clutched  at,  is  carried ;  the  smoke  having 
cleared,  we  see  the  Tricolor  fly  on  it :  the  bronze-cornplexioned 
young  man  was  right.  Next  morning,  Hood,  finding  the  interior 
of  his  hnes  exposed,  his  defences  turned  inside  out,  makes  for  his 
shipping.  Taking  such  Royahsts  as  wished  it  on  board  with  him 
he  weighs  anchor  :  on  this  19th  of  December  1793,  Toulon  is  once 
more  the  Republic's  ! 

Cannonading  has  ceased  at  Toulon  ;  and  now  the  guillotining 
and  fusillading  may  begin.  Civil  horrors,  truly  :  but  at  least  that 
infamy  of  an  English  domination  is  purged  away.  Let  there  be 
Civic  Feast  universally  over  France  :  so  reports  Barrere,  or 
Painter  David  ;  and  the  Convention  assist  in  a  body  *  Nay,  it  is 
said,  these  infamous  Englisli  (with  an  attention  rather  to  'their 
own  interests  than  to  ours)  set  fire  to  our  store-houses,  arsenals, 
warships  in  Toulon  Harbour,*  before  weighing  ;  some  score  of 
brave  war-ships,  the  only  ones  we  now  had  !  However,  it  did  not 
prosper,  though  the  flame  spread  far  and  high  :  some  two  ships 
were  burnt,  not  more  ;  the  very  galley-slaves  ran  with  buckets  to 
quench.  These  same  proud  Ships,  Ships  P Orient  and  the  rest, 
have  to  carry  this  same  young  Man  to  Egypt  first  :  not  yet  can 
they  be  changed  to  ashes,  or  to  Sea-Nymphs  ;  not  yet  to  sky- 
rockets, O  Ship  r Orient,  nor  became  the  prey  of  England,— before 
their  time  ! 

^  And  so,  over  France  universally,  there  is  Civic  Feast  and  high- 
tide  :  and  Toulon  sees  fusillading,  grape- shotting  in  mass,  as  Lvons 
saw  ;  and  '  death  is  poured  out  in  great  floods,  vomie  a  gra?tds 

/tots  '  and  Twelve  thousand  Masons  are  requisitioned  from  the 
neighbouring  country,  to  raze  Toulon  from  the  face  of  the  Earth. 
For  It  IS  to  be  razed,  so  reports  Barrere  ;  all  but  the  National 
Shipping  Establishments  ;  and  to  be  called  henceforth  not  Toulon, 
but  Port  of  the  Mountain.  There  in  black  death-cloud  we  must 
leave  It  hoping  only  that  Toulon  too  is  built  of  stone ;  that 
perhaps  even  Twelve  thousand  Masons  cannot  pull  it  down,  till 
the  fit  pass. 

One  begins  to  be  sick  of  *  death  vomited  in  great  floods.'  Never- 
theless hearest  thou  not,  O  reader  (for  the  sound  reaches  through 
centuries),  in  the  dead  December  and  January  nights,  over  Nantes 
Town,— confused  noises,  as  of  musketry  and  tumult,  as  of  rage 
and  lamentation  ;  mingling  with  the  everlasting  moan  of  the  Loire 
*  Mojtiia/r,  1793,  Nos.  101  (31  Occcnibrc),  95,  96,  98,  &c. 


DESTRUCTION. 


waters  there  ?  Nantes  Town  is  sunk  in  sleep  ;  but  Represen- 
iant  Carrier  is  not  sleeping,  the  wool-capped  Company  of  Marat 
is  not  sleeping.  Why  unmoors  that  flatbottomed  craft,  that 
gabarre ;  about  eleven  at  night  ;  with  Ninety  Priests  under 
hatches?  They  are  going  to' Belle  Isle?  In  the  middle  of  the 
Loire  stream,  on  signal  given,  the  gabarre  is  scuttled  ;  she  sinks 
with  all  her  cargo.  '  Sentence  of  Deportation,'  writes  Carrier, 
'  was  executed  vertically.'  The  Ninety  Priests,  with  their  gabarre- 
coffin,  lie  deep  !  It  is  the  first  of  the  Noyades,  what  we  may 
call  D7'ownages^  of  Carrier  ;  which  have  become  famous  for- 
ever. 

Guillotining  there  was  at  Nantes,  till  the  Headsman  sank  worn 
out  :  then  fusillading  '  in  the  Plain  of  Saint-Mauve  ; '  little  chil- 
dren fusilladed,  and  women  with  children  at  the  breast  ;  children 
and  women,  by  the  hundred  and  twenty  ;  and  by  the  five  hundred, 
so  hot  is  La  Vendee  :  till  the  very  Jacobins  grew  sick,  and  all  but 
the  Company  of  Marat  cried,  Hold  !  Wherefore  now  we  have 
got  Noyading  ;  and  on  the  24th  night  of  Frost arious  year  2,  which 
is  14th  of  December  1793,  we  have  a  second  Noyade  :  consisting 
of  '  a  Hundred  and  Thirty-eight  persons.'"^ 

Or  why  waste  a  gabarre,  sinking  it  with  them  ?  Fling  them 
out ;  fling  them  out,  with  their  hands  tied  :  pour  a  continual  hail 
of  lead  over  all  the  space,  till  the  last  struggler  of  them  be  sunk ! 
Unsound  sleepers  of  Nantes,  and  the  Sea-Villages  thereabouts, 
hear  the  musketry  amid  the  night-winds  ;  wonder  what  the  mean- 
ing of  it  is.  And  women  were  in  that  gabarre  ;  whom  the  Red 
Nightcaps  were  stripping  naked  ;  who  begged,  in  their  agony,  that 
their  smocks  might  not  be  stript  from  them.  And  young  chil- 
dren were  thrown  in,  their  mothers  vainly  pleading  :  "  Wolf- 
lings,"  answered  the  Company  of  Marat,  "  who  would  grow  to  be 
wolves." 

By  degrees,  daylight  itself  witnesses  Noyades  :  women  and 
men  are  tied  together,  feet  and  feet,  hands  and  hands  :  and  flung 
in  :  this  they  call  Mariage  Reptcblicain^  Republican  Marriage. 
Cruel  is  the  panther  of  the  woods,  the  she-bear  bereaved  of  her 
-whelps  :  but  there  is  in  man  a  hatred  crueller  than  that.  Dumb, 
out  of  suffering  now,  as  pale  swoln  corpses,  the  victims  tumble 
confusedly  seaward  along  the  Loire  stream  ;  the  tide  rolling  them 
"back  :  clouds  of  ravens  darken  the  River ;  wolves  prowl  on  the 
shoal-places  :  Carrier  writes,  '  Quel  torrent  revolutionnaire,  What 

torrent  of  Revolution  ! '  For  the  man  is  rabid  ;  and  the  Time 
is  rabid.  These  are  the  Noyades  of  Carrier  ;  twenty-tive  by  the 
tale,  for  what  is  done  in  darkness  comes  to  be  investigated  in 
sunlight  :t  not  to  be  forgotten  for  centuries, — We  will  turn  to 
another  aspect  of  the  Consummation  of  Sansculottism  ;  leaving 
this  as  the  blackest. 

But  indeed  men  are  all  rabid  ;  as  the  Time  is.  Representative 
Lebon,  at  Arras,  dashes  his  sword  into  the  blood  flowing  from 
the  Guillotine  ;  exclaims,  "  How  I  like  it !  "    Mothers,  they  say^ 

*  Deux  Amis,  xii.  266-72  ;  Mvniteur,  du  2  Janvier  1794. 
\  Proch  de  Carrier  (4  tomes,  Paris,  1795) . 


SS6        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


by  his  order,  have  to  stand  by  while  the  Guillotine  devours  their 
children  :  a  band  of  music  is  stationed  near ;  and,  at  the  fall  of  ' 
every  head,  strikes  up  its  ca  iraff^    In  the  Burgh  of  Bedouin,  in  ! 
the  Orange  region,  the  Liberty-tree  has  been  cut  down  over  ! 
night.    Representative  Maignet,  at  Orange,  hears  of  it  ;  burns  \ 
Bedouin  Burgh  to  the  last  dog-hutch  ;  guillotines  the  inhabi-  i 
tants,  or  drives  them  into  the  caves  and  hills.t    RepubHc  One  \ 
and  Indivisible !    She  is  the  newest  Birth  of  Nature's  waste  \ 
inorganic  Deep,  which  men  name  Orcus,  Chaos,  primeval  Night ;  \ 
and  knows  one  law,  that  of  self-preservation.    Tigresse  Nationale: 
meddle  not  v/ith  a  whisker  of  her !    Swift  crushing  is  her  stroke ;  j 
look  what  a  paw  she  spreads  ; — pity  has  not  entered  her  heart.  \ 
Prudhomme,  the  dull -blustering  Printer  and  Able  Editor,  as  \ 
yet  a  Jacobin  Editor,  will  become  a  renegade  one,  and  pubhsh 
large  volumes  on  these  matters.    Crimes  of  the '  Revolution ; 
adding  innumerable  lies  withal,  as  if  the  truth  were  not  sufficient.  . 
"We,  for  our  part,  find  it  more  edifying  to  know,  one  good  time,  j 
that  this  Repubhc  and  National  Tigress  is  a  New  Birth  ;  a  Fact  ^ 
of  Nature  among  Formulas,  in  an  Age  of  Formulas  ;  and  to  look,  \ 
oftenest  in  silence,  how  the  so  genuine  Nature-Fact  will  demean  ! 
itself  among  these.    For  the  Formulas  are  partly  genuine,  partly  \ 
delusive,  supposititious  :  we  call  them,  in  the  language  of  metaphor,  ] 
regulated  modelled  shapes  ;  some  of  which  have  bodies  and  life  ■ 
still  in  them  ;  most  of  which,  according  to  a  German  Writer,  have  ' 
only  emptiness,  'glass-eyes  glaring  on  you  with  a  ghastly  affecta- 
'  tion  of  life,  and  in  their  interior  unclean  accummulation  of  beetles 
'and  spiders  !'    But  the  Fact,  let  all  men  observe,  is  a  genuine 
and  sincere  one  ;  the  sincerest  of  Facts  :  terrible  in  its  sincerity, 
as  very  Death.    Whatsoever  is  equally  sincere  may  front  it,  and 
beard  it ;  but  whatsoever  is  notf — 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CARMAGNOLE  COMPLETE. 

Simultaneously  with  this  Tophet-black  aspect,  there  unfolds 
Itself  another  aspect,  which  one  may  call  a  Tophet-red  aspect  :  j 
the  Destruction  of  the  Catholic  Religion  ;  and  indeed,  for  the  ' 
time  being  of  Religion  itself.    We  saw  Rommc's  New  Calendar 
establish  its  Te?ith  Day  of  Rest  ;  and  asked,  what  would  become 
of  the  Christian  Sabbath  1    The  Calender  is  hardly  a  month  old, 
till  all  this  is  set  at  rest.    Very  singular,  as  Mercier  observes  :  i 
last  Corpus-Christi  Day  1792,  the  whole  world,  and  Sovereign 
Authority  itself,  walked  in  religious  gala,  with  a  quite  devout  ] 
air  ; — Butcher  Legendre,  supposed  to  be  irreverent,  was  like  to  be  ' 
massacred  in  his  (;ig,  as  the  thing  went  by.   A  Gallican  Hierarchy, 

*  Les  Horrcurs  dcs  Prisons  d' Arras  (Paris,  1823). 

t  Montgaillard,  iv.  200.  ^ 


CARMAGNOLE  COMPLETE, 


and  Church,  and  Church  Formulas  seemed  to  flourish,  a  httle 
brown-leaved  or  so,  but  not  browner  than  of  late  years  or  decades  ; 
to  flourish,  far  and  wide,  in  the  sympathies  of  an  unsophisticated 
People  ;  defying  Philosophism,  Legislature  and  the  Encyclopedic, 
r  ar  and  wide,  alas,  like  a  TDrown-leaved  Vallombrosa  ;  which 
waits  but  one  whirlblast  of  the  November  wind,  and  in  an  hour 
stands  bare  !  Since  that  Corptis- Chris ti  Day,  Brunswick  has 
come,  and  the  Emigrants,  and  La  Vendee,  and  eighteen  months 
of  Time  :  to  all  flourishing,  especially  to  brown-leaved  flourishing, 
there  comes,  were  it  never  so  slowly,  an  end. 

On  the  7th  of  November,  a  certain  Citoyen  Parens,  Curate  of 
Boissise-le-Bertrand,  writes  to  the  Convention  that  he  has  all  his 
hfe  been  preaching  a  lie,  and  is  grown  weary  of  doing  it  ;  where- 
fore he  will  now  lay  down  his  Curacy  and  stipend,  and  begs  that 
an  august  Convention  would  give  him  something  else  to  live  upon. 
^  Mention  honorable,^  s\\-<):SS.yf^^g\NQ  him.?  Or  'reference  to  Com- 
'  mittee  of  Finances  ? '  Hardly  is  this  got  decided,  when  goose 
Gobel,  Constitutional  Bishop  of  Paris,  with  his  Chapter,  with 
Municipal  and  Departmental  escort  in  red  nightcaps,  makes  his 
appearance,  to  do  as  Parens  has  done.  Goose  Gobel  will  now 
acknowledge  '  no  Religion  but  Liberty  ; '  therefore  he  doffs  his 
Priest-gear,  and  receives  the  Fraternal  embrace.  To  the  joy  of 
Departmental  Momoro,  of  Municipal  Chaumettes  and  Heberts,  of 
Vincent  and  the  Revolutionary  Army  !  Chaumette  asks.  Ought 
there  not,  in  these  circumstances,  to  be  among  our  intercalary  Days 
Sans-breeches,  a  Feast  of  Reason  Proper  surely  !  Let  Atheist 
Marechal,  Lalande,  and  little  Atheist  Naigeon  rejoice  ;  let  Clootz, 
Speaker  of  Mankind,  present  to  the  Convention  his  Evidences  of 
the  Mahometan  Religion^  'a  work  evincing  the  nullity  of  all 
'  Religions,^— with  thanks.  There  shall  be '^Universal  Repubhc 
now,  thinks  Clootz  ;  and  '  one  God  only,  Le  Peuple: 

The  French  Nation  is  of  gregarious  imitative  nature  ;  it  needed 
but  a.fugle-motion  in  this  matter;  and  goose  Gobel,  driven  by 
Municipality  and  force  of  circumstances,  has  given  one.  What 
Cure  will  be  behind  him  of  Boissise  ;  what  Bishop  behind  him  of 
Paris  ?  Bishop  Gregoire,  indeed,  courageously  declines  ;  to  the 
sound  of  "  We  force  no  one  ;  let  Gregoire  consult  his  conscience 
but  Protestant  and  Romish  by  the  hundred  volunteer  and  assent. 
From  far  and  near,  all  through  November  into  December,  till  the 
work  is  accomplished,  come  Letters  of  renegation,  come  Curates 
who  are '  learning  to  be  Carpenters,'  Curates  with  their  new-wedded 
Nuns  :  has  not  the  Day  of  Reason  dawned,  very  swiftly,  and  be- 
come noon  ?  From  sequestered  Townships  comes  Addresses, 
stating  plainly,  though  in  Patois  dialect.  That  '  they  will  have  no 
*  more  to  do  with  the  black  animal  called  Curay,  animal  noir 
'  appelle  Ctiray^^ 

Above  all  things  there  come  Patriotic  Gifts,  of  Church-furniture. 
The  remnant  of  bells,  except  for  tocsin,  descend  from  their  belfries', 
into  the  National  meltingpot,  to  make  cannon     Censers  and  all 
*  Moniteur,  Seance  du  17  Rrumaire  (7th  November),  1793. 


I  SB        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


sacred  vessels  are  beaten  broad  ;  of  silver,  they  are  fit  for  the 
poverty-stricken  Mint ;  of  pewter,  let  them  become  buHets  to  shoot 
the  '  enemies  of  dii  genre  httniain!  Dalmatics  of  plush  make 
breeches  for  him  who  has  none  ;  linen  stoles  will  clip  into  shirts 
for  the  Defenders  of  the  Country  :  old  -clothesmen,  Jew  or  Heathen, 
drive  the  briskest  trade.  Challier's  Ass  Procession,  at  Lyons,  was 
but  a  type  of  what  went  on,  in  those  same  days,  in  all  Towns.  In 

y^ll  Towns  and  Townships  as  quick  as  the  guillotine  may  go,  so 
quick  goes  the  axe  and  the  wrench  ;  sacristies,  lutrins,  altar-rails 
are  pulled  down  ;  the  Mass  Books  torn  into  cartridge  papers  : 
men  dance  the  Carmagnole  all  night  about  the  bonfire.    All  high- 
•  ways  jingle  with  metaUic  Priest-tackle,  beaten  broad  ;  sent  to  the 
Convention,  to  the  poverty-stricken  Mint.  Good  Sainte  Genevieve's 
i  Chasse  is  let  down  :  alas,  to  be  burst  open,  this  time,  and  burnt  on 
\  the  Place  de  Greve.    Saint  Louis's  shirt  is  burnt  ; — might  not  a 
;  Defender  of  the  Country  have  had  it  ?    At  Saint-Denis  Town,  no 
longer  Saint-Denis  but  Franciade^  Patriotism  has  been  down  among 
the  Tombs,  rummaging  ;  the  Revolutionary  Army  has  taken  spoil. 
This,  accordingly,  is  what  the  streets  of  Paris  saw  : 

'  Most  of  these  persons  were  still  drunk,  with  the  brandy  they 
\  ^  had  swallowed  out  of  chalices     eating  mackerel  on  the  patenas  ! 
^  *  Mounted  on  Asses,  which  were  housed  with  Priests'  cloaks,  they 
\  *  reined  them  with  Priests'  stoles  :  they  held  clutched  with  the 
'  '  same  hand  communion-cup  and  sacred  wafer.    They  stopped  at 
^  the  doors  of  Dramshops  ;  held  out  ciboriums  :  and  the  landlord, 
'  stoop  in  hand,  had  to  fill  them  thrice.    Next  came  Mules  high- 
Maden  with  crosses,  chandeliers,  censers,   holy-water  vessels, 
!    *  hyssops; — recalling  to  mind  the  Priests  of  Cybele,  whose  pan- 
^  niers,  filled  with  the  instruments  of  their  worship,  served  at  once 

*  as  storehouse,  sacristy  and  temple.  In  such  equipage  did  these 
^  profaners  advance  towards  the  Convention.  They  enter  there,  in 
'  an  immense  train,  ranged  in  two  rows  ;  all  masked  like  mummers 

*  in  fantastic  sacerdotal  vestments  ;  bearing  on  hand-barrows  their 

*  heaped  plunder, — ciboriums,  suns,  candelabras,  plates  of  gold  and 
^  silver.'* 

The  Address  we  do  not  give  ;  for  indeed  it  was  in  strophes,  sung 
viva  voce,  with  all  the  parts  ; — Danton  gloorning  considerably,  in 
his  place  ;  and  demanding  that  there  be  prose  and  decency  in 
future. t  Nevertheless  the  captors  of  such  spolia  ophna  crave,  not 
untouched  with  liquor,  permission  to  dance  the  Carmagnole  also 
on  the  spot :  whereto  an  exhilarated  Convention  cannot  but  accede. 
Nay,  *  several  Members,'  continues  the  exaggerative  Mercier,  who 
was  not  there  to  witness,  being  in  Limbo  now,  as  one  of  Duperret's 
Seventy-three,  'several  Members,  quitting  their  curule  chairs,  took 

*  the  hand  of  girls  flaunting  in  Priest's  vestures,  and  danced  the 

*  Carmagnole  along  with  them.'  Such  Old-Hallow-tide  have  they, 
in  this  year,  once  named  of  Grace,  1793. 

Out  of  which  strange  fall  of  Formulas,  tumbling  there  in  confused 

*  Mercier,  iv.  134.    S(;e  Moniteur,  Seance  du  10  Novemfere. 
f  See  al»Q  MonUeur,  beance  du  26' Novembre. 


CARMAGNOLE  COMPLETE, 


welter,  betrampled  by  the  Patriotic  dance,  is  it  not  passing  strange 
to  see  a  new  Formula  arise  ?  For  the  human  tongue  is  not  adequate 
to  speak  what  '  triviality  run  distracted'  there  is  inhuman  nature. 
Black  Mumbo-Jumbo  of  the  woods,  and  most  Indian  Wau-waus, 
one  can  understand:  but  this  of  Procureur  Anaxagoras  y^\i\\oxi\ 
John-Peter  Chaumette  ?  We  will  say  only  :  Man  is  a  born  idol- 
worshipper,  j-Z^/^if-worshipper,  so  sensuous-imaginative  is  he  ;  and 
also  partakes  much  of  the  nature  of  the  ape. 

For  the  same  day,  while  this  brave  Carmagnole  dance  has  hardly 
jigged  itself  out,  there  arrive  Procureur  Chaumette  and  Municipals 
and  Departmental,  and  with  them  the  strangest  freightage  :  a  Nev%^ 
Religion  1  Demoiselle  Candeille,  of  the  Opera  ;  a  woman  fair  to 
look  upon,  when  well  rouged  :  she,  borne  on  palanquin  shoulder- 
high  ;  with  red  woolen  nightcap  ;  in  azure  mantle  ;  garlanded  with 
oak  ;  holding  in  her  hand  the  Pike  of  the  ]\x^\X.^x-Peuple,  sails  in  ; 
heralded  by  white  young  women  girt  in  tricolor.  Let  the  world 
consider  it !  This,  O  National  Convention  wonder  of  the  universe, 
is  our  New  Divinity  ;  Goddess  of  Reason^  worthy,  and  alone  worthy 
of  revering.  Nay,  were  it  too  much  to  ask  of  an  august  National 
Representation  that  it  also  went  with  us  to  the  ci-devant  Cathedral 
called  of  Notre-Dame,  and  executed  a  few  strophes  in  v/orship  of 
her 

President  and  Secretaries  give  Goddess  Candeille,  borne  at  due 
height  round  their  platform,  successively  the  fraternal  kiss  ; 
whereupon  she,  by  decree,  sails  to  the  right-hand  of  the  President 
and  there  alights.  And  now,  after  due  pause  and  flourishes  of 
oratory,  the  Convention,  gathering  its  limbs,  does  get  under  way 
in  the  required  procession  towards  Notre-Dame  ; — Reason,  again 
in  her  litter,  sitting  in  the  van  of  them,  borne,  as  one  judges,  by 
men  in  the  Roman  costume  ;  escorted  by  wind-music,  red  night- 
caps, and  the  madness  of  the  world.  And  so,  straightway,  Reason 
taking  seat  on  the  high-altar  of  Notre-Dame,  the  requisite  worship 
or  quasi-worship  is,  say  the  Newspapers,  executed j  National  Con- 
vention chanting  '  the  Hymn  to  Liberty^  words  by  Chenier,  music 
'  by  Gossec'  It  is  the  first  of  the  Feasts  of  Reason ;  first  com- 
munion-service of  the  New  Religion  of  Chaumette. 

'  The  corresponding  Festival  in  the  Church  of  Saint-Eustache,' 
says  Mercier,  '  offered  the  spectacle  of  a  great  tavern.  The  interior 
'  of  the  choir  represented  a  landscape  decorated  with  cottages  and 
'  boskets  of  trees.  Round  the  choir  stood  tables  over-loaded  with 
'  bottles,  with  sausages,  pork-puddings,  pastries  and  other  meats. 
'  The  guests  flowed  in  and  out  through  all  doors  :  whosoever  pre- 
'  sented  himself  took  part  of  the  good  things  :  children  of  eight, 
'  girls  as  well  as  boys,  put  hand  to  plate,  in  sign  of  Liberty  ;  they 
'  drank  also  of  the  bottles,  and  their  prompt  intoxication  created 
'  laughter.  Reason  sat  in  azure  mantle  aloft,  in  a  serene  manner  • 
'  Cannoneers,  pipe  in  mouth,  serving  her  as  acolytes.  And  out  of 
'  doors,'  continues  the  exaggerative  man,  '  were  mad  multitudes 
^  dancing  round  the  bonfire  of  Chapel-balustrades,  of  Priests'  and 
*  Canons'  stalls  ;  and  the  dancers,  I  exaggerate  nothing,  the  dancers 
'  nigh  bare  of  breeches,  neck  and  breast  naked,  stockings  down, 


l6o        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OE  THE  DAY, 


*went  whirling  and  spinning,  like  those  Dust-vortexes,  forciiinners 
*  of  Tempest  and  Destruction.*^  At  Saint-Gervais  Church  again 
there  was  a  terrible  '  smell  of  herrings  ; '  Section  or  Municipality 
having  provided  no  food,  no  condiment,  but  left  it  to  chance. 
Other  mysteries,  seemingly  of  a  Cabiric  or  even  Paphian  character, 
we  heave  under  the  Veil,  which  appropriately  stretches  itself 
'  along  the  pillars  of  the  aisles,^ — not  to  be  lifted  aside  by  the  hand 
of  History. 

But  there  is  one  thing  we  should  like  almost  better  to  under- 
stand than  any  other  :  what  Reason  herself  thought  of  it,  all  the 
while.  What  articulate  words  poor  Mrs.  Momoro,  for  example, 
uttered  ;  when  she  had  become  ungodessed  again,  and  the  Biblio- 
polist  and  she  sat  quiet  at  home,  at  supper  ?  For  he  was  an 
earnest  man,  Bookseller  Momoro  ;  and  had  notions  of  Agrarian 
Law.  Mrs.  Motnoro,  it  is  admitted,  made  one  of  the  best  God- 
desses of  Reason  ;  though  her  teeth  were  a  little  defective.  And 
now  if  the  reader  will  represent  to  himself  that  such  visible  Adora- 
tion of  Reason  went  on  '  all  over  the  Republic,'  through  these 
November  and  December  weeks,  till  the  Church  woodwork  was 
burnt  out,  and  the  business  otherwise  completed,  he  will  feel  suffi- 
ciently what  an  adoring  Repubhc  it  was,  and  without  reluctance 
quit  this  part  of  the  subject. 

Such  gifts  of  Church-spoil  are  chiefly  the  work  of  the  Arjuee 
Revohition7iaire ;  raised,  as  we  said,  some  time  ago.  It  is  an 
Army  with  portable  guillotine  :  commanded  by  Playwright  Ronsin 
in  terrible  moustachioes  ;  and  even  by  some  uncertain  shadow  of 
Usher  Maillard,  the  old  Bastille  Hero,  Leader  of  the  Menads, 
September  Man  in  Grey  !  Clerk  Vincent  of  the  War-Office,  one 
of  Pache's  old  Clerks,  '  with  a  head  heated  by  the  ancient  orators/ 
had  a  main  hand  in  the  appointments,  at  least  in  the  staff-appoint- 
ments. 

But  of  the  marchings  and  retreatings  of  these  Six  Thousand  no 
Xenophon  exists.  Nothing,  but  an  inarticulate  hum,  of  cursing 
and  sooty  frenzy,  surviving  dubious  in  the  memory  of  ages  ! 
They  scour  the  country  round  Paris  ;  seeking  Prisoners  ;  raising 
Requisitions  ;  seeing  that  Edicts  are  executed,  that  the  Farmers 
have  thrashed  sufficiently ;  lowering  Church-bells  or  metalhc 
Virgins.  Detachments  shoot  forth  dini;  towards  remote  parts  of 
France  ;  nay  new  Provincial  Revolutionary  Armies  rise  dim,  here 
and  there,  as  Carrier's  Company  of  Marat,  as  Tallien's  Bourdeaux 
Troop ;  like  sympathetic  clouds  in  an  atmosphere  all  electric. 
Ronsin,  they  say,  admitted,  in  candid  mpments,  that  his  troops 
were  the  elixir  of  the  Rascality  of  the  Earth,  One  sees  them 
drawn  up  in  market-splaces  ;  travel-plashed,  rough-bearded,  in  car- 
magnole complete  :  the  first  exploit  is  to  prostrate  what  l^oyal  or 
Ecclesiastical  monument,  crucifix  or  the  like,  there  may  be  ;  to 
plant  a  cannon  at  the  steeple,  fetch  down  the  bell  without  climb- 
ing for  it,  bell  and  belfry  together'.  This,  however,  it  is  said, 
depends  somewhat  on  the  size  of  the  town  :  if  the  town  con* 
Mcrcier,  iv.  127-146. 


Like  a  thunder-cloud.       -  i6i 


tains  much  population,  and  these  perhaps  of  a  dubious  choleric 
aspect^  the  Revolutionary  Army  wiil  do  its  work  gently,  by  ladder 
and  wrench  ;  nay  perhaps  will  take  its  billet  without  work  at  all 
and,  refreshing  itself  with  a  little  liquor  and  sleep,  pass  on  to  the 
next  stage. Pipe  in  cheek,  sabre  on  thigh  ;  in  carmagnole  com- 
plete ! 

Such  things  have  been  ;  and  may  again  be.  Charles  Second 
sent  out  his  Highland  Host  over  the  Western  Scotch  Whigs  \ 
Jamaica  Planters  got  Dogs  from  the  Spanish  Main  to  hunt  their 
Maroons  with  :  France  too  is  bescoured  with  a  r3evirs  Pack,  the 
baying  of  which,  at  this  distance  of  half  a  century,  still  sounds  in 
the  mind's  ear. 


CHAPTER  V. 

LIKE  A  THUNDER-CLOUD. 

But  the  grand,  and  indeed  substantially  primary  and  generic 
aspect  of  the  Consummation  of  Terror  remains  still  to  be  looked 
at  ;  nay  blinkard  History  has  for  most  part  all  but  overlooked  this 
aspect,  the  soul  of  the  whole  :  that  which  makes  it  terrible  to  the 
Enemies  of  France.  Let  Despotism  and  Cimmerian  Coalitions 
consider.  All  French.  m_en  and  French  things  are  in  a  State  of 
Requisition  ;  Fourteen  Armies  are  got  on  foot  ;  Patriotism,  with 
all  that  it  has  of  faculty  in  heart  or  in  head,  in  soul  or  body  or 
breeches-pocket,  is  rushing  to  the  Frontiers,  to  prevail  or  die  ! 
Busy  sits  Carnot,  in  Salut  Public  j  busy  for  his  share,  in  ^  organis- 
ing victory.'  Not  swifter  pulses  that  Guillotine,  in  dread  systole- 
diastole  in  the  Place  de  la  Revolution,  than  smites  the  Sword  of 
Patriotism,  smiting  Cimmeria  back  to  its  own  borders,  from  the 
sacred  soil. 

In  fact  the  Government  is  what  we  can  call  Revolutionary  ;  and 
some  men  are  ^  a  la  hauteur^  on  a  level  with  the  circumstances  ; 
and  others  are  not  a  la  hautetcr^ — so  much  the  worse  for  them. 
But  the  Anarchy,  we  may  say,  has  c-z-ganised  itself :  Society  is 
literally  overset  ;  its  old  forces  working  with  mad  activity,  but  in 
the  inverse  order  ;  destructive  and  self-destvuctive. 

Curious  to  see  how  all  still  refers  itself  to  some  head  and  foun- 
tain ;  not  even  an  Anarchy  but  must  have  a  centre  to  revolve 
round.  It  is  now  some  six  months  since  the  Committee  of  Salut 
Public  came  into  existence  :  some  three  months  since  Danton 
proposed  that  all  power  should  be  given  it  and  '  a  sum  of  fifty 
'  millions,'  and  the  '  Government  be  declared  Revolutionary.'  He 
himself,  since  that  day,  would  take  no  hand  in  it,  though  again 
and  again  solicited  ;  but  sits  private  in  his  place  on  the  Mountain. 
Since  that  day,  the  Nine,  or  if  they  should  even  rise  to  Twelve 
have  become  permanent,  always  re-elected  when  their  term  runs 

*  Deux  Ainis,  xii.  62-5. 


l62   •    'TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


out ;  Saint  Public^  Sitrete  Generale  have  assumed  their  ulterior 
form  and  mode  of  operating. 

Committee  of  Public  Salvation,  as  supreme  ;  of  General  Surety, 
as  subaltern  :  these  like  a  Lesser  and  Greater  Council,  most  har- 
monious hitherto,  have  become  the  centre  of  all  things.  They 
ride  this  Whirlwind  ;  they,  raised  by  force  of  circumstances, 
insensibly,  very  strangely,  thither  to  that  dread  height ; — and 
guide  it,  and  seem  to  guide  it.  Stranger  set  of  Cloud-Compellers 
the  Earth  never  saw.  A  Robespierre,  a  Billaud,  a  Collot^i 
Couthon,  Saint-Just  ;  not  to  mention  still  meaner  Amars,  Vadiers, 
in  Surete  Generale:  these  are  your  Cloud-Compellers.  SmaR 
intellectual  talent  is  necessary  :  indeed  where  among  them  except 
in  the  head  of  Carnot,  busied  organising  victory,  would  you  find 
any  ?  The  talent  is  one  of  instinct  rather.  It  is  that  of  divining 
aright  what  this  great  dumb  Whirlwind  wishes  and  wills  ;  that  of 
willing,  with  more  frenzy  than  any  one,  what  all  the  world  wills. 
To  stand  at  no  obstacles  ;  to  heed  no  considerations  human  or 
divine  ;  to  know  well  that,  of  divine  or  human,  there  is  one  thing 
needful,  Triumph  of  the  Republic,  Destruction  of  the  Enemies  of 
the  Republic  !  With  this  one  spiritual  endowment,  and  so  few 
others,  it  is  strange  to  see  how  a  dumb  inarticulately  storming 
Whirlwind  of  things  puts,  as  it  were,  its  reins  into  your  hand,  and 
invites  and  compels  you  to  be  leader  of  it. 

Hard  by,  sits  a  Municipality  of  Paris  ;  all  in  red  nightcaps 
since  the  fourth  of  November  last  :  a  set  of  men  fully  '  on  a  level 
*with  circumstances,'  or  even  beyond  it.  Sleek  Mayor  Pache, 
studious  to  be  safe  in  the  middle  ;  Chaumettes,  Heberts,  Varlets, 
and  Henriot  their  great  Commandant  ;  not  to  speak  of  Vincent 
the  War-clerk,  of  Momoros,  Dobsents,  and  such  like  :  all  intent 
to  have  Churches  plundered,  to  have  Reason  adored,  Suspects  cut 
down,  and  the  Revolution  triumph.  Perhaps  carrying  the  matter 
too  far  ?  Danton  was  heard  to  grumble  at  the  civic  strophes  ;  and 
to  recommend  prose  and  decency.  Robespierre  also  grumbles 
that  in  overturning  Superstition  we  did  not  mean  to  make  a  re- 
ligion of  Atheism.  In  fact,  your  Chaumette  and  Company  consti- 
tute a  kind  of  Hyper- Jacobinism,  or  rabid  '  Faction  des  Enragds  f 
which  has  given  orthodox  Patriotism  some  umbrage,  of  late 
months.  To  '  know  a  Suspect  on  the  streets  : '  what  is  this  but 
bringing  the  Law  of  the  Suspect  itself  into  ill  odour  ?  Men  half- 
frantic,  men  zealous  overmuch, — they  toil  there,  in  their  red  night- 
caps, restlessly,  rapidly,  accomplishing  what  of  Life  is  allotted 
them. 

And  the  Forty-four  Thousand  other  Townships,  each  with 
revolutionary  Committee,  based  on  Jacobin  Daughter  Society  ; 
enlightened  by  the  spirit  of  Jacobinism  ;  quickened  by  the  Forty 
Sous  a-day  ! — The  French  Constitution  spurned  always  at  any 
thing  like  Two  Chambers  ;  and  yet  behold,  has  it  not  verily  got 
Two  Chambers.?  National  Convention,  elected  for  one  ;  Mother 
of  Patriotism,  self-elected,  for  another  !  Mother  of  Patriotism 
has  her  Debates  reported  in  the  Moniteur,  as  important  state-pro- 
Cfidure'^;  which  indisputably  they  are.    A  Second  Chamber  of 


LIKE  A  THUNDER-CLOUD. 


163 


legislature  we  call  this  Mother  Society  ;— if  perhaps  it  were  not 
rather  comparable  to  that  old  Scotch  Body  named  Lords  of  the 
Articles,  without  whose  origination,  and  signal  given,  the  so-called 
Parhament  could  introduce  no  bill,  could  do  no  work  ?  Robes- 
pierre himself,  whose  words  are  a  law,  opens  his  incorruptible  lips 
copiously  in  the  Jacobins  Hall.  Smaller  Council  of  Saint  Public^ 
Greater  Council  of  Siirete  Generate,  all  active  Parties,  come  here 
to  plead  ;  to  shape  beforehand  ^hat  decision  they  must  arrive  at, 
w^hat  destiny  they  have  to  expect.  Now  if  a  question  arose^ 
Which  of  those  Two  Chambers,  Convention,  or  Lords  of  the 
Articles,  was  the  stroiigerf  Happily  they  as  yet  go  hand  in 
hand. 

As  for  the  National  Convention,  truly  it  has  become  a  most 
composed  Body.  Quenched  now  the  old  effervescence  ;  the 
Seventy-three  locked  in  ward  ;  once  noisy  Friends  of  the  Giron- 
dins  sunk  all  into  silent  men  of  the  Plain,  called  even  '  Frogs  of 
*the  Marsh,'  Crapatids  du  MaraisI  Addresses  come.  Revolution- 
ary Church-plunder  comes  ;  Deputations,  with  prose,  or  strophes  : 
these  the  Convention  receives.  But  beyond  this,  the  Convention 
has  one  thing  mainly  to  do  :  to  listen  what  Salut  Public  proposes, 
and  say,  Yea. 

Bazire  followed  by  Chabot,  v/ith  some  impetuosity,  declared,  one 
morning,  that  this  was  not  the  way  of  a  Free  Assembly.  "  There 
ought  to  be  an  Opposition  side,  a  Cotd  Droit','  cried  Chabot ;  if 
none  else  will  form  it,  I  will  :  people  say  to  me.  You  will  all  get 
guillotined  in  your  turn,  first  you  and  Bazire,  then  Danton,  then 
Robespierre  himself."*  So  spake  the  Disfrocked,  with  a  loud 
voice  :  next  week,  Bazire  and  he  lie  in  the  Abbaye  ;  wending,  one 
may  fear,  towards  Tinville  and  the  Axe  ;  and  '  people  say  to  me' 
— what  seems  to  be  proving  true  !  Bazire's  biood  was  all  inflamed 
with  Revolution  fever ;  with  coffee  and  spasmodic  dreams.f 
Chabot,  again,  how  happy  with  his  rich  Jew-Austrian  wife, 
late  Fraulein  Frey  !  But  he  lies  in  Prison  ;  and  his  two  Jew- 
Austrian  Brothers~in-Law,  the  Bankers  Frey,  lie  with  himj  waiting 
the  urn  of  doom.  Let  a  National  Convention,  therefore,  take 
warning,  and  know  its  function.  Let  the  Convention,  all  as  one 
man,  set  its  shoulder  to  the  work ;  not  with  burstt  of  Parliamentary 
eloquence,  but  in  quite  other  and  serviceable  ways  ! 

Convention  Commissioners,  what  we  ought  to  call  Representa- 
tives, "  Represe7itans  on  mission,'  fly,  like  the  Herald  Mercury, 
to  all  points  of  the  Territory  ;  carrying  your  behests  far  and  wide. 
In  their  *  round  hat  plumed  with  tricolor  feathers,  girt  with  flowing 
*  tricolor  taffeta  ;  in  close  frock,  tricolor  sash,  sword  and  jack- boots,' 
these  men  are  powerfuller  than  King  or  Kaiser.  They  say  to 
whomso  they  meet,  Do  ;  and  he  must  do  it  :  all  men's  goods  are 
at  their  disposal  ;  for  France  is  as  one  huge  City  in  Siege.  They 
smite  with  Requisitions,  and  Forced-loan  ;  they  have  the  powder 
of  life  and  death  Saint-Just  and  Lebas  order  the  rich  classes  of 
Strasburg  to  '  strip  off  their  shoes,'  and  send  them  to  the  Armies. 

*  Ddbats,  du  10  Novembre,  1723. 

t  Dictionnaire  des  Homines  Marquans,  i.  115. 

G  2 


l64        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


where  as  many  as  '  ten  thousand  pairs '  are  needed.  Also,  that 
within  four  and  twenty  hours,  '  a  thousand  beds '  are  to  be  got 
ready  f  wrapt  in  matting,  and  sent  under  way.  For  the  time 
presses  i —  Like  swift  bolts,  issuing  from  the  fuliginous  Olympus 
of  Salut  Public  rush  these  men,  oftenest  in  pairs  ;  scatter  your 
thunder-orders  over  France;  make  France  one  enormous 
Revolutionary  thunder-cloud. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DO  THY  DUTY. 

Accordingly  alongside  of  these  bonnres  of  Church  balustrades, 
and  sounds  of  fusillading  and  noyading,  there  rise  quite  another 
sort  of  fires  and  sounds  :  Smithy-fires  and  Proof-volleys  for  the 
manufacture  of  arms. 

Cut  off  from  Sweden  and  the  world,  the  Republic  must  learn  to 
make  steel  for  itself ;  and,  by  aid  of  Chemists,  she  has  learnt  it. 
Towns  that  knew  only  iron,  now  know  steel  :  from  their  new 
dungeons  at  Chantilly,  Aristocrats  may  hear  the  rustle  of  our  new  steel 
furnace  there.  Do  not  bells  transmute  themselves  into  cannon  ; 
iron  stancheons  into  the  white-weapon  (arme  blanche)^  by  sword- 
cutlery  ?  The  wheels  of  Langres  scream,  amid  their  sputtering 
fire  halo  ;  grinding  mere  swords.  The  stithies  of  Charleville 
ring  with  gun-making.  What  say  we,  Charleville  ?  Two  hundred 
and  fifty-eight  Forges  stand  in  the  open  spaces  of  Paris  itself ; 
a  hundred  and  forty  of  them  in  the  Esplanade  of  the  Invalides, 
fifty-four  in  the  Luxembourg  Garden  :  so  many  Forges  stand  ; 
grim  Smiths  beating  and  forging  at  lock  and  barrel  there.  The 
Clockmakers  have  come,  requisitioned,  to  do  the  touch-holes,  the 
hard-solder  and  filework.  Five  great  Barges  sv/ing  at  anchor  on 
the  Seine  Stream,  loud  with  boring  ;  the  great  press-drills  gratmg 
harsh  thunder  to  the  general  ear  and  heart.  And  deft  Stock-makers 
do  gouge  and  rasp  ;  and  all  men  bestir  themselves,  according  to 
their  cunning  :— in  the  language  of  hope,  it  is  reckoned  that  a 
^thousand  finished  muskets  can  be  delivered  daily.'f  Chemists  of 
the  Republic  have  taught  us  miracles  of  swift  tanning  \X  the 
cordwainee  bores  and  stitches  -—not  of '  wood  and  pasteboard,'  or 
he  shall  answer  it  to  Tinville  !  The  women  sew  tents  and  coats, 
the  children  scrape  surgeon's-lint,  the  old  men  sit  in  the  market- 
places ;  able  men  are  on  march  ;  all  men  in  requisitio  i  :  from 
Town  to  Town  flutters,  on  the  Heaven's  winds,  this  Banner,  THE 
Frknch  People  risen  against  Tyrants. 

All  which  is  well.  13ut  now  arises  the  question  :  What  is  to  be 
done  for  saltpetre?  Interrupted  Commerce  and  the  English  Navy 
shut  us  out  from  saltpetre  ;  and  without  saltpetre  there  is  no 

X  Moniteur,  du  27  Novembre  1793. 

*  Choix  dcs  Kapporis,  xiii.  189.  f  Ibid.  xv.  360. 


DO  THY  DUTY. 


16S 


gunpowder.  Republican  Science  again  sits  meditative ;  discovers 
that  saltpetre  exists  here  and  there,  though  in  attenuated  quantity  : 
that  old  plaster  of  walls  holds  a  sprinkling  of  it ;— that  the  earth  of 
the  ParisCellars  holds  a  sprinkling  of  it,  diffused  through  the  common 
rubbish  ;  that  were  these  dug  up  and  washed,  saltpetre  might  be 
had.  Whereupon  swiftly,  see !  the  Citoyens,  with  upshoved  bonnet 
rouge,  or  with  doffed  bonnet,  and  hair  toil- wetted ;  digging  fiercely, 
each  in  his  own  cellar,  for  saltpetre.  The  Earth-heap  rises  at 
every  door  ;  the  Citoyennes  with  hod  and  bucket  carrying  it  up  ; 
the  Citoyens,  pith  in  every  muscle,  shovelling  and  digging  :  for  life 
and  saltpetre.  Dig  my  braves;  and  right  well  speed  ye.  What 
of  saltpetre  is  essential  the  Republic  shall  not  want. 

Consummation  of  Sansculottism  has  may  aspects  and  tints  : 
but  the  brightest  tint,  really  of  a  solar  or  stellar  brightness,  is  this 
which  the  Armies  give  it.  That  same  fervour  of  Jacobmism 
which  internally  fills  France  with  hatred,  suspicions,  scaffolds  and 
Reason-worship,  does,  on  the  Frontiers,  shew  itself  as  a  glorious 
Pro  patria  mori.  Ever  since  Dumouriez's  defection,  three  Con- 
vention Representatives  attend  every  General.  Committee  of 
Salut  has  sent  them,  often  with  this  Laconic  order  only  :  Do 
thy  duty,  Fais  ton  devoir P  It  is  strange,  under  what  imxpedmients 
the  fire  of  Jacobinism,  like  other  such  fires,  will  burn.  These 
Soldiers  have  shoes  of  wood  and  pasteboard,  or  go  booted  m  hay- 
ropes,  in  dead  of  winter  ;  they  skewer  a  bass  m.at  round  their 
shoulders,  and  are  destitute  of  most  things.  What  then  ?  It  is 
for  Rights  of  Frenchhood,  of  Manhood,  that  they  fight  :  the  un- 
quenchable spirit,  here  as  elsewhere,  works  miracles.  "With 
steel  and  bread,"  says  the  Convention  Representative,  "  one  may 
get  to  China."  The  Generals  go  fast  to  the  guillotine  ;  justly  and 
unjustly.  From  which  what  inference  ?  This  among  others  : 
That  ill-success  is  death  ;  that  in  victory  alone  is  life  !  To 
conquer  or  die  is  no  theatrical  palabra,  in  these  circumstances  : 
but  a  practical  truth  and  necessity.  All  Girondism,  Halfness, 
Compromise  is  swept  away.  Forward,  ye  Soldiers  of  the  Repub- 
lic, captain  and  man  1  Dash  with  your  Gaehc  impetuosity,  on 
Austria,  England,  Prussia,  Spain,  Sardinia  ;  Pitt,  Cobourg,  York, 
and  the  Devil  and  the  World  !  Behind  us  is  but  the  Guillotine  ; 
before  us  is  Victory,  Apotheosis  and  Millennium  without  end  ! 

See,  accordingly,  on  all  Frontiers,  how  the  Sons  of  Night,  as- 
tonished after  short  triumph,  do  recoil  ;— the  Sons  of  the  Republic 
flying  at  them,  with  wild  ca-ira  or  Marseillese  Aiix  armes,  with 
the  temper  of  cat-o'-mountain,  or  demon  incarnate  ;  which  no 
Son  of  Night  can  stand  1  Spain,  which  came  bursting  through 
the  Pyrenees,  rusthng  with  Bourbon  banners,  and  went  conquering 
here  and  there  for  a  season,  falters  at  such  cat-o'-mountain  wel- 
come ;  draws  itself  in  again  ;  too  happy  now  were  the  Pyrenees 
impassable.  Not  only  does  Dugommier,  conqueror  of  Toulon, 
drive  Spain  back  ;  he  invades  Spain.  General  Dugommier  in- 
vades it  by  the  Eastern  Pyrenees  ;  General  Mliller  shall  invade  it 
by  the  Weetern.    Shall,  thai:  is  the  word  :  Committee  of  Salut 


l66        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


Public  has  said  it  ;  Representative  Cavaignac,  on  mission  there, 
must  see  it  done.  Impossible  !  cries  Mliller,— Infalhble  1  answers 
Cavaignac.  Difficulty,  impossibihty,  is  to  no  purpose.  The 
Cominittee  is  deaf  on  that 'side  of  its  head,"  answers  Cavaignac, 
^'n'entcnd  pas  de  cette  oreille  let.  How  many  wantest  thou,  of 
men,  of  horses,  cannons  ?  Thou  shalt  have  them.  Conquerors, 
conquered  or  hanged,  forward  we  must.""^  Which  things  also, 
even  as  the  Representative  spake  them,  were  done.  The  Spring 
of  the  new  Year  sees  Spain  invaded  :  and  redoubts  are  carried, 
and  Passes  and  Heights  of  the  most  scarped  description  ;  Spanish 
Field-officerism  struck  mute  at  such  cat-o'-mountain  spirit,  the 
cannon  forgetting  to  fire.i'  Swept  are  the  Pyrenees  ;  Town  after 
Town  flies  up,  burst  by  terror  or  the  petard.  In  the  course  of 
another  year,  Spain  will  crave  Peace  ;  acknowledge  its  sins  and 
the  Republic  ;  nay,  in  Madrid,  there  will  be  joy  as  for  a  victory, 
that  even  Peace  is  got. 

Few  things,  we  repeat,  can  be  notabler  than  these  Convention 
Representatives,  with  their  power  m.ore  than  kingly.  Nay  at 
bottom  are  they  not  Kings,  Ablcjnen^  of  a  sort  ;  chosen  from  the  | 
Seven  Hundred  and  Forty-nine  French  Kings  ;  with  this  order,  I 
Do  thy  duty?  Representative  Levasseur,  of  small  stature,  by 
trade  a  mere  pacific  Surgeon-Accoucheur,  has  mutinies  to  quell ; 
mad  hosts  (mad  at  the  Doom  of  Custine)  bellowing  far  and  wide  ; 
he  alone  amid  them,  the  one  small  Representative, — small,  but  as 
hard  as  flint,  which  also  carries  fire  in  it  !  So  too,  at  Honds- 
chooten,  far  in  the  afternoon,  he  declares  that  the  battle  is  not 
lost  ;  that  it  must  be  gained  ;  and  fights,  himself,  with  his  own 
obstetric  hand  ; — horse  shot  under  him,  or  say  on  foot,  '  up  to  the 
'  haunches  in  tide- water  ;  ^  cutting  stoccado  and  passado  there,  in 
defiance  of  Water,  Earth,  Air  and  Fire,  the  choleric  little  Repre- 
sentative that  he  was  !  Whereby,  as  natural.  Royal  Highness  of 
York  had  to  withdraw, —occasionally  at  full  gallop  like  to  be 
swallowed  by  the  tide  :  and  his  Siege  of  Dunkirk  became  a  dream, 
realising  only  much  loss  of  beautiful  siege-artillery  and  of  brave 
lives.X 

General  Houchard,  it  would  appear,  stood  behind  a  hedge,  on 
this  Hondschooten  occasion  ;  wherefore  they  have  since  guillotined 
him.  A  new  General  Jourdan,  late  Serjeant  Jourdan,  commands 
in  his  stead  :  he,  in  long-winded  Battles  of  Watigny,  ^murderous 

*  artillery-fire  mingling  itself  with  sound  of  Revolutionary  battle- 

*  hymns,'  forces  Austria  behind  tlic  Sambre  again  :  has  hopes  ot 
purging  the  soil  of  Liberty.  With  hard  wrestling,  with  artillery- 
ing  and  qa-ira~vc\g^  it  shall  be  done.  In  the  course  of  a  new 
Summer,  Valenciennes  will  see  itself  beleaguered  ;  Condd  be- 
leaguered ;  whatsoev^er  is  yet  in  the  hands  of  Austria  beleaguered 

*  'I'here  is.  in  PvndJwmJite,  an  atrocity  '/  la  CViptaiii-Kirk  reported  of  this 
[^avai^^nac;  whicli  has  been  copied  into  Uiclinnnries  of  Ifovimcs  Marquans,  of 
Biographie  IJniverselle,  ike.  ;  vliich  not  only  lt;is  no  truth  in  it-  but,  mucil 
mon:  sini(ular,  is  still  capable  of  btnni;  jjrovcd  to  have  none. 

f  Dcnx  Amis,  xiii.  205-30;  Toulongeon,  &c, 

J  Levasseur,  Mdmolrcs,  ii.  c.  2-7. 


DO  THY  DUTY.  167 


and  bombarded  :  nay,  by  Convention  Decree,  we  even  'summon 
them  all  '  either  to  surrender  in  twenty-four  hours,  or  else  be 
'  put  to  the  sword  ;  '—a  high  saying,  which,  though  itremams  un- 
fulfilled, may  shew  what  spirit  one  is  of. 

Representative  Drouet,  as  an  Old-dragoon,  could  fight  by  a 
kind  of  second  nature  ;  but  he  was  unlucky.  Him,  in  a  night- 
foray  at  Maubeuge,  the  Austrians  took  alive,  in  October  last. 
They  stript  him  almost  naked;  he  says  ;  making  a  shew  of  him, 
as  King-taker  of  Varennes.  They  flung  him  into  carts  ;  sent  hmi 
far  into  the  interior  of  Cimmeria,  to  '  a  Fortress  called  Spitzberg  ' 
on  the  Danube  River  ;  and  left  him  there,  at  an  elevation  of  per- 
haps a  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  to  his  own  bitter  reflections.  Re- 
flections'; and  also  devices  !  For  the  indomitable  Old-dragoon 
constructs  wing-machinery,  of  Paperkite  ;  saws  window-bars  :  de- 
termines to  fly  down.  He  wifl  seize  a  boat,  will  follow  the  River's 
course  :  land  somewhere  in  Crim  Tartary,  in  the  Black  Sea  or 
Constantinople  region  :  d  la  Sindbad  !  Authentic  History, 
accordingly,  looking  far  into  Cimmeria,  discerns  dimly  a  phenom- 
enon. In  the  dead  night-watches,  the  Spitzberg  sentry  is  near 
fainting  with  terror :  Is  it  a  huge  vague  Portent  descending 
through  the  night  air  ?  It  is  a  huge  National  Representative  Old- 
dragoon,  descending  by  Paperkite  ;  too  rapidly,  alas  !  For 
Drouet  had  taken  with  him  'a  small  provision-store,  twenty 
'  pounds  weight  or  thereby  ; '  which  proved  accelerative  :  so  he 
fell,  fracturing  his  leg  ;  and  lay  there,  moaning,  till  day  dawned, 
till  you  could  discern  clearly  that  he  was  not  a  Portent  but  a 
Representative  !  *  1      i    i,  • 

Or  see  Saint- Just,  in  the  Lines  of  Weissembourg,  though  physi- 
cally of  a  timid  apprehensive  nature,  how  he  charges  with  his 
'  Alsatian  Peasants  armed  hastily '  for  the  nonce  ;  the  solemn  face 
of  him  blazing  into  flame  ;  his  black  hair  and  tricolor  hat-tafl^eta 
flowing  in  the  breeze  ;  These  our  Lines  of  Weissembourg  were 
indeed  forced,  and  Prussia  and  the  Emigrants  rolled  through  :  but 
we  r^-force  the  Lines  of  Weissembourg  ;  and  Prussia  and  the 
Emigrants  roll  back  again  still  faster,—  hurled  with  bayonet  charges 
and  fiery  ga-ira-'mg.  tt  i, 

Ci-deva7it  Serjeant  Pichegru,  ci-devant  Serjeant  Hoche,  risen 
now  to  be  Generals,  have  done  wonders  here.  Tall  Pichegru  was 
meant  for  the  Church;  was  Teacher  of  Mathematics  once,  m 
Brienne  School,— his  remarkablest  Pupil  there  was  the  boy 
Napoleon  Buonaparte.  He  then,  not  in  the  sweetest  humour, 
enlisted  exchanging  ferula  for  musket ;  and  had  got  the  length  ot 
the  halberd,  beyond  which  nothing  could  be  hoped;  when  1  he 
Bastille  barriers  falling  made  passage  for  him,  and  he  is  here. 
Hoche  bore  a  hand  at  the  literal  overturn  of  the  Bastille  ;  he  was, 
as  we  saw,  a  Serjeant  of  the  Gardes  Francaises,  spending  his  pay 
in  rushlights  and  cheap  editions  of  books.  How  the  Mountain- 
are  burst,  and  many  an  Enceladus  is  disemprisoned  :  and  Captau:^ 
founding  on  Four  parchments  of  Nobility,  are  blowFx  with  thei. 
parchments  across  the  Rhine,  into  Lunar  Limbo  ! 

*  His  Narrative  (in  Deux  Amis,  xiv.  177-86). 


1 68        TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


What  high  feats  of  arms,  therefore,  were  clone  in  these  Fourteen 
Armies  ;  and  how,  for  love  of  Liberty  and  hope  of  Promotion,  low- 
born valom-  cut  its  desperate  way  to  Generalship  ;  and,  from  the 
central  Carnot  in  Salut  Public  to  the  outmost  drummer  on  the 
Frontiers,  men  strove  for  their  Republic,  let  readers  fancy.  The 
snows  of  Winter,  the  flowers  of  Summer  continue  to  be  stained 
with  warlike  blood.  Gaelic  impetuosity  mounts  ever  higher  with 
victory  ;  spirit  of  Jacobinism  weds  itself  to  national  vanity  :  the 
Soldiers  of  the  Repubhc  are  becoming,  as  we  prophesied,  very 
Sons  of  Fire.  Barefooted,  barebacked  :  but  with  bread  and  iron 
you  can  get  to  China  !  It  is  one  Nation  against  the  whole  world  ; 
but  the  Nation  has  that  within  her  which  the  whole  world  will  not 
conquer.  Cimmeria,  astonished,  recoils  faster  or  slower ;  all  round 
the  Republic  there  rises  fiery,  as  it  were,  a  magic  ring  of  musket- 
volleying  and  (:a-ira-\Xig.  Majesty  of  Prussia,  as  Majesty  of  Spain, 
will  by  and  by  acknowledge  his  sins  and  the  Republic  :  and  make 
a  Peace  of  Bale. 

Foreign  Commerce,  Colonies,  Factories  in  the  East  and  in  the 
West,  are  fallen  or  falling  into  the  hands  of  sea-ruhng  Pitt,  enemy  of 
human  nature.  Nevertheless  what  sound  is  this  that  we  hear,  on 
the  first  of  June,  1794  :  sound  of  as  war-thunder  borne  from  the 
Ocean  too  ;  of  tone  most  piercing'/  War-thunder  from  off  the 
Brest  waters  :  Villaret- Joyeuse  and  English  Howe,  after  long 
manoeuviing,  have  ranked  themselves  there  ;  and  are  belching  fire. 
The  enemies  of  human  nature  are  on  their  own  element  ;  cannot 
be  conquered  ;  cannot  be  kept  from  conquering.  Twelve  hours  of 
raging  cannonade  ;  sun  now  sinking  westward  through  the  battle- 
smoke  :  six  French  Ships  taken,  the  Battle  lost ;  what  Ship  soever 
can  still  sail,  making  off !  But  how  is  it,  then,  with  that  Vengeur 
Ship,  she  neither  strikes  nor  makes  off  She  is  lamed,  she  cannot 
make  off ;  strike  she  will  not.  Fire  rakes  her  fore  and  aft,  from 
victorious  enemies  ;  the  Vengeur  is  sinking.  Strong  are  \  e, 
Tyrants  of  the  Sea  ;  yet  we  also,  are  w^e  weak  ?  Lo  !  ail  tlru;-, 
streamers,  jacks,  every  rag  of  tricolor  that  will  yet  run  on  rope,  (1\ 
rustling  aloft:  the  whole  crew  crowds  to  the  upper  deck  ;  and. 
with  universal  soul-maddening  yell,  shouts  Vive  la  Republiqiir, 
sinking,  sinking.  She  staggers,  she  lurches,  her  last  drunk  whir'  : 
Ocean  yawns  abysmal:  down  rushes  the  F<:7/j,w/r,  carrying  />. 
la  Repitbliq7ie  along  with  her,  unconquerable,  into  Eternity  !^-^  i .  ■ 
foreign  Despots  think  of  that.  There  is  an  Unconquerable  Inmai!, 
when  he  stands  on  his  Rights  of  Man  :  let  Despots  and  Slaves  and 
all  people  know  this,  and  only  them  that  stand  on  the  Wrongs  of 
Man  tremble  to  know  it. 

*  Compare  Barrere  {Choix  des  Rapports ^  xiv.  416-21) ;  Lord  Howe  [^Annual 
(Register  of  1794*  p.  86),  &c. 


FLAME-PICTURE. 


169 


CHAPTER  VIL 

FLAME-PICTURE. 

In  this  manner,  mad-blazing  with  flame  of  all  imaginable  tints, 
from  the  red  of  Tophet  to  the  steUar-bright,  blazes  off  this  Con- 
summation of  Sansculottism. 

But  the  hundredth  part  of  the  things  that  were  done,  and  the 
thousandth  part  of  the  things  that  were  projected  and  decreed  to 
be  done,  would  tire  the  tongue  of  History.  Statue  of  the  Peuple 
Souverain,  high  as  Strasburg  Steeple ;  which  shall  fling  its  shadow 
from  the  Pont  Neuf  over  Jardin  National  and  Convention  Hall : — 
enormous,  in  Painter  David's  head  !  With  other  the  like  enormous 
Statues  not  a  few  :  realised  in  paper  Decree.  For,  indeed,  the 
Statue  of  Libertv  herself  is  still  but  Plaster  in  the  Place  de  la  Re- 
volution !  Then  Equalisation  of  Weights  and  Measures,  with 
decimal  division-,  Institutions,  of  Music  and  of  much  else ;  Institute 
in  general ;  School  of  Arts,  School  of  Mars,  Eleves  de  la  Patrie, 
Norjnal  Schools  :  amid  such  Gun-boring,  Altar-burning,  Saltpetre- 
digging,  and  miraculous  improvements  in  Tannery  ! 

What,  for  example,  is  this  that  Engineer  Chappe  is  doing,  m  the 
Park  of  Vincennes?  In  the  Park  of  Vincennes  ;  and  onwards, 
they  say,  in  the  Park  of  Lepelletier  Saint-Fargeau  the  assassinated 
Deputy ;  and  still  onwards  to  the  Heights  of  Ecouen  and  further, 
he  has  scaffolding  set  up,  has  posts  driven  in  ;  wooden  arms  with 
elbow-joints  are  jerking  and  fugliiiK  in  the  air,  in  the  most  rapid 
mysterious  manner  !  Citoyens  ran  up,  suspicious.  Yes,  O  Citoyens, 
we  are  signaling  :  it  is  a  device  this,  worthy  of  the  Republic  ;  a 
thing  for  what  we  will  call  Far-writing  without  the  aid  of  postbags; 
in  Greek,  it  shall  be  named  Telegraph. —  TeUgrapJu  sacre  I  an- 
swers Citoyenism  :  For  writing  to  Traitors,  to  Austria  ? — and  tears 
it  down.  Chappe  had  to  escape,  and  get  a  new  Legislative  Decree. 
Nevertheless  he  has  accomplished  it,  the  indefatigable  Chappe  : 
this  is  Far-writer^  with  its  wooden  arms  and  elbow-joints,  can 
intelligibly  signal;  and  lines  of  them  are  set  up,  to  the  North 
Frontiers  and  elsewhither.  On  an  Autumn  evening  of  the  Year 
Two,  Far-writer  having  just  written  that  Conde  Town  has  sur- 
rendered to  us,  we  send  from  Tuileries  Convention  Hall  this 
response  in  the  shape  of  Decree  :  '  The  name  of  Conde  is  changed 
'  to  No^d-Libre,  North- Free.  The  Army  of  the  North  ceases  not 
^  to  merit  well  of  the  country.' — To  the  admiration  of  men  !  For 
lo,  in  some  half  hour,  while  the  Convention  yet  debates,  there 
arrives  this  new  answer  :  '  I  inform  thee,  je  fa7iJW7ice,  Citizen 

*  President,  that  the  Decree  of  Convention,  ordering  change  of  the 

*  name  Conde  into  hiorth-Free;  and  the  other  declaring  that  the 

*  Army  of  the  North  ceases  not  to  merit  well  of  the  country,  arc 


TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DAY. 


^  transmitted  and  acknowledged  by  Telegraph.  I  have  instructed 
'  my  Officer  at  Lille  to  forward  them  to  North-Free  by  express. 
^  Signed,  Chappe.'^ 

Or  see,  over  Fleurus  in  the  Netherlands,  where  General  Jourdan, 
having  now  swept  the  soil  of  Liberty,  and  advanced  thus  far,  is 
just  about  to  fight,  and  sweep  or  be  swept,  hangs  there  not  in  the 
Heaven's  Vault,  some  Prodigy,  seen  by  Austrian  eyes  and  spy- 
glasses :  in  the  similtude  of  an  enormous  Windbag,  with  netting 
and  enormous  Saucer  depending  from  it  ?  A  Jove's  Balance,  O 
ye  Austrian  spy -glasses  ?  One  saucer-scale  of  a  Jove's  Balance  ; 
your  poor  Austrian  scale  having  kicked  itself  quite  aloft,  out  oif 
sight  ?  By  Heaven,  answer  the  spy-glasses,  it  is  a  Montgolfier,  a 
Balloon,  and  they  are  making  signals  !  Austrian  cannon-battery 
barks  at  this  Montgolfier  ;  harmless  as  dog  at  the  Moon  :  the 
Montgolfier  makes  its  signals  ;  detects  what  Austrian  ambuscade 
there  may  be,  and  descends  at  its  ease.f  What  will  not  these 
devils  incarnate  contrive? 

On  the  whole,  is  it  not,  O  Reader,  one  of  the  strangest  Flame- 
Pictures  that  ever  painted  itself ;  flaming  off  there,  on  its  ground 
of  Guiilotine-black  ?  And  the  nightly  Theatres  are  Twenty-three  ; 
and  the  Salons  de  danse  are  sixty  :  full  of  mere  Egaliie^  Fraternite 
and  Carmagnole,  And  Section  Committee-rooms  are  Forty- 
eight  ;  redolent  of  tobacco  and  brandy  :  virgorous  with  twenty- 
pence  a-day,  coercing  the  suspect.  And  the  Houses  of  Arrest  are 
Twelve  for  Paris  alone  ;  crowded  and  even  crammed.  And  at  all 
turns,  you  need  your  *  Certificate  of  Civism  ; '  be  it  for  going  out, 
or  for  coming  in  ;  nay  without  it  you  cannot,  for  money,  get  your 
daily  ounces  of  bread.  Dusky  /ed-capped  Baker's-qucues ; 
wagging  themselves  ;  not  in  silence  !  For  we  still  live  by  Maxi- 
mum, in  all  things  ;  waited  on  by  these  two.  Scarcity  and  Confu- 
sion. The  faces  of  men  are  darkened  with  suspicion  ;  with  sus- 
pecting, or  being  suspect.  The  streets  he  unswept ;  the  ways  un- 
mended.  Law  has  shut  her  Books  ;  speaks  little,  save  impromptu, 
through  the  throat  of  Tinville.  Crimes  go  unpunished  :  not  crimes 
against  the  Revolution.^  *  The  number  of  foundling  children/  as 
some  compute,  *  is  doubled.' 

How  silent  now  sits  Royalism  ;  sits  all  Aristocratism  ;  Respect- 
ability that  kept  its  Gig  !  '  The  honour  now,  and  the  safety,  is  to 
Poverty,  not  to  Wealth.  Your  Citizen,  who  would  be  fashionable, 
walks  abroad,  with  his  Wife  on  his.  arm,  in  red  wool  nightcap, 
black  shag  spencer,  and  carmagnole  complete.  Aristocratism 
crouches  low,  in  what  shelter  is  still  left  ;  submitting  to  all  requi- 
sitions, vexations  ;  too  happy  to  escape  with  life.  Ghastly  chateaus 
stare  on  you  by  the  wayside  ;  disroofed,  diswindowed  ;  which  the 

*  Choix  des  Rapport!^,  xv.  378,  384. 

t  26th  June,  1794  (see  Rapport  dc.  Guyion-Morveau  sur  Us  airostatSp  lO 
Moniteur  du  6  Vcndomiairc,  An  2). 

%  Mercier,  v.  25;  Deux  Amis,  xii.  142-199, 


FLAME-PICTURE.  m 

\  .  ■ —  —  

National  House-broker  is  peeling  for  the  lead  and .  ashlar.  The 
old  tenants  hover  disconsolate,  over  the  Rhine  with  Conde  ;  a 
spectacle  to  men.  Ci-devant  Seigneur,  exquisite  m  palate,  will 
become  an  exquisite  Restaurateur  Cook  in  Hamburg  ;  Ci-deyant 
Madame,  exquisite  in  dress,  a  successful  Marchande  des  Modes  m 
London.  In  Newgate-Street,,  you  meet  M.  le  Marquis,  with  a 
roueh  deal  on  his  shoulder,  adze  and  jack-plane  under  arm  ;  he 
has  taken  to  the  joiner  trade  :  it  being  necessary  to  live 
^i^re)  -^—Higher  than  all  Frenchmen  the  domestic  Stock-jobber 
flourishes,— in  a  day  of  Paper-money.  The  Farmer  also  flourishes. 
'  Farmer's  houses,'  says  Mercier,  '  have  become  like  Pawn-brokers 
shops  ; '  all  manner  of  furniture,  apparel,  vessels  of  gold  and 
silver  accumulate  themselves  there  :  bread  is  precious.  Ihe 
Farmer's  r^t  is  Paper-money,  and  he  alone  of  men  has  bread: 
Fajmer  is  better  than  Landlord,  and  will  himself  become  Land- 

And  daily,  we  say,  like  a  black  Spectre,  silently  through  that 
Life-tumult,  passes  the  Revolution  Cart  ;  writing  on  the  walls  its 
Mene,  Mene,  Thou  artzveighed,  and fozmd  want mg  /  A  Spectre 
with  which  one  has  grown  familian  Men  have  adjusted  them- 
selves :  complaint  issues  not  from  that  Death-tumbril.  Weak 
women  and  ci-devants,  their  plumage  and  finery  all  tarnished,  sit 
■  there  •  with  a  silent  gaze,  as  if  looking  into  the  Infinite  Black. 
The  once  hght  lip  wears  a  curl  of  irony,  uttering  no  word  ;  and  the 
Tumbril  fares  along.  They  may  be  guilty  before  Heaven,  or  not ; 
they  are  guilty,  we  suppose,  before  the  Revolution.  Then,  does 
not  the  Republic  '  coin  money  '  of  them,  with  its  great  axe  ?  Red 
Ni^^htcaps  howl  dire  approval :  the  rest  of  Pans  looks  on  ;  if  with 
a  sigh,  that  is  much  ;  Fellow-creatures  whom  sighing  cannot  help  ; 
whom' black  Necessity  and  Tinviile  have  clutched. 

One  other  thing,  or  rather  two  other  things,  we  will  still  men- 
tion •  and  no  more  :  The  Blond  Perukes  ;  the  Tannery  at  Meudon. 
Great  talk  is  of  these  Perruques  blondes :  O  Reader,  they  are 
made  from  the  Heads  of  Guillotined  women!  The  locks  of  a 
Duchess,  in  this  way,  may  come  to  cover  the  scalp  of  a  Cordwainer : 
her  blond  German  Frankism  his  black  Gaelic  poll,  if  it  be  bald. 
Or  they  may  be  worn  affectionately,  as  rehcs  ;  rendering  one 
suspect  ?t  Citizens  use  them,  not  without  mockery ;  of  a  rath^ 
cannibal  sort.  _  ^ 

Still  deeper  into  one's  heart  goes  that  Tannery  at  Meudon  ;  not 
mentioned  among  the  other  miracles  of  tanning  !  At  Meudon, 
says  Montgaillard  with  considerable  calmness,  'there  was  a  Tan- 
'  nery  of  Human  Skins  :  such  of  the  Guillotined  as  seemed  worth 
'  flaying  :  of  which  perfectly  good  wash-leather  was  made  :  for 
breeches,  and  other  uses.  The  skin  of  the  men,  he  remarks,  was 
superior  in  toughness  {consistance)  and  quality  to  shamoy  ;  that  ot 


*  See  Deux  Amis,  xv.  189-192;  Mdmoire$  de  Gmiis;  Founders  of  the 
V'rench  Republic,  &C.  &C. 
t  Mercier,  ii.  x'^ 


TERROR  THE  ORDER  OF  THE  BAY. 


women  was  good  for  almost  nothing,  being  so  soft  in  texture  !*— 
History  lookmg  back  over  Cannibalism,  through  Purchases  Pil- 
o-rvus  and  all  eirly  and  late  Records,  will  perhaps  find  no  terres- 
trial Cannibalism  of  a  sort  on  the  whole  so  detestable.  It  is  a 
manufactured,  soft-feeling,  quietly  elegant  sort  ;  a  sort  perfide  \ 
Alas  then,  is  man's  civilization  only  a  wrappage,  through  which 
the  savage  nature  of  him  can  still  burst,  infernal  as  ever  ?  Nature 
still  makes  him:  and  has  an  Infernal  in  her  as  well  as  a 
Celestial. 

*  Montgaillard,  iv.  290# 


173 


BOOK  SIXTH. 

THERMIDOR. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  GODS  ARE  ATHIRST. 

What  then  is  this  Thing,  called  La  Revolution,  which,  like  aft 
Angel  of  Death,  hangs  over  France,  noyading,  fusillading,  fight- 
ing^ gun-boring,  tanning  human  skins  ?  La  Revolution  is  but  so 
many  Alphabetic  Letters  ;  a  thing  nowhere  to  be  laid  hands  on, 
^o  be  clapt  under  lock  and  key  :  where  is  it  ?  what  is  it  ?  It  is  the 
Madness  that  dwells  in  the  hearts  of  men.  In  this  man  it  is,  and 
in  that  man  ;  as  a  rage  or  as  a  terror,  it  is  in  all  men.  Invisible, 
impalpable  ;  and  yet  no  black  Aziael,  with  wings  spread  over  half 
a  continent,  witii  sword  sweeping  from  sea  to,  sea,  could  be  a  truer 

Reality.  r  ^  •   ^  i 

To  explain,  what  is  crJled  explaining,  the  march  of  this  Revolu- 
tionary Government,  be  no  task  of  ours.  Men  cannot  explain  it. 
A  paralytic  Couthon,  asking  in  the  Jacobins,  '  what  hast  thou  done 
'to  be  hanged  if  the  Counter-Revolution  should  arrive  a  sombre 
Saint-Just,  not  yet  six-and-twenty,  declaring  that  '  for  Revolution- 
'  ists  there  is  no  rest  but  in  the  tomb  a  seagreen  Robespierre 
converted  into  vinegar  and  gall  ;  much  more  an  Amar  and  Vadier, 
a  Collot  and  Billaud  :  to  inquire  what  thoughts,  predetermination 
or  prevision,  might  be  in  the  head  of  these  men  !  Record  of  their 
thought  remains  not  ;  Death  and  Darkness  have  swept  it  out 
utterly.  Nay  if  we  even  had  their  thought,  all  they  could  have 
aniculately  spoken  to  us,  how  insignificant  a  fraction  were  that  of 
the  Thing  which  realised  itself,  which  decreed  itself,  on  signal 
given  by  them  !  As  has  been  said  more  than  once,  this  Revolu- 
tionary Government  is  not  a  self-conscious  but  a  bhnd  fatal  one. 
Each  man,  enveloped  in  his  ambient-atmosphere  of  revolutionary 
fanatic  Madness,  rushes  on,  impelled  and  impelling  ;  and  has  be- 
come a  blind  brute  Force  ;  no  rest  for  him  but  in  the  grave  1 
Darkness  and  the  mystery  of  horrid  cruelty  cover  it  for  us,  in  His- 
tory ;  as  they  did  in  Nature.  The  chaotic  Thunder-cioud,  u  ith  its 
pitchy  black,  and  its  tumult  of  dazzling  jagged  fire,  in  a  world  ail 
electric  :  thou  wilt  not  undertake  to  shew  how  that  compoi-ied 


m 


l^HERMIDOR. 


itself, — what  thes  ecrets  of  its  dark  womb  were  ;  from  v/hat  sources, 
with  what  specialities,  the  lightning  it  held  did,  in  confused  bright- 
ness of  terror,  strike-  forth,  destructive  and  self-destructive,  till  it 
ended  ?  Like  a  Blackness  naturally  of  Erebus,  which  by  will  of 
Providence  had  for  once  mounted  itself  into  dominion  and  the 
Azure  :  is  not  this  properly  the  nature  of  Sansculottism  consum- 
mating itself?  Of  which  Erebus  Blackness  be  it  enough  to  dis- 
cern that  this  and  the  other  dazzling  fire-bolt,  dazzling  fire-torrent, 
does  by  small  Volition  and  great  Necessity,  verily  issue, — in  such 
and  such  succession  ;  destructive  so  and  so,  self-destructive  so  and 
so  :  till  it  end. 

Royalism  is  extinct,  ^  sunk,'  as  they  say,  *  in  the  mud  of  the 
^  Loire  ; '  Republicanism,  dominates  without  and  within  :  what, 
therefore,  on  the  15th  day-  of  March,  1794,  is  this?  Arrestment, 
sudden  really  as  a  bolt  out  of  the  Blue,  has  hit  strange  victims  : 
Hebert  Pere  Duchene^  Bibliopohst  Momoro,  Clerk  Vincent, 
General  Ronsin  ;  high  Cordelier  Patriots,  redcapped  Magistrates 
of  Paris,  Worshippers  of  Reason,  Commanders  of  Revolutionary 
Army  I  Eight  short  days  ago,  their  Cordelier  Club  was  loud,  and 
louder  than  ever,  with  Patriot  denunciations.  Hebert  Phre  Duchene 
had  "  held  his  tongue  and  his  heart  these  two  months,  at  sight  of 
Moderates,  Crypto-Aristocrats,  Camilles,  Scelerats  in  the  Conven- 
tion itself  :  but  could  not  do  it  any  longer  ;  would,  if  other  remedy 
were  not,  invoke  the  Sacred  right  of  Insurrection."  So  spake 
Hebert  in  Cordelier  Session  ;  with  vivats,  till  the  roofs  rang  again.* 
Eight  short  days  ago  ;  and  now  already  !  They  rub  their  eyes  : 
it  is  no  dream  ;  they  find  themselves  in  the  Luxembourg.  Goose 
Gobel  too  ;  and  they  that  burnt  Churches  !  Chaumette  himself, 
potent  Procureur,  Agent  National  as  they  now  call  it,  who  could 
^  recognise  the  Suspect  by  the  very  face  of  them,'  he  lingers  but 
three  days  ;  on  the  third  day  he  too  is  hurled  in.  Most  chopfallen, 
blue,  enters  the  National  Agent  this  Limbo  whither  he  has  sent  so 
many.  Prisoners  crowd  round,  jibing  and  jeering:  "Subhme 
National  Agent,"  says  one,  "  in  virtue  of  thy  immortal  Proclama- 
tion, lo  there  !  I  am  suspect,  thou  art  suspect,  he  is  suspect,  we  are 
suspect,  ye  are  suspect,  they  are  suspect  !" 

The  meaning  of  these  things?  Meaning!  It  is  a  Plot;  Plot 
of  the  most  extensive  ramifications  ;  which,  however,  Barrere  holds 
the  threads  of  Such  Church-burning  and  scandalous  masquerades 
of  Atheism,  fit  to  make  the  Revolution  odious  :  where  indeed  could 
they  originate  but  in  the  gold  of  Pitt  ?  Pitt  indubitably,  as  Pre- 
ternatural Insight  will  teach  one,  did  hire  this  Faction  oi  Enragds^ 
to  play  their  fantastic  tricks  ;  to  roar  in  their  Cordeliers  Club  about 
Moderatism  ;  to  print  their  Pcre  Duchene ;  worship  skyblue 
Reason  in  red  nightcap  ;  rob  all  Altars,— and  bring  the  spoil  to 
us  I — 

Still  more  indubitable,  visible  to  the  mere  bodily  sight,  is  this  : 
that  the  Cordeliers  Club  sits  pale,  with  anger  and  terror  ;  and  has 
'veiled  the  Rights  of  Man,'— without  effect.    Likewise  that  the 
*  Moniteur,  du  17  Ventosc  (7th  M-arch)  1704, 


THE  GODS  ARE  ATHIRST.  175 


Tacobins  are  in  considerable  confusion  ;  busy  ^  purging  themselves, 
'/edurant:  as,  in  times  of  Plot  and  public  Calamity,  they  have  re- 
peatedly had  to  do.  -  Not  even  Camille  Desmoulms  but  has  given 
offence:  nay  there  have  risen  murmurs  against  Danton  himself ; 
though  he  bellowed  them  down,  and  Robespierre  finished  the 
matter  by 'embracing  him  in  the  Tribune.'  o  . 

Whom  shall  the  RepubUc  and  a  jealous  Mother  Society  trust  ? 
In  these  times  of  temptation-,  of  Preternatural  Insight  !    For  there 
are  Factions  of  the  Stranger,  '  de  ntranger^  Factions  of  Mode- 
rates of  Enraged;  all  manner  of  Factions  :  we  walk  m  a  world  ot 
Plots  ;  strings,  universally  spread,  of  deadly  gms  and  falltraps, 
baited  by  the  gold  of  Pitt !    Clootz,  Speaker  of  Mankind  so-called, 
v^W^i's^x^  Evidences  of  Mahometan  Religion,  and  babble  ot  Uni- 
versal Republic,  him  an  incorruptible  Robespierre  has  purged 
away    Baron  Clootz,  and  Paine  rebellious  Needleman  he,  these 
two  months,  in  the  Luxembourg;   limbs   of  the   Faction  de 
retnmo-er.    Representative  Phelippeaux  is  purged  out  :  he  came 
back  fmm  La  Vendee  with  an  ill  report  in  his  mouth  against  rogue 
Rossienol,  and  our  method  of  warfare  there.    Recant  it,  O  Phelip- 
peaux! we  entreat  thee  1    Phelippeaux  will  not  recant  ;  and  is 
purged  out.    Representative  Fabre  d'Eglantine,  famed  Nomen- 
clator  of  Romme's  Calendar,  is  purged  out  ;  nay,  is  cast  into  the 
Luxembourg  :  accused  of  Legislative  Swindling    m  regard  to 
'  monies  of  the  India  Company/    There  with  his  Chabots,  Bazires, 
euiltv  of  the  like,  let  Fabre  wait  his  destiny.    And  Westermann 
friend  of  Danton;  he  who  led  the  Marseillese  on  the  Tenth  of 
August,  and  fought  well  in  La  Vendee,  but  spoke  not  wea  of  rogue 
Rossignol,  is  purged  out.    Lucky,  if  he  too  go  not  to  tne  Luxem- 
bourcr    And  your  Prolys,  Guzmans,  of  the  Faction  of  the  Stranger, 
they  have  gone  ;  Peyreyra,  though  he  fled,  is  gone,  '  taken  m  the 
'  disguise  of  a  Tavern  Cook/    I  am  suspect,  thou,  art  suspect,  he 
is  suspect  ^  — 

The  great  heart  of  Danton  is  weary  of  it.  Danton  is  gone  to 
native  Arcis,  for  a  little  breathing  time  of  peace  :  Away,  black 
Arachne-webs,  thou  world  of  Fury,  Terror,  and  Suspicion  ;  wel- 
come, thou  everlasting  Mother,  with  thy  spring  greenness,  thy  kmcl 
household  loves  and  memories  ;  true  art  thou,  were  all  exse  untrue  . 
The  great  Titan  walks  silent,  by  the  banks  of  the  murmuring  Aubc,  - 
in  young  native  haunts  that  knew  him  when  a  boy  ;  wonders  what 
the  end  of  these  things  may  be.  ^i. 

But  strangest  of  all,  Camille  Desmoulins  is  purged  cut.  ^outhon 
gave  as  a  test  in  regard  to  Jacobin  purgation  the  question,  \\  hat 
^hast  thou  done  to  be  hanged  if  Counter-Revolution  should  arrive: 
Yet  Camille,  who  could  so  well  answer  this  question,  is  purged 
out!  The  truth  is,  Camille,  early,  in  December  last,  began  pub- 
lishing a  new  Journal,  or  Series  of  Pamphlets,  entitled  the  V  ieux 
Cordelier,  Old  CordeUer.  Camille,  not  afraid  at  one  time  to 
'  embrace  Liberty  on  a  heap  of  dead  bodies,'  begins  to  ask  now, 
Whether  among  so  manv  arresting  and  punishing  Committees 
there  ought  not  to  be  a  '^Committee  of  Mercy?'  bamt-Just  r_e 
observes,  is  an  extremely  solenm  young  Republican,  who  cames  ms 


176 


THERMIDOR. 


*  head  as  if  it  were  a  Saint-Sacreinentj  adorable  Hostie,  or  divine 
Real- Presence  !  Sharply  enough,  this  old  Cordelier,  Danton  and 
he  were  of  the  earliest  primary  Cordeliers, — shoots  his  glittering 
war-shafts  into  your  new  Cordeliers,  your  Heberts,  Momoros, 
with  their  brawling  brutalities  and  despicabilities  :  say,  as  the 
Sun-god  (for  poor  Camille  is  a  Poet)  shot  into  that  Python 
Serpent  sprung  of  mud. 

Whereat,  as  was  natural,  the  Hebertist  Python  did  hiss  and 
writhe  amazingly  ;  and  threaten  '  sacred  right  of  Insurrection  — 
and,  as  we  saw,  get  cast  into  Prison.  Nay,  with  all  the  old  wit, 
dexterity,  and  light  graceful  poignancy,  Camille,  translating  '  out 
'  of  Tacitus^  from  the  Reign  of  Tiberius/  pricks  into  the  Law 
of  the  Suspect  itself ;  making  it  odious  !  Twice,  in  the  Decade, 
his  wild  Leaves  issue  ;  full  of  wit,  nay  of  humour,  of  harmonious 
ingenuity  and  insight, — one  of  the  strangest  phenomenon  of  that 
dark  time  ;  and  smite,  in  their  wild-sparkling  way,  at  various 
monstrosities,  Saint-Sacrament  heads,  and  Juggernaut  idols,  in  a 
rather  reckless  manner.  To  the  great  joy  of  Josephine  Beauharnais, 
and  the  other  Five  Thousand  and  odd  Suspect,  who  fill  the 
Twelve  Houses  of  Arrest ;  on  whom  a  ray  of  hope  dawns  ! 
Robespierre,  at  first  approbatory,  knew  not  at  last  what  to 
think  ;  then  thought,  with  his  Jacobins,  that  Camille  must  be 
expelled.  A  man  of  "true  Revolutionary  spirit,  this  Camille  ;  but 
with  the  unwisest  salhes  ;  whom  Aristocrats  and  Moderates  have 
the  art  to  corrupt !  Jacobinism  is  in  uttermost  crisis  and  struggle : 
enmeshed  wholly  in  plots,  corruptibilities,  neck-gins  and  baited 
falltraps  of  Pitt  Ennemi  du  Genre  Hii7nain.  Camille's  First 
Number  begins  with  '  O  Pitt  P — his  last  is  dated  1 5  Pluvisoe 
Year  2,  3d  February  1794  ;  and  ends  with  these  words  of  Monte- 
zuma's, '  Les  dieux  ont  soif,  The  gods  are  athirst.' 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Hebertists  lie  in  Prison  only  some  nine 
days.  On  the  24th  of  March,  therefore,  the  Revolution  Tumbrils 
carry  through  that  Life-tumult  a  new  cargo  :  Hebert,  Vincent, 
Momoro,  Ronsin,  Nineteen  of  them  in  all  ;  with  whom,  curious 
enough,  sits  Clootz  Speaker  of  Mankind.  They  have  been  massed 
swiftly  into  a  lump,  this  miscellany  of  Nondescripts;  and  travel 
now  their  last  road.  No  help.  They  too  must  '  look  through  the 
'  little  window  ;'  they  too  '  must  sneeze  into  the  sack,'  ficrjiucr 
dans  Ic  sac ;  as  they  have  done  to  others  so  is  it  done  to  them. 
Sainte- Guillotine^  meseems,  is  worse  than  the  old  Saints  of  Super- 
stition ;  a  man-devouring  Saint  ?  Clootz,  still  with  an  air  of  polished 
sarcasm,  endeavours  to  jest,  to  offer  cheering  ^arguments  of  Mate- 

*  rialism  he  requested  to  be  executed  last,  ^  in  order  to  estabhsh 
^  certain  principles,' — which  Philosophy  has  not  retained,  (ieneral 
Ronsin  too,  he  still  looks  forth  with  some  air  of  defiance,  eye  of 
command  :  the  rest  are  sunk  in  a  stony  palencjss  of  despair. 
Momoro,  poor  T^jibliopolist,  no  Agrarian  Law  yet  realised, — they 
might  as  well  have  hanged  thee  at  Kvreux,  twenty  months  ago, 
when  Girondin  Ikizot  hindered  them.  Hebert  Pere  Duchene  shall 
never  in  this  world  rise  in  sacred  right  of  insurrection  ;  he  si  I  iliere 


DANTON,  NO  WEAKNESS. 


v/7 


low  eiioudi,  head  sunk  on  breast ;  Red  Nightcaps  shouting  round 
him  in  frightful  parody  of  his  Newspaper  Articles,  Grand  choler 
of  the  Pere  Duchene  1"  Thus  perish  they  ;  the  sack  receives  all 
their  heads.  Through  some  section  of  History,  Nineteen  spectre- 
chimeras  shall  flit,  speaking  and  gibbering  ;  till  Oblivion  swallow 

In  the  course  of  a  week,  the  Revolutionary  Army  itself  is  dis- 
banded ;  the  General  having  become  spectral.  This  Factien  of 
Rabids,  therefore,  is  also  purged  from  the  Repubhcan  soil ;  here 
also  the  baited  falltraps  of  that  Pitt  have  been  wrenched  u]3  liarm- 
less;  and  anew  there  is  joy  over  a  Plot  Discovered.  The  Re- 
volution then  is  verily  devouring  its  own  children.  All  Anarchy, 
by  the  nature  of  it,  is  not  only  destructive  but  .^^-^-destructive. 


CHAPTER  11. 

DANTON,  NO  WEAKNESS. 

D ANTON,  meanwhile,  has  been  pressingly  sent  for  from  Arcis: 
he  must  return  instantly,  cried  Camille,  cried  Phelippeaux  and 
Friends,  who  scented  danger  in  the  wind.  Danger  enough  !  A 
Danton,  a  Robespierre,  chief-products  of  a  victorious  Revolution, 
are  now  arrived  in  immediate  front  of  one  another  ;  must  ascer- 
tain how  they  will  live  together,  rule  together.  One  conceives 
easily  the  deep  mutual  incompatibihty  that  divided  these  two:  with 
what  terror  of  feminine  hatred  the  poor  seagreen  Formula  looked 
at  the  monstrous  colossal  Reahty,  and  grew  greener  to  behold 
him  ;— the  Reality,  again,  struggling  to  think  no  ill  of  a  chief-pro- 
duct of  the  Revolution  ;  yet  feeling  at  bottom  that  such  chiet- 
product  was  little  other  than  a  chief  wmd-bag,  blown  large  by 
Popular  air  ;  not  a  man  with  the  heart  of  a  man,  but  a  poor  spas- 
modic incorruptible  pedant,  with  a  logic-formula  instead  of  heart  ; 
of  Jesuit  or  Methodist-Parson  nature  ;  full  of  smcere-cant,  incor- 
ruptibility, of  virulence,  poltroonery  ;  barren  as  the  east-wmd  ! 
Two  such  chief-products  are  too  much  for  one  Revolution. 

Friends,  trembling  at  the  results  of  a  quarrel  on  their  part, 
brought  them  to  meet.  "  It  is  right,^'  said  Danton,  swallowing 
much  indignation,  "  to  repress  the  Royahsts  :  but  we  shou  d  not 
strike  except  where  it  is  useful  to  the  Republic:  we  should^^noc 
confound  the  innocent  and  the  guilty.'— " And  who  told  you,'  re- 
plied Robespierre  with  a  poisonous  look,  "that  one  innocent  per- 
son had  perished  rXv^;/7  said  Danton,  turning  round  to 
Friend  Paris  self-named  Fabricius,  Juryman  m  the  Revolutionaiy 
Tribunal  :  "  Ouot,  not  one  innocent  ?  What  sayest  thou  of  it, 
Fabricius  l""^— Friends,  \\^estermann,  this  Paris  and  others  urged 
him  to  shew  hiinseh'',  to  ascend  tlie  Tribune  and  act.  The  man 
Danton  was  not  prop.e  lo  sliew  Iiimself ;  to  act,  or  uproar  ioi  his 
Biogniphie  dc  Mbiistrcs,  §  Dantou. 


178 


THERMIDOR. 


own  safety.  A  man  of  careless,  large,  hoping  nature ;  a  laro-e 
nature  that  could  rest :  he  would  sit  whole  hours,  they  say,  hear- 
ing Camille  talk,  and  liked  nothing  so  well.  Friends  urged  him 
to  fly;  his  Wife  urged  him:  "Whither  fly?  "answered  he:  "If 
freed  France  cast  me  out,  there  are  only  dungeons  for  me  else- 
where. One  carries  not  his  country  with  him  at  the  sole  of  his 
shoe  The  man  Danton  sat  still.  Not  even  the  arrestment  of 
Friend  Herault,  a  member  of  Salut,  yet  arrested  by  Sahit,  can 
rouse  Danton.— On  the  night  of  the  30th  of  March,  Juryman  Paris 
came  rushing  in ;  haste  looking  through  his  eves :  A  clerk  of  the 
Salut  Committee  had  told  him  Danton's  warrant  was  made  out, 
he  IS  to  be  arrested  this  very  night  !  Entreaties  there  are  and 
trepidation,  of  poor  Wife,  of  Paris  and  Friends  :  Danton  sat  silent 
for  a  while;  then  answered,  ''lis  n'oseraie?il,  They  dare  not; "  and 
would  take  no  measures.  Murmuring  "  They  dare  not,"  he  goes 
to  sleep  as  usual. 

And  yet,  on  the  morrow  morning,  strange  rumour  spreads  over 
Pans  City  :  Danton,  Camille,  Phelippeaux,  Lacroix  have  been 
arrested  over  night !  It  is  verily  so  :  the  corridors  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg were  all  crowded,  Prisoners  crowding  forth  to  see  this  giant 
of  the  Revolution  enter  among  them.  ''  Messieurs,"  said  Danton 
politely,  "  I  hoped  soon  to  have  got  you  all  out  of  this :  but  here  I 
am  myself ;  and  one  sees  not  where  it  will  end."— Rumour  may 
spread  over  Paris  :  the  Convention  clusters  itself  into  grouns  • 
wide-eyed,  whispering,  "  Danton  arrested  !  "  Who  then  is  safe  ? 
Legendre,  mounting  the  Tribune,  utters,  at  his  own  peril,  a  feeble 
word  for  him  ;  moving  that  he  be  heard  at  that  Bar  before  indict- 
ment ;  but  Robespierre  frowns  him  dov/n  :  "  Did  you  hear  Chabot, 
or  Bazire?  Would  you  have  two  weights  and  measures 
Legendre  cowers  low  ;  Danton,  like  the  others,  must  take  his 
doom.. 

Danton's  Prison-thoughts  were  curious  to  have  ;  but  are  not 
given  in  any  quantity  :  indeed  few  such  remarkable  men  have  been 
left  so  obscure  to  us  as  this  Titan  of  the  Revolution.  He  was 
heard  to  ejaculate  :  "  This  time  twelvemonth,  I  was  moving  the 
creation  of  that  same  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  I  crave  pardon  for 
It  of  God  and  man.  They  are  all  Brothers  Cain  :  Brissot  would 
have  had  me  guillotined  as  Robespierre  now  will.  I  leave  the 
whole  business  in  a  frightful  welter  [gdchis  eponvantablc)  :  not  one 
of  them  understands  anything  of  government.  Robespierre  will 
follow  me;  I  drag  down"  Robespierre.  O,  it  were  better  to  be  a 
T^oor  fisherman  than  to  meddle  with  governing  of  men."— Camilie's 
..'oung  beautiful  Wife,  who  had  made  him  rich  not  in  money  alone, 
/lOvers  round  the  Luxembourg,  like  a  disembodied  spirit,  day  and 
night.  Camilie's  stolen  letters  to  her  still  exist  ;  stained  with  the 
mark  of  his  tears.^  1  carry  my  head  like  a  Saint-Sacrament  V' 
so  Saint-Just  was  heard  to  mutter :  "  Perhaps  he  will  carry  his 
like  a  Saint-Dennis." 

Unhappy  Danton,  thou  still  unhappier  light  Camille,  once  light 
*  ^t^rc^^s  szir  Camillc  Dcsmoulitis  (in  Vteiix  Cordelier,  Paris,  1825),  pp.  1-29. 


DANTON,  A'O  V/EAKNESS^  179 

P^^^^^^^^^^  tSmh  and 

Bourne  of  Creauon  wh^^^^^  that  cli.n  Waste  beyond 

atmost  Oadeb  of  his  Mother,  pale,  inettec- 

^"a^d  when  Ms  tlotlif  nu^rsed  and  wrap'ped ' hirn  are 
Si  too'^'if  contrasted  with  this  day!     Danton  Cam.lle 

sss:  iaTis^  r&  orse^r  r  for  pH 

1794  '  Danton  has  had  but  three  days  to  he  ni  Prison  ;  for  the 

What's' vour  name?  place  of  abode?  and  the  like  Fouquier 
asks    according  to  forn^ahty.    "My  name  is  l^^nton"  answers 
hS''a  r"me  tolerably  known  in  the  Revolution  :  my  abode  wd 
soon  be  Annihilation  {dans  le  Neant)  ;  but  I  shall  hve  m  ^he  i  an 
theon  of  i  iistory."    A  man  will  endeavour  to  say  someihmg  lor- 
cfble  be  it  b?  nature  or  not !    Herault  mentions  ^P^S^'f^^^^^^'^^, 
that  be  "sa    in  this  Hall,  and  was  detested  ot  Parlementee.  s 
Me  inakes  answer,  "  My  age  is  that  of  the^«/--^^^^^^^^^ 
7^sus  ■  an  age  fatal  to  Revolutionists."     O  CamiUe,  "-amu  e  . 
And  v-ct  m  that  Divine  Transaction,  let  us  say,  there  did  he 
^mong  other  things,  the  fatallest  Reproof  ever  ""^red  here  belo. 
to  Wordly  Right-honourableness  ;  '  the  highest  Fac,  so  devou 
NovaHs  "calls  k,' in  the  Rights  of  .Man.'    Can.dle  s  real  age,  .t 
would  seem  is  thirty-four.    Danton  is  one  year  older. 
"°S^:  fiv;'months\.go,  the  Trial  of  the  -I^-ng-two  C  u  d 
was  the  a-reatest  that  Fouquier  had  then  done.    But  here  is  a  sua 
Tea  er  to  do  ;  a  thing  which  tasks  the  whole  facu  ty  of  Fouquier 
which  makes  the  very^heart  of  him  waver.    For  it  '  jhe  vmce  of 
Danton  that  reverberates  novv  ^om  these  domes    m  passionate 
words,  piercing  with  their  wild  sincerity,  w^ged  with  ^rath.  \  oji 
best  Witnesses  he  sh'ivers  into  rum  at  one  s»°k^; ^^He  dm 
that  the  Committee-men  themselves  come  as  Wunes  e^  a  Acca 
sers  •  he  "  will  cover  them  with  ignominy.     He  raises  nis  nu  c 
Sre  he  shakes  his  huge  black  head  fire  flashes  fn.m  the  e^-e  of 
him— piercing  to  all  Repubhcan  hearts  :  so  that  the  veiy  "--aiier 
res  'tho^ugh  wf  filled  them  by  ticket,  murmur  sympathy  ;  ai  d  a^e 
lik^  to  burst  down,  and  raise  the  P/ople,  ^and  dehvei  h  m 
rntnnliins  loudlv  that  he  s  classed  with  Chabots,  with  swinani.;, 
SrcSbers  ;  hat  his  Indictment  is  a  list  of  platitudes  and  horrors 
"  Sou  h  dc  en  on  the  Tenth  of  August  ?  "  f^erberates  he,  with 
the  roar  of  a  lion  in  the  toils  :  "Where  are  the  men  that  had  to 
;^ress  Danton  to  shew  himself,  that  day  ?    ^^hei^  are  these  high^ 
gifted  souls  of  whom  he  borrowed  energy?    Let  them  appear 
fhVsp  Accusers  of  mine  :  I  have  all  the  clearness  of  my  selt- 
?ossesston  wh4  fdemand  them..   I  wiUunmask  the  three  shallow 
Scoundrels,"  les  trois  plats  coqmns    Samt-Just   Couthon  L^^^^^^ 
"who  fawn  on  Robespierre,  and  lead  him  towards  his  destiuct.on 
Let  them  produce  themselves  here;  I  will  plunge  them  nuo 
liiluSess,  out  of  whkh  they  ought  never  to  have  nsen.-  The 


i8o  THERM  ID  OR. 


agitated  President  agitates  his  bell  ;  enjoins  calmness,  in  .a 
vehement  manner  :  ^' What  is  it  to  thee  how  I  defend  myself? 
cries  the  other  :  ".the  right  of  dooming  me  is  thine  always.  The 
voice  of  a  man  speaking  for  his  honour  and  his  life  may  well 
drown  the  jingling  of  thy  bell  !  "  Thus  Danton,  higher  and  higher  ; 
till  the  lion  voice  of  him  '  dies  away  in  his  throat  : '  speech  will  not 
utter  what  is  in  that  man.  The  Galleries  murmur  ominously  ;  the 
first  day^s  Session  is  over. 

O  Tinville,  President  lierman,  w4ia,t  will  ye  do  ?  They  have 
two  days  more  of  it,  by  strictest  Revolutionary  Law.  The  Galler- 
ies already  murmur.  If  this  Danton  were  to  burst  your  mesh- 
work  ! — Very  curious  indeed  to  consider.  It  turns  on  a  hair  :  and 
what  a  Hoitytoity  were  there^  Justice  and  Culprit  changing  places  ; 
and  the  whole  History  of  France  running  changed  !  For  in 
France  there  is  this  Danton  only  that  could  still  try  to  govern 
Prance.  He  only,  the  wild  amorphous  Titan  ; — and  perhaps  that 
other  olive-complexioned  individual,  the  Artillery  Officer  at  Toulon, 
whom  we  left  pushing  his  fortune  in  the  South  ? 

On  the  evening  of  the  second  day,  matters  looking  not  better 
but  worse  and  worse,  Fouquier  and  Herman,  distraction  in  their 
aspect,  rush  over  to  Salut  Public.  What  is  to  be  done  ?  Sahit 
Ptiblic  rapidly  concocts  a  new  Decree  ;  whereby  if  men  ^  insult 
Justice,'  they  may  be  '  thrown  out  of  the  Debates.'  For  indeed, 
withal,  is  there  not  ^a  Plot  in  the  Luxembourg  Prison.^'  Ci- 
devant  General  Dillon,  and  others  of  the  Suspect,  plotting  with 
Camille's  Wife  to  distribute  assignats  ;  to  force  the  Prisons,  over- 
set the  Republic  Citizen  Laflotte,  himself  Suspect  but  desiring 
enfranchisement,  has  reported  said  Plot  for  us  : — a  report  that  may 
bear  fruit  !  Enough,  on  the  morrow  morning,  an  obedient  Con- 
vention passes  diis  Decree.  Sabit  rushes  off  with  it  to  the  aid  of 
Tinville,  reduced  now  almost  to  extremities.  And  so,  Ilors  des 
Dcbats,  Out  of  the  Debates,  ye  insolents  !  Policemen  do  your 
duty  !  In  such  manner,  with  a  deadlift  effort,  Sahit^  Tinville 
Herman,  Leroi  Dix-Aoiit^  and  all  s<:anch  jurymen  setting  heart 
and  shoulder  to  it,  the  Jury  becomes  '  sufficiently  instructed  ;  ^ 
Sentence  is  passed,  is  sent  by  an  Official,  and  torn  and  trampled 
on  :  Death  this  day.  It  is  the  5th  of  April,  1794.  Camille's  poor 
Wife  may  cease  hovering  about  this  Prison.  Nay  let  her  kiss  her 
poor  cliildren  ;  and  prepare  to  enter  it,  and  to  follow  !  — 

l^anton  carried  a  high  look  in  the  Death-cart.  Not  so  Camilla  : 
it  is  but  one  week,  and  all  is  so  L(){)s\'-turvied  ;  angel  Wife  left 
weeping  ;  love,  riches,  Revolutionary  fame,  left  all  at  the  Prison- 
gate  ;  carnivorous  Rabble  now  howling  round.  Palpable,  and  yet 
incredible  ;  like  a  madman's  dream  !  Camille  struggles  and 
writhes  ;  his  shoulders  shuffle  the  loose  coat  off  them,  which  hangs 
knotted,  the  hands  tied  :  "  Calm,  my  friend,"  said  Danton  ;  heed 
not  that  vile  cnnaille  {laissez  la  ceite  vile  caijaillc).^^  At  the  foot 
of  the  Scaffold,  Danton  was  heard  to  ejaculate  :  O  my  Wife,  my 
well-beloved,  1  shall  never  see  thee  more  then  !  "—  but,  interrupting 
himself:  "  Danton,  no  weakness  !"  He  said  to  Hcrault-Sechellcs 
stepping  forward  to  embrace  him  :  "  Our  heads  will  meet  there^^'m 


THE  TUMBRILS. 


the  Headsman's  sack.  His  last  words  were  to  Samson  the 
Headsman  himself  :^  "  Thou  wilt  shew  my  head  to  the  people  ;  it 
is  worth  shewing." 

So  passes,  like  a  gigantic  mass,  of  valour,  ostentation,  tury, 
affection  and  wild  revolutionary  manhood,  this  Danton,  to  his 
unknown  home.  He  was  of  Arcis-sur-Aube ;  born  of  good 
'  farmer-people  '  there.  He  had  many  sins  ;  but  one  worst  sm  he 
had  not,  that  of  Cant.  No  hollow  Formalist,  deceptive  and  self- 
deceptive,  ohastly  to  the  natural  sense,  was  this  ;  but  a  very  Man  : 
with  all  his  dross  he  was  a  Man  ;  fiery-real,  from  the  great  fire- 
bosom  of  Nature  herself  He  saved  France  from  Brunswick ;  he 
walked  straight  his  own  wild  road,  whither  it  led  him.  He  may 
live  for  some  generations  in  the  memory  of  men. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  TUMBRILS. 

Next  week,  it  is  still  but  the  loth  of  April,  there  comes  a  new 
Nineteen  ;  Chaumette,  Gobel,  Hebert's  Widow,  the  Widow  of 
Camille  :  these  also  roll  their  fated  journey  ;  black  Death  devours 
them.  Mean  Hebert's  Widow  was  weeping,  Camille's  Widow 
tried  to  speak  comfort  to  her.  O  ye  kind  Heavens,  azure,  beautiful, 
eternal  behind  your  tempests  and  Time-clouds,  is  there  not  pity 
for  all !  Gobel,  it  seems,  was  repentant ;  he  begged  absolution  of 
a  Priest  ;  died  as  a  Gobel  best  could.  For  Anaxagoras  Chaumette, 
the  sleek  head  now  stript  of  its  bonnet  rouge,  what  hope  is  there? 
Unless  Death  were  '  an  eternal  sleep  ? '  Wretched  Anaxagoras, 
God  shall  judge  thee,  not  I. 

Hebert,  therefore,  is  gone,  and  the  Hebertists  ;  they  that  robbed 
Churches,  and  adored  blue  Reason  in  red  nightcap.  Great 
Danton,  and  the  Dantonists  ;  they  also  are  gone.  Down  to  the 
catacombs  ;  they  are  become  silent  men  !  Let  no  Pans  Munici- 
pahty,  no  Sect  or  Party  of  this  hue  or  that,  resist  the  will  of 
Robespierre  and  Salut.  Mayor  Pache,  not  prompt  enough  in 
denouncing  these  Pitts  Plots,  may  congratulate  about  them  now. 
Never  so  heartily  ;  it  skills  not  !  His  course  likewise  is  to  the 
Luxembourg.  We  appoint  one  Fleuriot-Lescot  Internn-Mayor  in 
his  stead  :  an  '  architect  from  Belgium,'  they  say,  this  Fleuriot ; 
he  is  a  man  one  can  depend  on.  Our  new  Agent- National  is 
Payan,  lately  Juryman  ;  whose  cynosure  also  is  Robespierre. 

Thus  then,  we  perceive,  this  confusedly  electric  Erebus-cloud  of 
Revolutionary  Government  has  altered  its  shape  somewhat.  Two 
masses,  or  wings,  belonging  to  it  ;  an  over-electric  mass  of  Cor- 
deher  Rabids,  and  an  under-electric  of  Dantonist  Moderates  and 
Clemency-men,— these  two  masses,  shooting  bolts  at  one  another, 
SO  to  speak,  have  annihilated  one  another.    For  the  Erebus-cloud, 


l82 


THERMlDOIt 


as  we  often  remark,  is  of  suicidal  nature  ;  and,  in  jagged  irregu 
larity,  darts  its  lightning  withal  into  itself.  But  now  these  t^vo 
discrepant  masses  being  mutually  annihilated,  it  is  as  if  the 
Erebus-cloud  had  got  to  internal  composure  ;  and  did  only  pour 
its  hellfire  lightning  on  the  World  that  lay  under  it.  In"  plain 
words.  Terror  of  the  Guillotine  was  never  terrible  till  now.  Systuli;^ 
diastole,  swift  and  ever  swifter  goes  the  Axe  of  Samson.  Indict- 
m.ents  cease  by  degrees  to  have  so  much  as  plausibihty  :  Fouquier 
chooses  from  the  Twelve  houses  of  Arrest  what  he  calls  Batches. 
'  Foiirnees^  a  score  or  more  at  a  time  ;  his  Jurymen  are  charged 
to  m.ake  feu  de  file,  fire-filing  till  the  ground  be  clear.  Citizen 
Laflotte's  report  of  Plot  in  the  Luxembourg  is  verily  bearing  fruit  ! 
If  no  speakable  charge  exist  against  a  man,  or  Batch  of  men, 
Fouquier  has  always  this  :  a  Plot  in  the  Prison.  Swift  and  ever 
swifter  goes  Samson  ;  up,  finally,  to  three  score  and  more  at  a 
Batch!  It  is  the  highday  of  Death  :  none  but  the  Dead  return 
not. 

O  dusky  d'Espremenil,  what  a  day  is  this,  the  22d  of  April, 
thy  last  day  !  The  Palais  Hall  here  is  the  same  stone  Hall,  where 
thou,  five  years  ago,  stoodest  perorating,  amid  endless  pathos  of 
rebellious  Parlem.ent,  in  the  grey  of  the  morning  ;  bound  to  march 
with  d'Agoust  to  the  Isles  of  Hieres.  The  stones  are  the  same 
stones  :  but  the  rest,  Men,  Rebellion,  Pathos,  Peroration,  see  !  it 
has  all  fled,  like  a  gibbering  troop  of  ghosts,  ike  the  phantasms 
of  a  dying  brain  !  With  d'Espremenil,  in  the  same  line  of  Tum- 
brils, goes  the  mournfullest  medley.  Chapelier  goes,  ci-devant 
popular  President  of  the  Constituent  ;  whom  the  Menads  and 
IMaillard  met  in  his  carriage,  on  the  Versailles  Roc.d.  -  Thouret 
likewise,  ci-devant  President,  father  of  Constitutional  Law-acts  ; 
he  whom  we  heard  saying,  long  since,  with  a  loud  voice,  "  The 
Constituent  Assembly  has  fulfilled  its  mission  ! "  And  the  noble 
old  Malesherbes,  who  defended  Louis  and  could  not  speak,  like  a 
grey  old  rock  dissolving  into  sudden  water  :  he  journeys  here  now, 
with  his  kindred,  daughters,  sons  and  grandsons,  his  Lamoignons, 
Chfiteaubriands ;  silent,  towards  Death. — One  young  Chateau- 
briand alone  is  wandering  amid  the  Natchez,  by  the  roar  of 
Niagara  Falls,  the  moan  of  endless  forests  :  Welcome  thou  great 
Nature,  savage,  but  not  false,  not  unkind,  unmotherly  ;  no  Formula 
thou,  or  rapid  jangle  of  Hypothesis,  Parliamentary  Eloquence; 
Constitution-building  and  the  Guillotine  ;  speak  thou  to  me,  O 
Mother,  and  sing  my  sick  heart  thy  mystic  everlasting  lullaby- 
song,  and  let  all  the  rest  be  far  ! — 

Another  row  of  Tuirbrils  we  must  notice  :  that  which  holds 
Elizabeth,  the  Sister  of  Louis.  Her  Trial  was  like  the  rest  ;  for 
Plots,  for  Plots.  She  was  among  the  kindliest,  most  innocent  of 
women.  There  sat  with  her,  amid  four-and-twenty  others,  a  once 
timorous  Marchioness  de  Crussol  ;  courageous  now  ;  expressing 
towards  her  the  liveliest  loyalty.  At  the  foot  of  the  Scaffold, 
Elizabeth  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  thanked  this  Marchioness  ;  said 
she  was  grieved  she  could  not  reward  her.  "  Ah,  Madame,  would 
your  Royal  Highness  deign  to  embrace  me,  my  wishes  were  com- 


THE  TUMBRILS. 


183 


plete  ! "  Right  willingly,  Marquise  de  Crussol,  and  v/ith  my 
whole  heart."-^  Thu  they  :  at  the  foot  of  the  Scaffold.  The 
Royal  Family  is  -o^:  reduced  to  two  :  a  girl  and  a  httle  boy. 
The  boy,  once  named  Dauphin,  was  taken  from  his  Mother  while 
she  yet  lived  ;  ano  given  to  one  Simon,  by  trade  a  Cordwainer, 
on  service  then  about  the  Temple-Prison,  to  bring  him  up  in 
principles  of  Sansculottism.  Simon  taught  him  to  drink,  to  swear, 
to  cing  the  carmagnole.  Simon  is  now  gone  to  the  Municipality  : 
and  th^  poor  boy,  hidden  in  a  tower  of  the  Tempk,  from  which  in 
his  fright  and  bewilderment  and  early  decrepitude  he  wishes  not 
to  stir  out,  lies  perishing,  '  his  shirt  not  changed  for  six  months  ; ' 
amid  squalor  and  darkness,  lamentably ,t— so  as  none  but  poor 
Factory  Children  and  the  like  are  wont  to  perish,  unlamented  ! 

The  Spring  sends  its  green  leaves  and  bright  weather,  bright 
May  brighter  than  ever  :  Death  pauses  not.  Lavoisier  famed 
Chemist,  shall  die  and  not  live  :  Chemist  Lavoisier  was  Farmer- 
General  Lavoisier  too,  and  now  'all  the  Farmers- General  are 
*  arrested  ; '  all,  and  shall  give  an  account  of  their  monies  and  in- 
comings ;  and  die  for  'putting  water  in  the  tobacco'  they  sold.f 
Lavoisier  begged  a  fortnight  more  of  life,  to  finish  some  experi- 
ments :  but  the  Republic  does  not  need  such  ; "  the  axe  must  do 
its  work.  Cynic  Chamfort,  reading  these  Inscriptions  of  Brother- 
hood or  Death,  says  "  it  is  a  Brotherhood  of  Cain:"  arrested,  then 
liberated  ;  then  about  to  be  arrested  again,  this  Chamfort  cuts 
and  slashes  himself  with  frantic  uncertain  hand  ;  gains,  not  with- 
out difficulty,  the  refuge  of  death.  Condorcet  has  lurked  deep, 
these  many  months  ;  Argus-eyes  watching  and  searching  for  him. 
His  concealment  is  become  dangerous  to  others  and  himself ;  he 
has  to  fly  again,  to  skulk,  round  Paris,  in  thickets  and  stone- 
quarries.  And  so  at  the  Village  of '  Clamars,  one  bleared  May 
morning,  there  enters  a  Figure,  ragged,  rough-bearded,  hunger- 
stricken  ;  asks  breakfast  in  the  tavern  there.  Suspect,  by  the 
look  of  him  !  "  Servant  out  of  place,  sayest  thou  ? Committee- 
President  of  Forty-Sous  finds  a  Latin  Horace  on  him  :  "  Art  thou 
not  one  of  those  Ci-deva7its  that  were  wont  to  keep  servants  ? 
Suspect!''  He  is  haled  forthwith,  breakfast  unfinished,  towards 
Bourg-la-Reine,  on  foot  :  he  faints  with  exhaustion  ;  is  set  on  a 
peasant's  horse  ;  is  flu^g  into  his  damp  prison-ceh  :  on  the  mor- 
row, recollecting  him,  you  enter  ;  Condorcet  lies  dead  on  the 
floor.  They  die  fast,  and  disappear  :  the  Notabihties  of  France 
disappear,  one  after  one,  like  lights  in  a  Theatre,  which  you  are 
snuffing  out. 

Under  which  circumstances,  is  it  not  singular,  and  almost  touch- 
ing, to  see  Paris  City  drawn  out,  in  the  meek  May  nights,  in  civic 
ceremony,  which  they  call  '  Souper  Fraternel,  Brotherly  Supper  t 
Spontaneous,  or  partially  spontaneous,  in  the  twelfth,  thirteenth, 
fourteenth  nights  of  this  May  month,  it  is  seen.    Along  the  Rue 

»  Mont<Tailiard,  iv.  200. 

f  Duchessc  d'Angouleme,  Capiivitd  a  la  Ton?-  dii  TemplCy  pp.  37-71. 
J  Tribunal  Rivolutionnaire,^ dM  8  Mai  1794  {Mo?iiteiirt  No.  231). 


i84 


THERMIDOR. 


Saint-Honore,  and  main  Streets  and  Spaces,  each  Citoyen  brings 
forth  what  of  supper  the  stingy  Maximitm  has  yielded  him,  to  the 
open  air  ;  joins  it  to  his  neighbours  supper  ;  and  with  common 
table,  cheerful  light  burning  frequent,  and  what  due  modicum  of 
cut-glasses  and  other  garnish  and  relish  is  convenient,  they  eat 
frugally  together,  under  the  kind  stars.*  See  it,  O  Night  !  With 
cheerfully  pledged  wine-cup,  hobnobbing  to  the  Reign  of  Liberty, 
Equality,  Brotherhood,  with  their  wives  in  best  ribands,  with  their 
little  ones  romping  round,  the  Citoyens,  in  frugal  Love-feast,  sit 
there.  Night  in  her  wide  empire  sees  nothing  similar.  O  my 
brothers,  why  is  the  reign  of  Brotherhood  not  come  !  It  is  come, 
it  shall  come,  say  the  Citoyens  frugally  hobnobbing.™  Ah  me  ! 
these  everlasting  stars,  do  they  not  look  down  4ike  glistening  eyes^ 
'  bright  with  immortal  pity,  over  the  lot  of  man  ! ' — 

One  lamentable  thing,  however,  is,  that  individuals  will  attempt 
assassination — of  Representatives  of  the  People.  Representative 
Collot,  Member  even  of  Sah-ct,  returning  home,  '  about  one  in  the 
'  morning,'  probably  touched  with  liquor,  as  he  is  apt  to  be,  meets 
on  the  stairs,  the  cry  "  Scelerat  I "  and  also  the  snap  of  a  pistol  : 
which  latter  flashes  in  the  pan  ;  disclosing  to  him,  momentarily,  a 
pair  of  truculent  saucer-eyes,  swart  grim-clenched  countenance  ; 
recognisable  as  that  of  our  little  fellow-lodger,  Citoyen  Amirai, 
formerly  ^a  clerk  in  the  Lotteries  !'  Collot  shouts  Murder^  with 
lungs  fit  to  awaken  all  the  Rue  Favart  j  Amirai  snaps  a  second 
time  ;  a  second  time  flashes  in  the  pan  ;  then  darts  up  into  his 
apartment  ;  and,  after  there  firing,  still  with  inadequate  effect,  one 
musket  at  himself  and  another  at  his  captor,  is  clutched  and 
locked  in  Prison.*  An  indignant  little  man  this  Amirai,  of  South- 
ern temper  and  complexion,  of  '  considerable  muscular  force/  He 
denies  not  that  he  meant  to  "  purge  France  of  a  tyrant  ; nay 
avows  that  he  had  an  eye  to  the  Incorruptible  himself,  but  took 
Collot  as  more  convenient  ! 

Rumour  enough  hereupon  ;  heaven-high  congratulation  of 
Collot,  fraternal  embracing,  at  the  Jacobins,  and  elsewhere.  And 
yet,  it  would  seem  the  assassin-mood  proves  catching.  Two  days 
more,  it  is  still  but  the  23d  of  May,  and  towards  nine  in  the  even- 
Cecile  Renault,  Paper-dealer's  daughter,  a  young  woman  of 
soft  blooming  look,  presents  herself  at  the  Cabinet-maker's  in  the 
Jvue  Saint-Honore  ;  desires  to  see  Robespierre.  Robespierre  can- 
not be  seen  :  she  grumbles  irreverently.  They  lay  hold  of  her. 
She  has  left  a  basket  in  a  shop  hard  by  :  in  the  basket  are  female 
change  of  raiment  and  two  knives  !  Poor  Cecile,  examined  by 
Committee,  declares  she  "  wanted  to  see  what  a  t)  r;int  was  like  :  " 
the  change  of  raiment  was  "  for  my  own  use  in  llic  place  I  am 
surely  going  to."—"  What  place — "Prison  ;  and  then  the  Guil- 
lotine," answered  she. — Such  things  come  of  Charlotte  Corday  ;  in 
a  ])C()ple  prone  to  imitation,  and  monomania  !  Swart  choleric 
la-n  try  Charlotte's  feat,  and  their  pistols  miss  fire  ;  soft  blooming 

Tableaux  de  la  R(^voliUlori ,  %  Soupers  Fratcrnels;  Mercier,  ii.  150. 

i'  Kioiinc,  p.  73  \  Deux  Amh,  xii.  290-302, 


MUMBO-JUMBO. 


185 


young  women  try  it,  and,  only  half-resolute,  leave  their  knives  in 
a  shop. 

O  Pitt,  and  ye  Faction  of  the  Stranger,  shall  the  Republic  never 
have  rest ;  but  be  torn  continually  by  baited  springes,  by  wires  of 
explosive  spring-guns  ?  Swart  Amiral,  fair  young  Cecile,  and  all 
that  knew  them,  and  many  that  did  not  know  them,  lie  locked, 
waiting  the  scrutiny  of  Tinville. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MUMBO-JUMBO. 

But  on  the  day  they  call  Decadi^  New-Sabbath,  20  Prazrzal, 
8th  June  by  old  style,  what  thing  is  this  going  forward,  in  the 
Jardin  National,  whilom  Tuileries  Garden  ? 

All  the  world  is  there,  in  holydays  clothes  foul  linen  went  out 
with  the  Hebertists  ;  nay  Robespierre,  for  one,  would  never  once 
countenance  that;  but  went  always  elegant  and  frizzled,  not 
without  vanity  even,— and  had  his  room  hung  round  with  seagreen 
Portraits  and  Busts.  Inholyday  clothes,  we  say,  are  the  innumer- 
able Citoyens  and  Citoyennes  :  the  weather  is  of  the  brightest ; 
cheerful  expectation  lights  all  countenances.  Juryman  Vilate 
gives  breakfast  to  many  a  Deputy,  in  his  official  Apartment,  in 
the  Pavilion  ci-devdnt  of  Flora;  rejoices  in  the  bright-looking 
multitudes,  in  the  brightness  of  leafy  June,  in  the  auspicious 
Decadi,  or  New-Sabbath.  This  day,  if  it  please  Heaven,  we  are  to 
have,  on  improved  Anti-Chaumette  principles  :  a  New  Religion. 

Catholicism  being  burned  out,  and  Reason-worship  guillotined,  ' 
was  there  not  need  of  one?  Incorruptible  Robespierre,  not 
unlike  the  Ancients,  as  Legislator  of  a  free  people  will  now  also 
be  Priest  and  Prophet.  He  has  donned  his  sky-blue  coat,  made 
for  the  occasion  ;  white  silk  waistcoat  broidered  with  silver,  black 
silk  breeches,  white  stockings,  shoe-buckles  of  gold.  He  is  Pre- 
sident of  the  Convention  ;  he  has  made  the  Convention  decree,  so 
they  name  it,  decr^ter  the  '  Existence  of  the  Supreme  Being/  and 
hkewise  '  ce  principe  consolateiir  of  the  Im.mortahty  of  the  Soul.' 
These  consolatory  pnnciples,  the  basis  of  rational  Republican 
Religion,  are  getting  decreed  ;  and  here,  on  fhis  blessed  Decadi, 
by  help  of  Heaven  and  Painter  David,  is  to  be  our  first  act  of 
worship. 

See,  accordingly,  how  after  Decree  passed,  and  what  has  been 
called  '  the  scraggiest  Prophetic  Discourse  ever  uttered  by  n^ian,' 
—Mahomet  Robespierre,  in  sky-blue  coat  and  black  breeches, 
frizzled  and  powdered  to  perfection,  bearing  in  his  hand  a  bouquet 
of  flowers  and  wheat-ears,  issues  proudly  from  the  Convention 
Hall;  Convention  following  him,  yet,  is  remarked,  with  an 
*  Vilate,  Causes  Secretes  dc  la  Rcvoluiicn  du  9  Thermidor, 


i86 


THERMTDOR. 


interval.  Amphitheatre  has  been  raised,  or  at  least  Monticule  ot 
Elevation ;  hideous  Statues  of  Atheism,  Anarchy  and  such  likCj 
thanks  to  Heaven  and  Painter  David,  strike  abhorrence  into  the 
heart.  Unluckily  however,  our  Monticule  is  too  small.  On  the 
top  of  it  not  half  of  us  can  stand  ;  wherefore  there  arises  indecent 
shoving^  nay  treasonous  irreverent  growling.  Peace,  thou  Bourdon 
de  rOise  ;  peace,  or  it  may  be  w^orse  for  thee  ! 

The  seagreen  Pontiff  takes  a  torch,  Painter  David  handing  it ; 
mouths  some  other  froth-rant  of  vocables,  which  happily  one 
cannot  hear ;  strides  resolutely  forward,  in  sight  of  expectant 
France  ;  sets  his  torch  to  Atheism  and  Company,  which  are  but 
made  of  pasteboard  steeped  in  turpentine.  They  burn  up  rapidly  ; 
and,  from  wi.hin,  there  rises  ^  by  machinery'  an  incombustible 
Statue  of  Wisdom,  which,  by  ill  hap,  gets  besmoked  a  little  ;  but 
does  stand  there  visible  in  as  serene  attitude  as  it  can. 

And  then  ?  Why,  then,  there  is  other  Processioning,  scraggy 
Discoursing,  and — this  is  our  Feast  of  the  Eire  Supreme ;  our 
new  Religion,  better  or  worse,  is  come ! — Look  at  it  one  moment, 
O  Reader,  not  two.  The  Shabbiest  page  of  Human  Annals  :  or 
is  there,  that  thou  wottest  of,  one  shabbier  ?  Mumbo-Jum_bo  of 
the  African  woods  to  me  seems  venerable  beside  this  new  Deity  of 
Robespierre  ;  for  this  is  a  conscious  Mumbo-Jumbo,  and  knows 
that  he  is  machinery.  O  seagreen  Prophet,  unhappiest  of  wind- 
bags blown  nigh  to. bursting,  what  distracted  Chimera  among 
realities  are  thou  growing  to  !  This  then,  this  common  pitch-link 
for  artificial  fireworks  of  turpentine  and  pasteboard  ;  this  is  the 
miraculous  Aaron's  Rod  thou  wilt  stretch  over  a  hag-ridden  hell- 
ridden  France,  and  bid  her  plagues  cease  ?  Vanish,  thou  and  it  ! 
— ^' Avec  ton  Etre  Supreme  y"*  said  Billaud,  tu  commences 
7n^embeter :  With  thy  Etre  Supreme  thou  beginnest  to  be  a  bore  to 
me."-^ 

Catherine  Theot,  on  the  other  hand,  '  an  ancient  serving-maid 
*  seventy-nine  years  of  age,'  inured  to  Prophecy  and  the  Bastille 
from  of  old,  sits,  in  an  upper  room  in  the  Rue-de-Contrescarpe, 
poring  over  the  Book  of  Revelations,  with  an  eye  to  Robespierre  ; 
finds  that  this  astonishing  thrice-potent  Maximilien  really  is  the 
Man  spoken  of  by  Prophets,  who  is  to  make  the  Earth  young 
again.  With  her  sit  devout  old  Marchionesses,  ci-devant  honour- 
able women  ;  among  whom  Old-Constituent  Dom  Ger!  \  with  his 
addle  head,  cannot  be  wanting.  They  sit  there,  in  the  Rue  de 
Contrescarpe  ;  in  mysterious  adoration  :  Mumbo  is  Mumbo,  and 
Robespierre  is  his  Prophet.  A  conspicuous  man  this  Robespierre. 
He  has  his  volunteer  Body-guard  of  J^ippc-durs^  let  us  say  Strike- 
sharps^  fierce  Patriots  with  feruled  sticks  ;  and  Jacobins  kissing 
the  hem  of  his  garment.  He  enjoys  the  admiration  of  many,  the 
worship  of  some  ;  and  is  well  worth  tiie  wonder  of  one  and  all. 

The  grand  question  and  hope,  however,  is  :  Will  not  this  Feast 
of  the  Tuileries  Mumbo-Jumbo  be  a  sign  perhaps  that  the  Guillo- 

*  See  Vilate,  Causes  Sccrtics.  (Vilate's  Narrative  is  very  curious  ;  but  is 
not  to  be  taken  as  true,  without  sifting  ;  being,  at  bottom,  in  spite  of  its  title, 
not  a  Narrative  but  a  Pleading). 


MUMBO-JUMBO, 


187 


tine  is  to  abate  ?  Far  enough  from  that  !  Precisely  on  the  second 
day  after  it,  Couthon,  one  of  the  '  three  shallow  scoundrels/  gets 
himself  lifted  into  the  Tribune  ;  produces  a  bundle  of  papers. 
Couthon  proposes  that,  as  Plots  still  abound,  the  Law  of  the  Suspect 
shall  have  extension,  and  Arrestment  new  vigour  and  facility. 
Further  that,  as  in  such  case'  business  is  like  to  be  heavy,  our 
Revolutionary  Tribunal  too  shall  have  extension  ;  be  divided,  say, 
into  Four  Tribunals,  each  with  its  President,  each  with  its  Fouquier 
or  Substitute  of  Fouauier,  all  labouring  at  once,  and  any  remnant 
of  shackle  or  dilatory  formality  be  struck  off :  in  this  way  it  may 
perhaps  still  overtake  the  work.  Such  is  Couthon's  Decree  of  the 
Twenty-second  Prairial,  famed  in  those  times.  At  hearmg  of 
which  Decree  the  very  Mountain  gasped,  ^iwestruck ;  and 
one  Ruamps  ventured  to  say  that  if  it  passed  without  adjourn- 
ment and  discussion,  he,  as  one  Representr.lLve,  "would  blow  his 
brains  out.''  Vain  saying  !  The  Incorruptible  knit  his  brows  ; 
spoke  a  prophetic  fateful  word  or  two  :  the  Law  of  Prairial  is 
Law  ;  Ruamps  glad  to  leave  his  rash  brains  where  they  are. 
Death,  then,  and  always  Death  !  Even  so.  Fouquier  is  enlarging 
his  borders  ;  making  room  for  Batches  of  a  Hundred  and  fifty  at 
once  ;— getting  a  Guillotine  set  up,  of  improved  velocity,  and  to 
work  under  cover,  in  the  apartment  close  by.  So  that  Salut  itself 
has  to  intervene,  and  forbid  him  :  "  Wilt  thou  demoralise  the 
Guillotine,"  asks  Collot,  reproachfully,    demoraliser  le  supplice  ! 

There  is  indeed  danger  of  that  ;  were  not  the  Repubhcan  faith 
great,  it  were  already  done.  See,  for  example,  on  the  17th  of 
June,  what  a  Batch.  Fifty-four  at  once  !  Swart  Amiral  is  here,  he 
of  the  pistol  that  missed  fire  ;  young  Cecile  Renault,  with^  her 
father,  family,  entire  kith  and  kin  ;  the  widow  of  d'Espremenil  ; 
old  M.  de  Sombreuil  of  the  Invahdes,  with  his  Son —poor  old 
Sombreuil,  seventy-three  years  old,  his  Daughter  saved  him  m 
September,  and  it  was  but  for  this.  Faction  of  the  Stranger, 
fifty-four  of  them  !  I  p.  red  shirts  and  smocks,  as  Assassins  and 
Faction  of  :he  Stranger,  they  flit  along  there ;  red  baleful  Phan- 
tasmagorv,  towards  the  land  of  Phantoms. 

Meanwhile  will  not  the  people  of  the  Place  de  la  Revolution, 
the  inhabitants  along  the  Rue  Saint-Honor^,  as  these  continual 
Tumbrils  pass,  begin  to  -look  gloomy  ?  Republicans  too  have 
bowels.  The  Guillotine  is  shifted,  then  again  shifted  ;  hnally  set 
up  at  the  remote  extremity  of  the  South-East  Suburbs  Saint- 
Antoine  and  Saint-Marceau  it  is  to  be  hoped,  if  they  have  bowcls« 
.  have  very  tough  ones. 

*  Montgaillard,  iv.  237. 


THERMIDOR. 


CHAPTER  V„ 

THE  PRISONS. 

It  is  time  now,  however,  to  cast  a  glance  into  the  Prisons. 
When  Desmouhns  moved  for  his  Committee  of  Mercy,  these 
Twelve  Houses  of  Arrest  held  five  thousand  persons.  Continually 
arriving  since  then,  there  have  now  accumulated  twelve  thousand. 
They  are  Ci-devants,  Royalists  ;  in  far  greater  part,  they  are 
Republicans,  of  various  Girondin,  Fayettish,  Un-Jacobin  colour. 
Perhaps  no  human  Habitation  or  Prison  ever  equalled  in  squalor, 
in  noisome  horror,  these  Twelve  Houses  of  Arrest.  There  exist 
records  of  personal  experience  in  them  Mhnoms  sur  les  Prisons  ; 
one  of  the  strangest  Chapers  in  the  Biography  of  Man. 

Very  singular  to  look  into  it  :  how  a  kind  of  order  rises  up  in 
all  conditions  of  human  existence  ;  and  wherever  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together,  there  are  formed  modes  of  existing  together, 
habitudes,  observances,  nay  gracefulnesses,  joys  !  Citoyen  Coit- 
tant  will  explain  fully  how  our  lean  dinner,  of  herbs  and  carrion, 
was  consumed  not  without  politeness  and  place-aux-darnes :  how 
Seigneur  and  Shoeblack,  Duchess  and  Doll-Tearsheet,  flung  pell- 
mell  into  a  heap,  ranked  themselves  according  to  method  :  at 
what  hour  ^  the  Citoyennes  took  to  their  needlework  ; '  and  we, 
yielding  the  chairs  to  them,  endeavoured  to  talk  gallantly  in  a 
standing  posture,  or  even  to  sing  and  harp  more  or  less.  Jea- 
lousies, enmities  are  not  wanting  ;  nor  flirtations,  of  an  eftective 
character. 

Alas,  by  degrees,  even  needlework  must  cease  :  Plot  in  the 
Prison  rises,  by  Citoyen  Laflotte  and  Preternatural  Suspicion. 
Suspicious  Municipality  snatches  from  us  all  implements;  all  money 
and  possession,  of  means  or  metal,  is  ruthlessly  searched  for,  in 
pocket,  in  pillow  and  paillasse,  and  snatched  away  ;  red-capped 
Commissaries  entering  every  cell  !  Indignation,  temporary  des- 
peration, at  robbery  of  its  very  thimble,  fills  the  gentle  heart. 
Old  Nuns  shriek  shrill  discord  ;  demand  to  be  killed  forthwith. 
No  help  from  shrieking  !  Better  was  that  of  the  two  shifty  male 
Citizens,  who,  eager  to  preserve  an  implement  or  two,  were  it  but 
a  pipe-picker,  or  needle  to  darn  hose  with,  determined  to  defend 
themselves  :  by  tobacco.  Swift  then,  as  your  fell  Red  Caps  are 
heard  in  the  Corridor  rummaging  and  slamming,  the  two  Citoyens 
light  their  pipes  and  begin  smoking.  Thick  darkness  envelops 
them.  The  Red  Nightcaps,  opening  the  cell,  breathe  but  one 
mouthful  ;  burst  forth  into  chorus  of  barking  and  coughing 
"  (2u(n^  Messieurs, cry  the  two  Citoyens.  '  \^ou  don't  smoke  ^ 
Is  the  pipe  disagreeable  !  Est-ce  (pic  vous  ne  Jumcn  pas  But 
the  Red  Nightcaps  have  fled,  with  slight  search  ;  "  Voiiif  ji^aimez 


THE  PRISONS. 


189 


fas  la  pipe  ?  "  cry  the  Citoyens,  as  their  door  slams-to  again."^ 
My  poor  brother  Citoyens,  O  surely,  in  a  reign  of  Brotherhood, 
you  are  not  the  two  1  would  guillotine  ! 

Rigour  grows,  stiffens  into  horrid  tyranny  ;  Plot  in  the  Prison 
getting  ever  riper.  This  Plot  in  the  Prison,  as  we  said,  is  now  the 
stereotype  formula  of  Tinville  :  against  whomsoever  he  knows  no 
crime,  this  is  a  ready-made  crime.  His  Judgment-bar  has  be^ 
come  unspeakable  ;  a  recognised  mockery  ;  known  only  as  the 
wicket  one  passes  through,  towards  Death.  His  Indictments  are 
drawn  out  m  blank;  you  insert  the  Names  after.  He  has  his 
moutons,  detestable  traitor  jackalls,  who  report  and  bear  witness  ; 
that  they  themselves  may  be  allowed  to  live,— for  a  time.  His 

Fournees,  says  the  reproachful  Collot,  '  shall  in  no  case  exceed 

three-score  that  is  his  inaximtim.  Nightly  come  his  Tumbrils 
to  the  Luxembourg,  with  the  fatal  Roll-call ;  list  of  the  Fournee  of 
to-morrow.  Men  rush  towards  the  Grate  ;  listen,  if  their  name  be 
in  It  One  deep-drawn  breath,  when  the  name  is  not  in  :  we  live 
still  one  day  !  And  yet  some  score  or  scores  of  names  were  in. 
Quick  these  ;  they  clasp  their  loved  ones  to  their  heart,  one  last 
time ;  with  brief  adieu,  wet-eyed  or  dry-eyed,  they  mount,  and  are 
away.  This  night  to  the  Conciergerie  ;  through  the  Palais  Tii\<i- 
n^m^a  of  Justice,  to  the  Guillotine  to-morrow. 

^Recklessness,  defiant  levity,  the  Stoicism  if  not  of  strength  yet 
01  weakness,  has  possessed  all  hearts.  Weak  women  and  Ci- 
devants,  their  locks  not  yet  made  into  blond  perukes,  their  skins 
not  yet  tanned  into  breeches,  are  accustomed  to  '  act  the  Guillotine ' 
by  way  of  pastime.  In  fantastic  mummery,  with  towel-turbans, 
blanket-ermine,  a  mock  Sanhedrim  of  Judges  sits,  a  mock  Tinville 
pleads;  a  culprit  is  doomed,  is  guillotined  by  the  oversetting  of 
two  chairs.  Sometimes  we  carry  it  farther  :  Tinville  himself,  in 
his  turn,  is  doomed,  and  not  to  the  Guillotine  alone.  With 
blackened  face,  hirsute,  horned,  a  shaggy  Satan  snatches  him  not 
unshriekmg  ;  shews  him,  with  outstretched  arm  and  voice,  the  fire 
that  IS  not  quenched,  the  worm  that  dies  not ;  the  monotony  of 
Hell-pam,  and  the  What  hour?  answered  by,  //  is  Eteriiiiy  I\ 

And  still  the  Prisons  fill  fuller,  and  still  the  Guillotine  goes 
faster.  On  all  high  roads  march  flights  of  Prisoners,  wending 
towards  Pans.  Not  Ci-devants  now  ;  they,  the  noisy  of  them,  are 
mown  down  ;  it  is  Republicans  now.  Chained  two  and  two  thev 
march  ;  in  exasperated  moments,  singing  their  Marseillaise.  A 
hundred  and  thirty-two  men  of  Nantes  for  instance,  march  towards 
Pans,  m  these  same  days  :  Republicans,  or  say  even  Jacobins  to 
the  marrow  of  the  bone  ;  but  Jacobins  who  had  not  approved 
Noyadmg.J  Vive  la  Republique  rises  from  them  in  all  streets  of 
towns  :  they  rest  by  night,  in  unutterable  noisome  dens,  crowded 
to  choking  ;  one  or  two  dead  on  the  morrow.    They  are  wayworn, 


*  Maison  d' Arret  de  Port-Libre,  par  Coittant.  <S:c.  {MMoires  sur  les 
Prisons,  ii.) 

t  Montgaillard,  iv.  218  ;  Riouffe,  p.  273. 

X  Voyage  de  Cent  Trente-deux  Naniais  [Prisons,  ii.  288-335). 


THERMIDOR, 


weary  of  heart  ;  can  only  shout :  Live  the  Republic ;  we,  as  under 
horrid  enchantment,  dying  in  this  way  for  it  1 

Some  Four  Hundred  Priests,  of  whom  also  there  is  record,  ride 
at  anchor,  *in  the  roads  of  the  Isle  of  Aix,'  long  months  ;  looking 
out  on  misery,  vacuity,  waste  Sands  of  Oleron  and  the  ever-moan- 
ing brine.  Ragged,  sordid,  hungry  ;  wasted  to  shadows  :  eating 
their  unclean  ration  on  deck,  circularly,  in  parties  of  a  dozen,  with 
finger  and  thumb  ;  beating  their  scandalous  clothes  between  two 
stones ;  choked  in  horrible  miasmata,  closed  under  hatches,  seventy 
of  tbem  in  a  berth,  through  night ;  so  that  the  ^aged  Priest  is  found 
'  lying  dead  in  the  morning,  in  the  attitude  of  prayer  T^—How  long, 
O  Lord  ! 

Not  forever ;  no.  All  Anarchy,  all  Evil,  Injustice,  is,  by  the 
nature  of  it,  dragotis-teeths  suicidal,  and  cannot  endure. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TO  FINISH  THE  TERROR. 

IT  is  very  remarkable,  indeed,  that  since  the  Etre-Supr^me 
Feast,  and  the  sublime  continued  harangues  on  it,  which  Billaud 
feared  would  become  a  bore  to  him,  Robespierre  has  gone  little  to 
Committee  ;  but  held  himself  apart,  as  if  in  a  kind  of  pet.  Nay 
they  have  made  a  Report  on  that  old  Catherine  Theot,  and  her 
Regenerative  Man  spoken  of  by  the  Prophets  ;  not  in  the  best 
spirit.  This  Thdot  mystery  they  affect  to  regard  as  a  Plot ;  but 
have  evidently  introduced  a  vein  of  satire,  of  irreverent  banter,  not 
against  the  Spinster  alone,  but  obliquely  against  her  Regenerative 
Man  !  Barrere's  light  pen  was  perhaps  at  the  bottom  of  it  :  read 
through  the  solemn  snuffling  organs  of  old  Vadier  of  the  S^irete 
Gcnerale^  the  Theot  Report  had  its  effect  ;  wrinkling  the  general 
Republican  visagje  into  an  iron  grin.    Ought  these  things  to  be  1 

We  note  further  that  among  the  Prisoners  in  the  Twelve  Houses 
of  Arrest,  there  is  one  whom  we  have  seen  before.  Senhora 
Fontenai,  born  Cabarus,  the  fair  Proserpine  whom  Representative 
Tallien  Pluto-Hke  did  gather  at  Pourdeaux,  not  without  effect  on 
himself!  Tallien  is  home,  by  recall,  long  since,  fromBourdeaux  ; 
and  in  the  most  alarming  position.  Vain  that  he  sounded,  louder 
even  than  ever,  the  note  of  Jacobinism,  to  hide  past  shortcomings  *. 
the  Jacobins  purged  him  out  ;  two  times  has  Robespierre  growled 
at  him  words  of  omen  from  the  Convention  Tribune.  .  And  now 
his  fair  Cabarus,  hit  by  denunciation,  lies  Arrested,  Suspect,  in 
spite  of  all  he  could  do  !-— Shut  in  horrid  pinfold  of  death,  the 
Senhora  smuggles  out  to  her  red-gloomy  Tallien  the  most  pressing 
entreaties  and  conjurings  :  Save  me  ;  save  thyself.  Seest  thou  not 
that  thy  own  head  is  doomed  ;  thou  with  a  too  fiery  audacity  ;  a 

*  Relation  de  ce  quont  souffert  pour  la  Rcli^rion  les  PrHres  dHorUs  en  1794, 
dans  la  rade  de  Hie  d' Aix  (I'ri^iis,  ii.  387-485). 


TO  FINISH  THE  TERROR. 


191 


Dantonist  withal  ;  against  whom  he  grudges  ?  Are  ye  not  all 
doomed,  as  in  the  Polyphemus  Cavern  ;  the  fawningest  slave  of 
you  will  be  but  eaten  last  !— Tallien  feels  with  a  shudder  that  it  is 
true.  Tallien  has  had  words  of  omen,  Bourdon  has  had  words, 
Freron  is  hated  and  Barras  :  each  man  'feels  his  head  if  it  yet 

*  stick  on  his  shoulders.' 

Meanwhile  Robespierre,  we  still  observe,  goes  little  to  Conven- 
tion, not  at  all  to  Committee  ;  speaks  nothing  except  to  his  Jacobin 
House  of  Lords,  amid  his  bodyguard  of  Tappe-chtrs.  These 

*  forty-days,'  for  we  are  now  far  in  July,  he  has  not  shewed  face  in 
Committee  ;  could  only  work  there  by  his  three  shallow  scoundrels, 
and  the  terror  there  was  of  him.  The  Incorruptible  himself  sits 
apart  ;  or  is  seen  stalking  in  solitary  places  in  the  fields,  with  an 
intensely  meditative  air ;  some  say,  '  with  eyes  red-spotted,'* 
fruit  of  extreme  bile  :  the  lamentablest  seagreen  Chimera  that 
walks  the  Earth  that  July  !  O  hapless  Chimera  ;  for  thou  too 
hadst  a  life,  and  a  heart  of  flesh, — what  is  this  the  stern  gods, 
seeming  to  smile  all  the  way,  have  led  and  let  thee  to  !  Art  not 
thou  he  who,  few  years  ago,  was  a  young  Acj,vocate  of  promise  ; 
and  gave  up  the  Arras  Judgeship  rather  than  sentence  one  man  to 
die  ?— 

What  his  thoughts  might  be  ?  His  plans  for  finishing  the 
Terror.?  One  knows  not.  Dim  vestiges  there  flit  of  Agrarian 
Law  ;  a  victorious  Sansculottism  become  Landed  Proprietor  ;  old 
Soldiers  sitting  in  National  Mansions,  in  Hospital  Palaces  of 
Chambord  and  Chantilly  ;  peace  bought  by  victory  ;  breaches 
healed  by  Feast  of  Etre  Sicpranej — and  so,  through  seas  of 
blood,  to  Equality,  Frugality,  worksome  Blessedness,  Fraternityj 
and  Republic  of  the  virtues  !  Blessed  shore,  of  such  a  sea  of 
Aristocrat  blood  :  but  how  to  land  on  it .?  Through  one  last  wave  : 
blood  of  corrupt  Sansculottists  ;  traitorous  or  semi-traitorous 
Conventional,  rebellious  Talliens,  Biilauds,  to  whom  with  my 
EU'e  Stipremc  I  have  become  a  bore  ;  with  my  Apocalyptic  Old 
Woman  a  laughing-stock  ! — So  stalks  he,  this  poor  Robespierre, 
like  a  seagreen  ghost  througli  the  blooming  July.  Vestiges  of 
schemes  flit  dim.  But  what  his  schemes  or  his  thoughts  were 
will  never  be  known  to  man. 

New  Catacombs,  some  say,  are  digging  for  a  huge  simultaneous 
butchery.  Convention  to  be  butchered,  down  to  the  right  pitch, 
by  General  Henriot  and  Company  :  Jacobin  House  of  Lords  made 
dominant ;  and  Robespierre  Dictator.f  There  is  actually,  or  else 
there  is  not  actually,  a  List  made  out  ;  which  the  Hairdresser  has 
got  eye  on,  as  he  frizzled  the  Incorruptible  locks.  Each  man  asks 
himself,  Is  it  I  ? 

Nay,  as  Tradition  and  rumour  of  Anecdote  still  convey  it,  there 
was  a  remarkable  bachelor's  dinner  one  hot  day  at  Barrere's. 
For  doubt  not,  O  Reader,  this  Barrere  and  others  of  them  ga\  e 
dinners  ;  had  '  country-house  at  Clichy,'  with  elegant  enough 
sumptuosities,  and  pleasures  high-rouged  !  %    But  at  this  dinner 

*  Deiix  Amis,  xii.  347-73. 
f  Dezix  Amis,  xii.  350-8.  *    "  %  See  Vilate, 


192 


THERMIDOR. 


we  speak  of,  the  day  being  so  hot,  it  is  said,  the  guests  all  stript 
their  coats,  and  left  them  in  the  drawing-room  :  whereupon  Carnot 
ghded  out ;  groped  in  Robespierre's  pocket ;  found  a  list  of  Forty, 
his  own  name  among  them  ;  and  tarried  not  at  the  wine-cup  that 
day  I—Ye  must  bestir  yourselves,  O  Friends ;  ye  dull  Frogs  of 
the  Marsh,  mute  ever  since  Girondism  sank  under,  even  ye  nov/ 
must  croak  or  die  !  Councils  are  held,  with  word  and  beck  ; 
nocturnal,  mysterious  as  death.  Does  not  a  feline  Maximilien 
stalk  there  ;  voiceless  as  yet  ;  his  green  eyes  red-spotted ;  back 
bent,  and  hair  up?  Rash  Tallien,  with  his  rash  temper  and 
audacity  of  tongue  ;  he  shall  bell  the  cat  Fix  a  day  ;  and  be  it 
soon,  lest  never  ! 

Lo,  before  the  fixed  day,  on  the  day  which  they  call  Eighth  of 
Thermidor,  26th  July  1794,  Robespierre  himself  reappears  in  Con- 
vention ;  mounts  to  the  Tribune  !  The  biliary  face  seems  clouded 
with  new  gloom  ;  judge  whether  your  Talhens,  Bourdons  listened 
with  interest.  It  is  a  voice  bodeful  of  death  or  of  life.  Long- 
winded,  unmelodious  as  the  screech-owFs,  sounds  that  prophetic 
voice  :  Degenerate  condition  of  Repubhcan  spirit ;  corrupt  mode- 
ratisni;  Surete\  Sahtt  Committees  themselves  infected;  back- 
shding  on  this  hand  and  on  that  ;  I,  Maximilien,  alone  left  in- 
corruptible, ready  to  die  at  a  moment's  warning.  For  all  which 
what  remedy  is  there?  The  Guillotine;  new  vigour  to  the  all- 
healing  Guillotine  :  death  to  traitors  of  every  hue  !  So  sings  the 
prophetic  voice  ;  into  its  Convention  sounding-board.  The  old 
song  this  :  but  to-day,  O  Heavens  !  has  the  sounding-board  ceased 
to  act  ?  There  is  not  resonance  in  this  Convention  ;  there  is,  so 
to  speak,  a  gasp  of  silence  ;  nay  a  certain  grating  of  one  knows 
not  what !— Lecointre,  our  old  Draper  of  Versailles,  in  these 
questionable  circumstances,  sees  nothing  he  can  do  so  safe  as 
rise,  '  insidiously '  or  not  insidiously,  and  move,  according  to  es-. 
tablished  wont,  that  the  Robespierre  Speech  be  'printed  and  sent, 
'to  the  Departments.'  Hark:  gratings,  even  of  dissonance!' 
Honourable  Members  hint  dissonance  ;^ Committee-Members,  in-; 
culpated  in  the  Speech,  utter  dissonance,  demand  'delay  in  print- 
'  ing.'  PIver  higher  rises  the  note  of  dissonance  ;  inquiry  is  even 
made  by  Editor  Freron  :  "  What  has  become  of  the  Liberty  of 
Opinions  in  this  Convention  ?  "  The  Order  to  print  and  transmit, 
which  had  got  passed,  is  rescinded.  Robespierre,  greener  than 
ever  before,  has  to  retire,  foiled  ;  discerning  that  it  is  mutiny,  that, 
evil  is  nigh. 

Mutiny  is  a  thing  of  the  fatallest  nature  in  all  enterprises  what- 
soever ;  a  thing  so  incalculable,  swift-frightful ;  not  to  be  dealt 
with  in  But  mutiny  in  a  Robespierre  Convention,  above 

all,— it  is  like  fire  seen  sputtering  in  the  ship's  powder-room  !  One 
death-defiant  plunge  at  it,  this  moment,  and  you  may  still  tread  it 
out :  hesitate  till  next  moment,— ship  and  ship's  captain,  crew  and 
cargo  are  shivered  far  ;  the  ship's  voyage  has  suddenly  ended  ' 
between  sea  and  sky.  if  Robespierre  can,  to-night,  produce  his 
Henriot  and  Company,  and  gel  hiii  work  done  by  them,  he  and 


193 


Sansculottism  may  still  subsist  some  time  ;  if  not,  probably  not* 
Oliver  Cromwell,  when  that  Agitator  Serjeant  stept  forth  from  the 
ranks,  with  plea  of  grievances,  and  began  gesticulating  and  de- 
monstrating, as  the  mouthpiece  of  Thousands  expectant  there, — ■ 
discerned,  with  those  truculent  eyes  of  his,  how  the  matter  lay  ; 
plucked  a  pistol  from  his  holsters  ;  blew  Agitator  and  Agitation 
mstantly  out.    Noll  was  a  man,  fit  for  such  things. 

Robespierre,  for  his  part,  glides  over  at  evening  to  his  Jacobin 
House  of  Lords  ;  unfolds  there,  instead  of  some  adequate  resolu- 
tion, his  woes,  his  uncommon  virtues,  incorruptibihties  ;  then, 
secondly,  his  rejected  screech-owl  Oration  ; — reads  this  latter  over 
again  ;  and  declares  that  he  is  ready  to  die  at  a  moment's  warning. 
Thou  shalt  not  die  !  shouts  Jacobinism  from  its  thousand  throats. 
"  Robespierre,  I  will  drink  the  hemlock  with  thee/'  cries  Painter 
David,  Je  boirai  la  eigne  avec  toi — a  thing  not  essential  to  do^ 
but  which,  in  the  fire  of  the  moment,  can  be  said. 

Our  Jacobin  sounding-board,  therefore,  does  act  !  Applauses 
heaven-high  cover  the  rejected  Oration  ;  fire-eyed  fury  lights  all 
Jacobin  features  :  Insurrection  a  sacred  duty  ;  the  Convention  to 
be  purged  ;  Sovereign  People  under  Henriot  and  Municipality  ; 
v/e  will  make  a  new  June-Second'  of  it  :  To  your  tents,  O  Israel ! 
In  this  key  pipes  Jacobinism  ;  in  sheer  tumult  of  revolt.  Let 
Tallien  and  all  Opposition  men  make  off.  Collot  d'Herbois,  though 
of  the  supreme  Salut,  and  so  lately  near  shot,  is  elbowed,  bullied  ; 
is  glad  to  escape  alive.  Entering  Committee-room  of  Sahit,  all 
dishevelled,  he  finds  sleek  sombre  Saint-Just  there,  among  the 
rest  ;  who  in  his  sleek  way  asks,  "  Whafis  passing  at  the  Jacobins 
— "  What  is  passing  ?  "  repeats  Collot,  in  the  unhistrionic  Cambyses' 
vein  :  "  What  is  passing  ?  Nothing  but  revolt  and  horrors  are 
passing.  Ye  want  our  lives  ;  ye  shall  not'  have 'them.''  Saint- Just 
stutters  at  such  Cambyses'-oratory  ;  takes  his  hat  to  withdrawn 
That  Report  he  had  been  speaking  of.  Report  on  Republican 
Things  in  General  we  may  say,  which  is  to  be  read  in  Convention 
on  the  morrow,  he  cannot  shew  it  them  this  moment  :  a  friend  has 
it ;  he,  Saint-Just,  will  get  it,  and  send  it,  were  he  once  home. 
Once  home,  he  sends  not  it,  but  an  answer  that  he  will  not  send  it ; 
that  they  will  hear  it  from  the  Tribune  to-morrow. 

Let  every  man,  therefore,  according  to  a  well-known  good-advice, 
'  pray  to  Heaven,  and  keep  his  powder  dry  !  '  Paris,  on  the 
morrow,  will  see  a  thing.  Swift  scouts  fly  dim  or  invisible,  all 
night,  from  Surete  and  Sahit ;  from  conclave  to  conclave  ;  from 
Mother  Society  to  Townhall.  Sleep,  can  it  fall  on  the  eyes  of 
Talliens,  Frerons,  Collots  Puissant  Henriot,  Mayor  Fieuriot, 
Judge  Coffinhal,  Procureur  Payan,  Robespierre  and  alUhe  Jacobins 
are  getting  ready. 


VOL.  Ill, 


194 


THERMIDOR. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

GO  DOWN  TO. 

Tallien'S  eyes  beamed  bright,  on  the  morrow,  Ninth  of  Ther- 
midor  ^  about  nine  o'clock/ to  see  that  the  Convention  had  actually 
met.  Paris  is  in  rumour  :  but  at  least  we  are  met,  in  Legal  Con- 
vention here  ;  we  have  not  been  snatched  seriatim  ;  treated  with  a 
Pride's  Purge  at  the  door.  A  lions ^  brave  men  of  the  Plain,"  late 
Frogs  of  the  Marsh  !  cried  Tallien  with  a  squeeze  of  the  hand,  as 
he  passed  in  ;  Saint-Just's  sonorous  organ  being  now  audible  from 
the  Tribune,  and  the  game  of  games  begun.  i 

Saint-Just  is  verily  reading  that  Report  of  his  ;  green  Vengeance,  ! 
in  the  shape  of  Robespierre,  watching  nigh.  Behold,  however, 
Saint-Just  has  read  but  few  sentences,  when  interruption  rises, 
rapid  crescendo  ;  when  Tallien  starts  to  his  feet,  and  Billaud,  and 
this  man  starts  and  that, — and  Tallien,  a  second  time,  with  his  : 
"  Citoyens,  at  the  Jacobins  last  night,  I  trembled  for  the  Republic. 
I  said  to  myself,  if  the  Convention  dare  not  strike  the  Tyrant,  then 
I  myself  dare  ;  and  with  this  I  will  do  it,  if  need  be,"  said  he, 
whisking  out  a  clear -gleaming  Dagger,  and  brandishing  it  there  : 
the  Steel  of  Brutus,  as  we  call  it.  Whereat  we  all  bellow,  and 
brandish,  impetuous  acclaim.  Tyranny  ;  Dictatorship  !  Trium- 
virat ! "  And  the  Sahit  Committee-men  accuse,  and  all  men 
accuse,  and  uproar,  and  impetuously  acclaim.  And  Saint-Just  is 
standing  motionless,  pale  of  face  ;  Gouthon  ejaculating,  "  Trium- 
vir ?  with  a  look  at  his  paralytic  legs.  And  Robespierre  is  strug- 
gling to  speak,  but  President  Thuriot  is  jingling  the  bell  against 
him,  but  the  Hall  is  sounding  against  him  like  an  y^lolus-Hall : 
and  Robespierre  is  mounting  the  Tribune-steps  and  descending 
again  ;  going  and  coming,  like  to  choke  with  rage,  terror,  despera- 
tion : — and  mutiny  is  the  order  of  the  day 

O  President  Thuriot,  thou  that  wert  Elector  Thuriot,  and  from 
the  Bastille  battlements  sawest  Saint-Antoine  rising  like  the  Ocean- 
tide,  and  hast  seen  much  since,  sawest  thou  ever  the  like  of  this  1 
Jingle  of  bell,  which  thou  jinglest  against  Robespierre,  is  hardly 
ciudible  amid  the  Bedlam-storm  ;  and  men  rage  for  life.  "  Presi- 
dent of  Assassins,"  shrieks  Robespierre,  "  I  demand  speech  of  thee 
for  the  last  time  !  "  It  cannot  be  had.  "  To  you,  O  virtuous  men 
of  the  Plain,"  cries  he,  finding  audience  one  moment,  "  I  appeal  to 
you  !  "  The  virtuous  men  of  the  Plain  sit  silent  as  stones.  And 
Thuriot's  bell  jingles,  and  the  Hall  sounds  like  ^olus's  Hall. 
Robespierre's  frothing  lips  are  grown  '  blue  ;'  his  tongue  dry, 
cleaving  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth.  "  The  blood  of  Danton  chokes 
him,"  cry  they.  "  Accusation  !  Decree  of  Accusation  !"  Thuriot 
swiftly  puts  that  question.  Accusation  passes  ;  the  incorruptible 
Maximilien  is  decreed  Accused. 

*  Moniieur,  Nos.  311,  312;  Ddbats,  iv.  421-42;  Deux  Amis,  xii.  390-411. 


GO  DOWN  TO.  19s 


"  I  demand  to  share  my  Brother's  fate,  as  I  have  striven  to 
share  his  virtues,"  cries  Augustin,  the  Younger  Robespierre : 
Augustin  also  is  decreed.  And  Couthon,  and  Saint-Just,  and 
Lebas,  they  are  all  decreed  ;  and  packed  forth,— not  without  diffi- 
culty, the  Ushers  almost  trembling  to  obey.  Triumvirat  and 
Company  are  packed  forth,  into  Salut  Committee-room  ;  their 
tongue  cleaving  to  the  roof  of  their  mouth.  Ycu  have  but  to 
summon  the  Municipality  ;  to  cashier  Commandant  Henriot,  and 
launch  Arrest  at  him  ;  to  regulate  formalities  ;  hand  Tinville  his 
victims.  It  is  noon:  the  yEolus-Hall  has  delivered  itself;  blows 
now  victorious,  harmonious,  as  one  irresistible  wind. 

And  so  the  work  is  fmished  ?  One  thinks  so  ;  and  yet  it  is  not 
so.  Alas,  there  is  yet  but  the  first-act  finished  ;  three  or  four  other 
acts  still  to  come  ;  and  an  uncertain  catastrophe  !  A  huge  City 
holds  in  it  so  many  confusions  :  seven  hundred  thousand  human 
heads  ;  not  one  of  which  knows  v/hat  its  neighbour  is  doing,  nay 
not  what  itself  is  doing.— See,  accordingly,  about  three  in  the 
afternoon,  Commandant  Henriot,  how  instead  of  sitting  cashiered, 
arrested,  he  gallops  along  the  Quais,  followed  by  Municipal  Gen- 
darmes, '  trampling  down  several  persons  ! '  For  the  Townliall 
sits  deliberating,  openly  insurgent  :  Barriers  to  be  shut ;  no  Gaoler 
to  admit  any  Prisoner  this  day  and  Henriot  is  galloping  towards 
the  Tuileries,  to  deliver  Robespierre.  On  the  Quai  de  la  Fer- 
raillerie,  a  young  Citoyen,  walking  with  his  wife,  says  aloud  : 

Gendarmes,  tliat  man  is  not  your  Commandant ;  he  is  under 
arrest."  The  Gendarmes  strike  down  the  young  Citoyen  with  the 
fiat  of  their  swords.^ 

Representatives  themselves  (as  Merhn  the  Thionviller)  who 
accost  him,  this  puissant  Henriot  flings  into  guardhouses.  He 
bursts  towards  the  Tuileries  Committee-room,  "to  speak  with 
Robespierre  with  difficulty,  the  Ushers  and  Tuileries  Gendarmes, 
earnestly  pleading  and  drawing  sabre,  seize  this  Henriot ;  get  the 
Henriot  Gendarmes  persuaded  not  to  fight ;  get  Robespierre  and 
Company  packed  into  hackney-coaches,  sent  off  under  escort,  to 
the  Luxembourg  and  other  Prisons.  This  then  zs  the  end  ?  May 
not  an  exhausted  Convention  adjourn  now,  for  a  little  repose  and 
sustenance,  '  at  five  o'clock  1 ' 

An  exhausted  Convention  did  it  ;  and  repented  it.  The  end 
was  not  come  ;  only  the  end  of  the  second-act.  Hark,  while  ex- 
hausted Representatives  sit  at  victuals,— tocsin  bursting  from  all 
steeples,  drums  rolling,  in  the  summer  evening  :  Judge  Coffinhal 
IS  galloping  with  new  Gendarmes  to  deliver  Henriot  from  Tuileries 
Committee-room  ;  and  does  deliver  him  !  Puissant  Henriot  vaults 
on  horseback  ;  sets  to  haranguing  the  Tuileries  Gendarmes  ;  cor- 
rupts the  Tuileries  Gendarmes  too  ;  trots  off  with  them  to  Town^ 
hall  Alas,  and  Robespierre  is  not  in  Prison  :  the  Gaoler  shewed 
his  Municipal  order,  durst  not  on  pain  of  his  life,  admit  any  Pri- 
soner ;  the  Robespierre  Hackney-coaches,  in  confused  jangle  and 
whirl  of  uncertain  Gendarmes,  have  floated  safe— into  the  Town- 

*  Pi0^cis  des  ivS,?eme}i5  du  Neuf  Thermidor,  par  C.  A.  M^da,  ancien  Gen* 
ttarme  (Pans,  1825). 

H  2 


ig6 


THERMIDOR. 


hall  !  There  sit  Robespierre  and  Coompany,  embraced  by  Muni- 
cipals and  Jacobins,  in  sacred  right  of  Insurrection  ;  redacting 
Proclamations  ;  sounding  tocsins  ;  corresponding  with  Sections 
and  Mother  Society.  Is  not  here  a  pretty  enough  third-act  of  a 
natural  Greek  Drama  ;  catastrophe  more  uncertain  than  ever? 

The  hasty  Convention  rushes  together  again,  in  the  ominous 
nightfall  :  President  Collot,  for  the  chair  is  his,  enters  with  long 
strides,  paleness  on  his  face  ;  claps  on  his  hat ;  says  with  solemn 
tone  :  "  Citoyens,  armied  Villains  have  beset  the  Committe-rooms, 
and  got  possession  of  them.  The  hour  is  come,  to  die  at  our 
post !  "  "  Oui^'  answer  one  and  all :  We  swear  it  !"  It  is  no 
rhodomontade,  this  time,  but  a  sad  fact  and  necessity  ;  unless  we 
do  at  our  posts,  we  must  verily  die  !  Swift  therefore,  Robespierre, 
Henriot,  the  Municipality,  are  delared  Rebels ;  put  Hors  la  Lot, 
Out  of  Law.  Better  still,  we  appoint  Barras  Commandant  of 
what  Armed- Force  is  to  be  had  ;  send  Missionary  Representatives 
to  all  Sections  and  quarters,  to  preach,  and  raise  force  ;  will  die  at 
least  with  harness  on  our  back. 

What  a  distracted  City  ;  men  riding  and  running,  reporting  and 
hearsaying  ;  the  Hour  clearly  in  travail, — child  not  to  be  na7ned 
till  born  !  The  poor  Prisoners  in  the  Luxembourg  hear  the 
rumour  ;  tremble  for  a  new  September.  They  see  men  making 
signals  to  them,  on  skylights  and  roofs,  apparently  signals  of  hope ; 
cannot  in  the  least  m.ake  out  what  it  is."^  We  observe  however,  in 
the  eventide,  as  usual,  the  Death-tumbrils  faring  South-eastward, 
through  Saint-Antoine,  towards  their  Barrier  du  Trone.  Saint- 
Antoine's  tough  bowels  melt  ;  Saint-Antoine  surrounds  the  Tum- 
brils ;  says,  It  shall  not  be.  O  Heavens,  why  should  it  !  Henriot 
and  Gendarmes,  scouring  the  streets  that  way,  bellow,  with  waved 
sabres,  that  it  must.  Quit  hope,  ye  poor  Doomed  !  The  Tumbrils 
move  on. 

But  in  this  set  of  Tumbrils  there  are  two  other  things  notable  : 
one  notable  person  ;  and  one  want  of  a  notable  person.  The 
notable  person  is  Lieutenant- General  Loiserolles,  a  nobleman  by 
birth,  and  by  nature  ;  laying  down  his  life  here  for  his  son.  In 
the  Prison  of  Saint-Lazare,  the  night  before  last,  hurrying  to  the 
Grate  to  hear  the  Death-list  read,  he  caught  the  name  of  his  son. 
The  son  was  asleep  at  the  moment.  "  1  am  Loiserolles,"  cried 
the  old  man  :  at  Tinville's  bar,  an  error  in  the  Christian  name  is 
little  ;  small  objection  was  made.  The  want  of  the  notable  person, 
again,  is  that  of  Deputy  Paine  !  Paine  has  sat  in  the  Luxembourg 
since  January  ;  and  seemed  forgotten  ;  but  P^ouquier  had  pricked 
hi^n  at  last.  The  Turnkey,  List  in  hand,  is  marking  with  chalk  the 
outer  doors  of  to-morrow's  Foin^nce.  Paine's  outer  door  happened 
to  be  open,  turned  back  on  the  wall  ;  the  Turnkey  marked  it  on 
the  side  next  him,  and  hurried  on  :  another  Turnkey  came,  and 
shut  it  ;  nf)  clialk-mark  now  visible,  the  I'oit7'n('c  went  without 
Paine.    Paine's  life  lay  not  there. - 

Our  fifth-act,  of  this  natural  (ireek  Drama,  with  its  natural 
•nities;  can  only  be  painted  in  gross  ;  somewhat  as  that  antique 
*  Mdrnolrcs  sur  Ics  Prisons^  ii.  277. 


GO  DOWN  TO, 


^97 


Painter,  driven  desperate,  did  ihQ  /oa?7i  I  For  through  this  blessed 
July  night,  there  is  clangour,  confusion  very  great,  of  marching 
troops ;  of  Sections  going  this  way,  Sections  going  that  ;  of  Mis- 
sionary Representatives  reading  Proclamations  by  torchlight ; 
Missionary  Legendre,  who  has  raised  force  somewhere,  emptying 
out  the  Jacobins,  and  flinging  their  key  on  the  Convention  table  : 
"  I  have  locked  their  door  ;  it  shall  be  Virtue  that  re-opens  it.'' 
Paris,  we  say,  is  set  against  itself,  rushing  confused,  as  Ocean- 
currents  do  ;  a  huge  Mahlstrom,  sounding  there,  under  cloud  of 
night.  Convention  sits  permanent  on  this  hand  ;  Municipality 
most  permanent  on  that.  The  poor  Prisoners  hear  tocsin  and 
rumour  ;  strive  to  bethink  them  of  the  signals  apparently  of  hope 
Meek  continual  Twilight  streaming  up,  which  will  be  Dawn  and  a 
To-morrow,  silvers  the  Northern  hem  of  Night ;  it  wends  and 
wends  there,  that  meek  brightness,  like  a  silent  prophecy,  along 
the  great  Ring-Dial  of  the  Heaven.  So  still,  eternal  !  And  on 
Earth  all  is  confused  shadow  and  conflict  ;  dissidence,  tumultuous 
gloom  and  glare  ;  and  Destiny  as  yet  shakes  her  doubtful  urn. 

About  three  in  the  morning,  the  dissident  Armed-Forces  hav^ 
met.  Henriot's  Armed  Force  stood  ranked  in  the  Place  de  Grevc  ; 
and  now  Barras's,  which  he  has  recruited,  arrives  there  ;  and  thc^^^ 
front  each  other,  cannon  bristling  against  cannon.  Citoyens': 
cries  the  voice  of  Discretion  loudly  enough,  Before  cominp-  to 
bloodshed,  to  endless  civil-war,  hear  the  Convention  Decree  re'ad  : 
\  Robespierre  and  all  rebels  Out  of  Law  !  '—Out  of  Law  There 
IS  terror  in  the  sound  :  unarmed  Citoyens  disperse  rapidly  home  ; 
IVIunicipal  Cannoneers  range  themselves  on  the  Convention  side, 
with  shouting.  At  which  shout,  Henriot  descends  from  his  upper 
room,  far  gone  in  drink  as  some  say  ;  finds  his  Place  de  Greve 
empty;  the  cannons'  mouth  turned  towards\\m  \  and,  on  the 
whole,— that  it  is  now  the  catastrophe  ! 

Stumbhng  in  again,  the  wretched  drunk- sobered  Henriot  an- 
nounces: "All  is  lost  !"  ''Miserable!  it  is  thou  that  hast  lost 
It,  cry  they  :  and  flmg  him,  or  else  he  flings  himself,  out  of 
window  :  far  enough  down  ;  into  masonwork  and  horror 
of  cesspool ;  not  into  death  but  worse.  Augustin  Robespierre 
follows  him  ;  with  the  like  fate.  Saint-Just  called  on  Lebas  to  kill 
him  :  who  would  not.  Couthon  crept  under  a  table  ;  attempting 
to  kill  himself ;  not  doing  it.— On  entering  that  Sanhedrim  of  In- 
surrection, we  find  all  as  good  as  extinct  :  undone,  readv  for 
seizure  Robespierre  was  sitting  on  a  chair,  with  pistol  shot  blown 
through,  not  his  head,  but  his  under  jaw  ;  the  suicidal  hand  had 
tailed.*  With  prompt  zeal,  not  without  trouble,  we  gather  these 
wrecked  Conspirators  ;  fish  up  even  Henriot  and  Augustin,  bleed- 
ing and  foul  ;  pack  them  all,  rudely  enough,  into  carts  ;  and  shall, 
t)efore  sunrise,  have  them  safe  under  lock  and  key.  Amid  shout- 
mgs  and  embracings. 

*  Meda,  p  384.  (Meda  asserts  that  it  was  lie  who,  ^^  ith  infinite  courage 
tnougn  in  a  lefthanded  manner,  shot  Robespierre.  iMeda  got  promoted  for 
bis  services  of  this  night;  and  died  General  and  ^aron.  Few  credited  Meda 
m  what  was  otherwise  incredible.) 


THERMIDOR. 


Robespierre  lay  in  an  anteroom  of  the  Convention  Hall,  while 
his  Prison-escort  was  getting  ready  ;  the  mangled  jaw  bound  up 
rudely  with  bloody  linen  :  a  spectacle  to  men.  He  lies  stretched 
on  a  table,  a  deal-box  his  pillow  ;  the  sheath  of  the  pistol  is  still 
clenched  convulsively  in  his  hand.  Men  bully  him,  insult  him : 
his  eyes  still  indicate  intelhgence  ;  he  speaks  no  word.  '  He  had 
'  on  the  sky  -blue  coat  he  had  got  made  for  the  Feast  of  the  Eire 
Supreme ' — O  reader,  can  thy  hard  heart  hold  out  against  that  ? 
His  trousers  were  nankeen  ;  the  stockings  had  fallen  down  over 
the  ankles.    He  spake  no  word  more  in  this  world. 

And  so,  at  six  in  the  morning,  a  victorious  Convention  adjourns. 
Report  flies  over  Paris  as  on  golden  wings  ;  penetrates  the 
Prisons  ;  irradiates  the  faces  of  those  that  were  ready  to  perish  : 
turnkeys  and  moutons^  fallen  from  their  high  estate,  look  mute 
and  blue.  It  is  the  28th  day  of  July,  called  loth  of  Thermidor, 
year  1794. 

Fouquier  had  but  to  identity  ;  his  Prisoners  being  already  Out 
of  Law.  At  four  in  the  afternoon,  never  before  were  the  streets 
of  Paris  seen  so  crowded.  From  the  Palais  de  Justice  to  the 
Place  de  la  Revolution,  for  thither  again  go  the  Tumbrils  this 
time,  it  is  one  dense  stirring  mass  ;  all  windows  crammed ;  the 
very  roofs  and  ridge-tiles  budding  forth  human  Curiosity,  in  strange 
gladness.  The  Death-tunibrils.  v/ith  their  motley  Batch  of  Out- 
laws, some  Twenty-three  or  so,  from  Maximihen  to  Mayor  Fleuriot 
and  Simon  the  Cordwainer^  roll  on  All  eyes  are  on  Robespierre's 
Tumbril,  where  he,  his  jaw  bound  m  dirty  linen,  with  his  half-dead 
Brother,  and  half-dead  Henriot,  lie  shattered  ;  their  ^  seventeen 
^hours'  of  agony  about  to  end.  The  Gendarmes  point  their 
swords  at  hhn,  to  shew  the  people  which  is  he.  A  woman  springs 
on  the  Tumbril  ;  clutching  the  side  of  it  with  one  hand  ;  waving 
the  other  Sibyl-like  ;  and  exclaims  :  "  The  death  of  thee  gladdens 
my  very  heart,  7n!enivre  de  joiej  "  RobespieiTC  opened  his  eyes  ; 
"  Scelerat,  go  down  to  Hell,  with  the  curses  of  all  wives  and 
mothers  !  " — At  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  they  stretched  him  on  the 
ground  till  his  turn  came.  Lifted  aloft,  his  eyes  again  opened  ; 
caught  the  bloody  axe.  Samson  wrenched  the  coat  off  him  ; 
wrenched  the  dirty  linen  from  his  jaw  :  the  jaw  fell  powerless,  there 
burst  from  him  a  cry ; — hideous  to  hear  and  see.  Samson,  thou 
canst  not  be  too  quick  ! 

Samson's  work  done,  there  burst  forth  shout  on  shout  of  ap- 
plause. Shout,  which  prolongs  itself  not  only  over  Paris,  but  over 
France,  but  over  Europe,  and  down  to  this  Generation.  De- 
servedly, and  also  undeservedly.  O  unhappiest  Advocate  of  Arras, 
wert  thou  worse  than  other  Advocates  ?  Stricter  man,  according 
to  his  Formula,  to  his  Credo  and  his  Cant,  of  probities,  benevo- 
lences, pleasures-of-virtuc,  and  such  like,  lived  not  in  that  age.  A 
man  fitted,  in  some  luckier  settled  age,  to  have  become  one  of 
'  those  incorruptible  barren  Pattern-Figures,  and  have  had  marble- 
tablets  and  funeral-sermons  !  His  poor  landlord,  the  Cabinet- 
maker in  the  Rue  Saint-I  Ionore,  loved  him  ;  his  Brother  died  for 
him.    May  God  be  merciful  to  him,  and  to  us. 


GO  DOWN  TO. 


199 


This  is  the  end  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  ;  new  glorious  Revolution 
named  of  Thermidor  j  of  Thermidor  9th,  year  2  ;  which  being 
interpreted  into  old  slave-style  means  27th  of  July,  1794.  Terror 
is  ended  ;  and  death  in  the  Place  de  la  Revolution,  were  the  '  Tail 
*  of  Robespierre' once  executed;  which  service  Fouquier  in  large 
Batches  is  swiftly  managing. 


20O 


BOOK  SEVENTH. 

VENDEMIAIRE. 


CHAPTER  1. 

DECADENT. 

How  little  did  any  one  suppose  that  here  was  the  end  not  of 
^ilobespierre  only,  but  of  the  Revolution  System  itself!  Least  of 
all  did  the  mutinying  Committee-men  suppose  it  ;  who  had 
mutinied  with  no  view  whatever  except  to  continue  the  National 
Regeneration  with  their  ov/n  heads  on  their  shoulders.  And  yet 
so  it  verily  was.  The'  insignificant  stone  they  had  struck  out,  so 
insignificant  anywhere  else,  proved  to  be  the  Keystone  :  the  whole 
arch-work  and  edifice  or  San^cuiottism  bep^an  to  loosen,  to  crack, 
to  yawn  ;  and  tumbled,  piecemeal,  ..  ith  considerable  rapidity, 
plunge  after  plunge  ;  till  the  Abyss  had  Gival lowed  it  all;  and  in 
this  upper  world  Srmsculottism  was  no  more. 

For  despicable  as  Robespierre  himself  might  be,  the  death  of 
Robespierre  was  a  signal  at  which  great  multitudes  of  men,  struck 
dumb  with  terror  heretofore,  rose  out  of  their  hiding-places  :  and,  ^ 
as  it  were,  saw  one  another,  how  multitudinous  they  were  ;  and ' 
began  speaking  and  complaining.  They  are  countable  by  the 
thousand  and  the  million ;  who  have  suffered  cruel  wrong.  Ever" 
louder  rises  the  plaint  of  such  a  multitude  ;  into  a  universal  sound, 
into  a  universal  continuous  peal,  of  what  they  call  Public  Opinion. 
Camillc  had  demanded  a  '  Committee  of  Mercy,'  and  could  not  get 
it ;  but  now  the  whole  nation  resolves  itself  into  a  Committee  of 
Mercy  :  the  Nation  has  tried  Sansculottism,  and  is  weary  of  it. 
Force  of  Public  Opinion  !  What  King  or  Convention  can  withstand 
it  ?  You  in  vain  struggle  :  the  thing  that  is  rejected  as  ^  calumnious ' 
to-day  must  pass  as  veracious  with  triumph  another  day  :  gods 
and  men  have  declared  that  Sansculottism  cannot  be.  Sansculot- 
tism, on  that  Ninth  night  of  Thermidor  suicidally  *  fractured  its 
'under  jaw  ; '  and  lies  writhing,  never  to  rise  more. 

Through  the  next  fifteenth  months,  it  is  what  we  may  call  the 
death-agony  of  Sansculottism.  Sansculottism,  Anarchy  of  the 
Jean-Jacques  Iwangel,  having  now  got  deep  enough,  is  to  perish 
in  a  new  singular  system  of  Culottism  and  Arrangement.  For 
Arrangement '  is  indispensable  to  man ;  Arrangement,  were  it 


DECADENT, 


20I 


grounded  only  on  that  old  primary  Evangel  of  Force,  with  Sceptre 
in  the  shape  of  Hammer.  Be  there  method,  be  there  order,  cry 
all  men  ;  were  it  that  of  the  Drili-serjeant  !  More  tolerable  is  the 
drilled  Bayonet-rank,  than  that  undrilled  Guillotine,  incalculable 
as  the  wind.— How  Scansculottism,  writhing  in  death-throes,  strove 
some  twice,  or  even  three"  times,  to  get  on  its  feet  again  ;  but  fell 
always,  and  was  flung  resupine,  the  next  instant ;  and  finally 
breathed  out  the  life  of  it,  and  stirred  no  more  :  this  we  are  now^ 
from  a  due  distance,  with  due  brevity,  to  glance  at ;  and  then— 
O  Reader  !— Courage,  I  see  land  ! 

Two  of  the  fii-st  acts  of  the  Convention,  very  natural  for  it  after 
this  Thermidor,  are  to  be  specified  here  :  the  first  is  renewal  ot 
the  Governing  Committees.  Both  Szirete  Generale  and  Salut 
Public,  thnined  by  the  Guillotine,  need  fdling  up  :  we  naturally  fill 
them  up  with  Talliens,  Frerons,  victorous  Thermidorian  men. 
Still  more  to  the  purpose,  we  appoint  that  they  shall,  as  Law 
dn-ects,  not  in  name  only  but  in  deed,  be  renewed  and  changed 
from  period  to  period  ;  a  fourth  part  of  them  going  out  monthly. 
The  Convention  will  no  more  lie  under  bondage  of  Committees 
under  terror  of  death  ;  but  be  a  free  Convention  ;  free  to  follow 
Its  own  judgment,  and  the  Force  of  Public  Opinion.  Not  less 
natural  is  it  to  enact  that  Prisoners  and  Persons  under  Accusation 
shall  have  right  to  demand  some  '  Writ  of  Accusation,'  and  see 
clearly  what  they  are  accused  of.  Very  natural  acts  :  the  harbin- 
gers of  hundreds  not  less  so. 

For  now  Fouquier's  trade,  shackled  by  Writ  of  Accusation,  and 
legal  proof,  is  asgoodr.s  gone  ;  effectual  only  against  Robespierre's 
lail.  The  Prisons  give  up  their  Suspects  ;  emit  them  faster  and 
taster.  The  Committees  see  themselves  ^besieged  with  Prisoners' 
friends  ;  complain  that  they  are  hindered  in  their  work  :  it  is  as 
with  men  rushing  out  of  a  crowded  place  ;  and  obstructing  one 
another.  Turned  are  the  tables  :  Prisoners  pouring  out  in  floods; 
Jailors,  M onions  and  the  Tail  of  Robespierre  going  now  whither 
they  were  wont  to  send  !- -The  Hundred  and  thirty-two  Nantese 
Republicans,  whom  we  saw  marching  in  irons,  have  arrived- 
shrunk  to  Ninety-four,  the  fifth  man  of  them  choked  bv  the  road! 
rhey  arrive  :  and  suddenly  find  themselves  not  pleaders  for  life 
but  denouncers  to  death.  Their  Trial  is  for  acquittal,  and  more! 
As  the  voice  of  a  trumpet,  their  testimony  sounds  far  and  wide 
mere  atrocities  of  a  Reign  of  Terror.'  For  a  space  of  nineteen 
days ;  with  all  solemnity  and  publicity.  Representative  Carrier 
Company  of  Marat ;  Noyadings,  Loire  Marriages,  things  done  in 
darkness,  come  forth  into  light :  clear  is  the  voice  of  these  poor 
resuscitated  Nantese;  and  Journals  and  Speech  and  universal 
Committee  of  Mercy  reverberate  it  loud  enough,  into  all  ears  and 
hearts.  Deputation  arrives  from  Arras  :  denouncing  the  atrocities 
of  Representative  Lebon.  A  tamed  Convention  loves  its  own  life  • 
yet  what  help  ?  Representative  Lebon,  Representative  Carrier  must 
wend  towards  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal;  struggle  and  delav  as 
we  will,  the  cry  of  a  Nation  pursues  them  louder  and  louder. 


202 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


Them  also  Tinvilie  must  abolish  ;— if  indeed  Tinville  himself  be 
not  abolished. 

We  must  note  moreover  the  decrepit  condition  into  which  a  once 
omnipotent  Mother  Society  has  faUen.  Legendre  flung  her  keys 
on  the  Convention  table,  that  Thermidor  night  ;  her  President 
was  guillotined  with  Robespierre.  The  once  mighty  Mother  came, 
some  time  after,  with  a  subdued  countenance,  begging  back  her 
keys  :  the  keys  were  restored  her  ;  but  the  strength  could  not  be 
restored  her  ;  the  strength  had  departed  forever.  Alas,  one's  day 
is  done.  Vain  that  the  Tribune  in  mid  air  sounds  as  of  old  :  to 
the  general  ear  it  has  become  a  horror,  and  even  a  weariness. 
By  and  by,  Affiliation  is  prohibited  :  the  mighty  Mother  sees 
herself  suddenly  childless  ;  mourns,  as  so  hoarse  a  Rachel  may. 

The  Revolutionary  Committees,  without  Suspects  to  prey  upon, 
perish  fast ;  as  it  were,  of  famine.  In  Paris  the  whole  Forty-eight 
of  them  are  reduced  to  Twelve  ;  their  Fo7'ty  sous  are  abolished  : 
yet  a  little  while,  and  Revolutionary  Committees  are  no  more. 
Maxi7num  will  be  abolished  ;  let  Sansculottism  find  food  where  it 
can.^  Neither  is  there  now  any  Municipahty  ;  any  centre  at  the 
Townhall.  Mayor  Fleuriot  and  Company  perished  ;  whom  we 
shall  not  be  in  haste  to  replace.  The  Townhall  remains  in  a 
broken  submissive  state  ;  knows  not  well  what  it  is  growing  to  ; 
knows  only  that  it  is  grown  weak,  and  must  obey.  What  if  we 
should  split  Paris  into,  say,  a  Dozen  separate  Municipalities  ;  in- 
capable of  concert  !  The  Sections  were  thus  rendered  safe  to  act 
with  :  — or  indeed  might  not  the  Sections  themselves  be  abolished? 
You  had  then  merely  your  Twelve  manageable  pacific  Townships, 
without  centre  or  subdivision  ;t  and  sacred  right  of  Insurrection 
fell  into  abeyance  ! 

So  much  is  getting  abolished ;  fleeting  swiftly  into  the  Inane,, 
For  the  Press  speaks,  and  the  human  tongue  ;  Journals,  heavy  and 
light,  in  Philippic  and  Burlesque  :  a  renegade  Fr^ron,  a  renegade 
Prudhomme,  loud  they  as  ever,  only  the  contrary  way.  And  Ci- 
devants  shew  themselves,  almost  parade  themselves ;  resuscitated 
.as  from  death-sleep  ;  publish  what  death-pains  they  have  had. 
The  very  Frogs  of  the  Marsh  croak  with  emphasis.  Your  pro- 
testing Seventy-three  shall,  with  a  struggle,  be  emitted  out  of 
Prison,  back  to  their  seats  ;  your  Louvets,  Isnards,  Lanjuinais,  and 
wrecks  of  Girondism,  recalled  from  their  haylofts,  and  caves  in 
Switzerland,  will  resume  their  place  in  the  Convention  :J  natural 
foes  of  Terror  ! 

Thermidorian  Talliens,  and  mere  foes  of  Terror,  rule  in  this 
Convention,  and  out  of  it.  The  compressed  Mountain  shrinks 
silent  more  and  more.  Moderatism  rises  louder  and  louder  :  not 
as  a  tempest,  with  threaten ings  ;  say  rather,  as  the  rushing  of  a 
mighty  organ-blast,  and  melodious  deafening  Force  of  Public 
Opinion,  from  the  Twenty-five  million  windpipes  of  a  Nation  aU 
in  Committee  of  Mercy  :  which  how  shall  any  detached  body  of 
individuals  withstand  1 

*  24th  December  1704  [Moiiiteur,  No.  97). 
t  October  1795  (Dulaurc,  viii.  454-6;.  J  J)eux  A?fus,  xiij.  3-39. 


LA  CABARUS. 


203 


CHAPTER  II. 

LA  CABARUS. 

How,  above  all,  shall  a  poor  National  Convention,  withstand  it? 
In  this  poor  National  Convention,  broken,  bewildered  by  long 
terror,  perturbations,  and  guillotinement,  there  is  no  Pilot,  there 
IS  not  now  even  a  Danton,  who  could  undertake  to  steer  you 
anywhither,  in  such  press  of  weather.  The  utmost  a  bewildered 
Convention  can  do,  is  to  veer,  and  trim,  and  try  to  keep  itself 
steady ;  and  rush,  undrowned,  before  the  wind.  Needless  to 
struggle  ;  to  fling  helm  a-lee,  and  make  'bout  ship  I  A  bewildered 
Convention  sails  not  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind  ;  but  is  rapidly  blown 
round  again.  So  strong  is  the  wind,  we  sav;  and  so  changed; 
blowing  fresher  and  fresher,  as  from  the  sweet  South-West ;  your 
devastating  North-Easters,  and  wild  tornado-gusts  of  Terror,  blown 
utterly  out  !  All  Sansculottic  things  are  passing  away  ;  all  things 
are  becoming  Culottic. 

^  Do  but  look  at  the  cut  of  clothes  ;  that  light  visible  Result,  signi- 
hcant  of  a  thousand  things  which  are  not  so  visible.    In  winter 

1793,  men  went  in  red  nightcaps  ;  Municipals  themselves  in  sado/s 
the  very  Citoyennes  had  to  petition  against  such  headgear.  But 
now  m  this  winter  1794,  where  is  the  red  nightcap  .^^  With  the 
thing  beyond  the  Flood.  Your  monied  Citoyen  ponders  in  what 
elegantest  style  he  shall  dress  himself :  whether  he  shall  not  even 
dress  himself  as  the  Free  Peoples  of  Antiquity.  The  more  adventurous 
Citoyenne  has  already  done  it.  Behold  her,  that  beautiful'adven- 
turous  Citoyenne  :  in  costume  of  the  Ancient  Greeks,  such  Greek  as 
Painter  David  could  teach  ;  her  sweeping  tresses  snooded  by 
glittering  antique  fillet ;  bright-dyed  tunic  of  the  Greek  women ; 
her  little  feet  naked,  as  in  Antique  Statues,  with  mere  sandals,  and 
winding-strings  of  riband,— defying  the  frost  ! 

There  is  such  an  effervescence  of  Luxury.  For  your  Emigrant  Q- 
devants  CRrned  not  their  mansions  and  furnitures  out  of  the  country 
with  them;  but  left  them  standing  here  :  and  in  the  swift  changes  of 
property,  what  with  money  coined  on  the  Placode  la  Revolution,  what 
with  Army-lurnishings,  sales  of  Emigrant  Domain  and  Church  Lands 
and  King's  Lands,  and  then  with  the  Aladdin's-lamp  of  Agio  in  a 
time  of  Paper-money,  such  mansions  have  found  new  occupants. 
Old  wine,  drawn  from  Ci-dcvant  bottles,  descends  new  throats. 
Pans  has  swept  herself,  relighted  herself;  Salons,  Soupers  not 
Fraternal,  beam  once  more  with  suitable  effulgence,  very  singular 
in  colour.  The  fair  Cabarus  is  come  out  of  Prison ;  wedded  to  her 
red-gloomy  Dis,  whom  they  say  she  treats  too  loftily  :  fair  Cabarus 
gives  the  most  brilliant  soirees.  Round  her  is  gathered  a  new 
Republican  Army,  of  Citoyennes  in  sandals  ;  Ci'devants  or  other  : 
what  remnants  soever  of  the  old  grace  survive,  are  rallied  there. 
At  her  right-hand,  in  this  cause,  labours  fair  Josephine  the  Widow 
Beauharnais,  though  in  straitened  circumstances' :  intent,  both  of 


204 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


them,  to  blandish  down  the  grimness  of  RepubHcan  austerity,  and 

reciviUse  mankind, 

Recivilise,  as  of  old  they  were  civihsed  :  by  witchery  of  the 
Orphic  fiddle-bow,  and  Euterpean  rhythm  ;  by  the  Graces,  by  the 
Smiles  !  Thermidorian  Deputies  are  there  in  those  soirees ; 
Editor  Freron,  Orateur  du  Peitplej  Barras,  who  has  known  other 
dances  than  the  Carmagnole.  Grim  Generals  of  the  Republic  are 
there  ;  in  enormous  horse-collar  neckcloth,  good  against  sabre-^ 
cuts  ;  the  hair  gathered  all  into  one  knot,  '  flowing  down  behind, 
'  fixed  with  a  comb/  Among  which  latter  do  we  not  recognise, 
once  more,  the  little  bronzed-complexioned  Artillery- Officer  of 
Toulon,  home  from  the  Italian  Wars  !  Grim  enough  ;  of  lean, 
almost  cruel  aspect  :  for  he  has  been  in  trouble,  in  ill  health  ;  iilso 
in  ill  favour,  as  a  man  promoted,  deservingly  or  not,  by  the 
Terrorists  and  Robespierre  Junior.  But  does  not  Barras  know 
him  ?  Will  not  Barras  speak  a  word  for  him  ?  Yes, — if  at  any 
time  it  will  serve  Barras  so  to  do.  Somewhat  forlorn  of  fortune, 
for  the  present,  stands  ^that  Artillery- Officer ;  looks,  with  those 
deep  earnest  eyes  of  his,  into  a  future  as  waste  as  the  most. 
Taciturn  ;  yet  with  the  strangest  utterances  in  him,  if  you  awaken 
him,  which  smite  home,  like  light  qr  lightning  : — on  the  whole, 
rather  dangerous  ?  A  '  dissociable  '  man  ?  Dissociable  enough  ; 
a  natural  terror  and  horror  to  all  Phantasms,  being  himself  of  the 
genus  Reality  !  He  stands  here,  without  work  or  outlook,  in  this 
forsaken  manner  ; — glances  nevertheless,  it  would  seem,  at  the 
kind  glance  of  Josephine  Beauharnais  ;  and,  for  the  rest,  with 
severe  countenance,  with  open*  eyes  and  closed  lips,  iv'aits  what 
will  betide. 

That  the  Balls,  therefore,  have  a  new  figure  this  winter,  we  can 
see.  Not  Carmagnoles,  rude  '  whirlblasts  of  rags,'  as  Mercier 
called  them  ^  precursors  of  storm  and  destruction:  ^  no,  soft  Ionic 
motions  ;  fit  for  the  light  sandal,  and  antique  Grecian  tunic  ! 
Efflorescence  of  Luxury  has  come  out  :  for  men  have  wealth  ;  nay 
new-got  v/ealth  ;  and  under  the  Terror  you  durst  not  dance  except 
in  rags.  Among  the  innumerable  kinds  of  Balls,  let  the  hasty 
reader  mark  only  this  single  one  :  the  kind  they  call  Victim  Balls, 
Bals  a  Victi7ne.  The  dancers,  in  choice  costume,  have  all  crape 
round  the  left  arm  :  to  be  admitted,  it  needs  that  you  be  a  Victime; 
that  you  have  lost  a  relative  under  the  Terror.  Peace  to  the 
Dead  ;  let  us  dance  to  their  memory  !  For  in  all  ways  one  must 
dance. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  according  to  Mercier,  under  what  varieties 
of  figure  this  great  business  of  dancing  goes  on.  '  The  women,' 
says  he,  ^  are  Nymphs,  Sultanas  ;  sometimes  Minervas,  Junes, 
^even  Dianas.    In  light-unerring  gyrations  they  swim  there;  with 

*  such  earnestness  of  pur])ose  ;  with  perfect  silence,  so  absorbed 

*  are  they.  What  is  singulai  ,'  continues  he,  *  the  onlookers  are  cis 
Mt  were  mingled  with  the  dancers  ;  form  as  it  were  a  circumam- 

*  bicnt  element  round  the  different  contrc-dances,  yet  without 

*  deranging  them.    It  is  rare,  in  fact,  that  a  Sultana  in  such  cir* 


 LA  CABARUS.  205 

'cumstances  experrences  the  smallest  collision.  Her  pretty  foot 
I  darts  down,  an  inch  from  mine  ;  she  is  off  again  ;  she  is  as  a 
^  Hash  of  light  :  but  soon  the  measure  recalls  her  to  the  point  she 
^  set  out  from.  Like  a  ghttering  comet  she  travels  her  echpse, 
^  revolving  on  herself,  as  by  a  double  effect  of  gravitation  and 

attraction.'^  Lookifig  forward  a  little  way,  into  Time,  the  same 
Mercier  discerns  Merveilleiises  in  '  flesh-coloured  drawers '  with 
gold  circlets  ;  mere  dancing  Houris  of  an  artificial  Mahomet's- 
raradise  :  much  too  Mahometan.  Montgaillard,  with  his  splenetic 
eye,  notes  a  no  less  strange  thing  ;  that  every  fashionable  Citoyenne 
you  meet  is  m  an  interesting  situation.  Good  Heavens,  every  \ 
Mere  pillows  and  stuffing  !  adds  the  acrid  man  ;-such,  in  a  time 
ot  depopulation  by  war  and  guillotine,  being  the  fashion.f  No 
lurther  seek  its  merits  to  disclose. 

Behold  also  instead  of  the  old  grim  Tappe-durs  of  Robespierre 
what  new  street-groups  are  these  ?  Young  men  habited  not  in 
black-shag  Carmagnole  spencer,  but  in  superfine  habit  carre  or 
spencer  with  rectangular  tail  appended  to  it ;  '  square-tailed  coat ' 
with  elegant  antiguillotinish  specialty  of  collar  ;  '  the  hair  plaited 

at  the  temples,'  and  knotted  back,  long-flowing,  in  military  wise  • 
young  men  of  what  they  call  the  Muscadin  or  Dandy  species  ! 
l^reron,  m  his  fondness  names  them  Jeunesse  doree,  Golden  or 
Gilt  /outh.  I  hey  have  come  out,  these  Gilt  Youths,  in  a  kind  of 
resuscitated  state  ;  they  wear  crape  round  the  left  arm,  such  of 
them  as  were  Victims.  More  they  carry  clubs  loaded  with  lead  • 
in  an  angry  manner  :  any  Tappe-diir  or  remnant  of  Jacobinism' 
they  may  fall  m  with,  shall  fare  the  worse.  They  have  suflered 
much  :  their  friends  guillotined  ;  their  pleasures,  frolics,  superfine 

^^1!  ^^^^^^^  ^^P^^^^^^  •  '^^^^^         ^-^^  ^^se  Red  Nightcaps 

who  did  It  !  Fair  Cabarus  and  th^  Army  of  Greek  sandals  smile 
approval.  In  the  Theatre  Feydeau,  young  Valour  in  square-tailed 
coat  eyes  Beauty  in  Greek  sandals,  and  kindles  by  her  glances  • 
Down  with  Jacobinism  !  No  Jacobin  hymn  or  demonstration, 
only  Ihermidorian  ones,  shall  be  permitted  here  :  we  beat  down 
Jacobinism  with  clubs  loaded  with  lead. 

But  let  any  one  who  has  examined  the  Dandy  nature,  how 
petulant  it  is,  especially  in  the  gregarious  state,  think  what  an 
element,  m  sacred  right  of  insurrection,  this  Gilt  Youth  was  ! 
^roils  and  battery  ;  war  without  truce  or  measure  !  Hateful  is 
^jansculottism,  as  Death  and  Night.  For  indeed  is  not  the  Dandy 
cuiottic,  habilatory,  by  law  of  existence  ;  '  a  cloth-animal  :  one  that 
lives,  moves,  and  has  his  being  in  cloth  1  '— 

So  goes  it,  waltzing,  bickering  ;  fair  Cabarus,  by  Orphic  witchery, 
struggling  to  recivihse  mankind.  Not  unsuccessfully,  we  hear. 
VVhat  utmost  Republican  grimness  can  resist  Greek  sandals,  in 
ionic  motion,  the  very  toes  covered  with  gold  rings  1  %  By  degrees 
the  mdisputablest  new-politeness  rises  ;  grows,  with  vi^^our.  And 
yet,  whether,  even  to  this  day,  that  inexpressible  tone"  of  society 
*  Mercier,  Nouveau  Paris,  iii.  138,  153.  f  Montgaillard,  iv.  436-43. 

X  Ibid.  Mercier  (ubi  supra). 


205 


VENDEMIAIRE, 


known  under  the  old  Kings,  when  Sin  had  '  lost  all  its  deformity ' 
(with  or  without  advantage  to  us),  and  airy  Nothing  had  obtained 
such  a  local  habitation  and  estabhshment  as  she  never  had —be 
recovered?  Or  even,  whether  it  be  not  lost  beyond  recovery  ?*— 
Either  way,  the  world  must  contrive  to  struggle  on. 


CHAPTER  nr. 

QUIBERON. 

But  indeed  do  not  these  long-flowing  hair-queues  of  a  Jeunesse 
Doree  in  semi-military  costume  betoken,  unconsciously,  another 
still  more  important  tendency  ?  The  Repubhc,  abhorrent  of  her 
Guillotine,  loves  her  Army. 

And  with  cause.  For,  surely,  if  good  fighting  be  a  kind  of 
honour,  as  it  is,  in  its  season  ;  and  be  with  the  vulgar  of  men,  even 
the  chief  kind  of  honour,  then  here  is  good  fighting,  in  good 
season,  if  there  ever  was.  These  Sons  of  the  Republic,  they  rose, 
in  mad  wrath,  to  deliver  her  from  Slavery  and  Cimmeria.  And 
have  they  not  done  it  ?  Through  Maritime  Alps,  through  gorges 
of  Pyrenees,  through  Low  Countries,  Northward  along  the  Rhine- 
valley,  far  is  Cimmeria  hurled  back  from  the  sacred  Motherland. 
Fierce  as  fire,  they  have  carried  her  Tricolor  over  the  faces  of  all 
her  enemies  ; — over  scarped  heights,  over  cannon-batteries  ;  down, 
as  with  the  Vengeur,  into  the  dead  deep  sea.  She  has  *  Eleven 
^  hundred  thousand  fighters  on  foot,'  this  Republic  :  '  at  one  parti- 
^  cular  moment  she  had,'  or  supposed  she  had,  '  seventeen  hundred 
'  thousand.'t  Like  a  ring  of  lightning,  they,  volleying  and  qa-ira- 
ing,  begirdle  her  from  shore  to  shore.  Cimmerian  Coalition  of 
Despots  recoils  ;  smitten  with  astonishment,  and  strange  pangs. 

Such  a  fire  is  in  these  Gaelic  Republican  men  ;  high-blazing  ; 
which  no  Coalition  can  withstand  !  Not  scutcheons,  with  four 
degrees  of  nobility  ;  but  ci-devant  Serjeants,  who  have  had  to 
clutch  Generalship  out  of  the  cannon's  throat,  a  Pichegru,  a  Jour- 
dan,  a  Hoche,  lead  them  on.  They  have  bread,  they  have  iron  ; 
'  with  bread  and  iron  you  can  get  to  China.' — See  Pichegru's 
soldiers,  this  hard  winter,  in  their  looped  and  windowed  destitution, 
in  their  ^  straw-rope  shoes  and  cloaks  of  bass-mat,'  how  they  over- 
run Holland,  like  a  demon-host,  the  ice  having  bridged  all  waters  ; 
and  rush  shouting  from  victory  to  victory  !  Ships  in  the  Texel  are 
taken  by  huzzars  on  horsc-back  :  fled  is  York  ;  fled  is  the  Stadt- 
holder,  glad  to  escape  to  England,  and  leave  Holland  to  fraternise. ij; 
Such  n  Gaelic  fire,  we  say,  blazes  in  this  People,  like  the  conflagra- 
tion of  grass  and  dry-jungle  ;  which  no  mortal  can  withstand — for 
the  moment. 

And  even  so  it  will  blaze  and  run,  scorching  all  things ;  and, 

*  DeStael,  Considerations,  iii,  c.  to,  <R'c. 
f  Toulongeon,  iii,  c.  7;  v.  c.  10  (p.  194). 
J  19th  January,  1795  (Montgaillard,  iv.  287-311/. 


QUIBERON. 


207 


from  Cadiz  to  Archangel,  mad  Sansculottism,  drilled  now  into 
Soldiership,  led  on  by  some  '  armed  Soldier  of  Democracy  '  (say^ 
that  Monosyllabic  Artillery-Officer),  will  set  its  foot  cruelly  on  the 
necks  of  its  enemies  ;  and  its  shouting  and  their  shrieking  shall 
fill  the  world  ! — Rash  Coalised  Kings,  such  a  fire  have  ye  kindled ; 
yourselves  fireless,  fighters  animated  only  by  drill- serjeantSj 
messroom  moralities,  and  the  drummer's  cat  !  However,  it  is 
begun,  and  will  not  end  :  not  for  a  matter  of  twenty  years.  So 
long,  this  Gaelic  fire,  through  its  successive  changes  of  colour  and 
character,  will  blaze  over  the  face  of  Europe,  and  afflict  and  scorch 
all  men:— till  it  provoke  all  men;  till  if  kindle  another  kind  of 
fire,  the  Teutonic  kind,  namely  ;  and  be  swallowed  up,  so  to  speak, 
in  a  day  !  For  there  is  a  fire  comparable  to  the  burning  of  dry- 
jungle  and  grass  ;  most  sudden,  high-blazing  :  and  another  fire 
which  we  liken  to  the  burning  of  coal,  or  even  of  anthracite  coal ; 
difficult  to  kindle,  but  then  which  nothing  will  put  out.  The  ready 
Gaelic  fire,  we  can  remark  further,  and  remark  not  in  Pichegrus 
only,  but  in  innumerable  Voltaires,  Racines,  Laplaces,  no  less  ;  for 
a  man,  whether  he  fight,  or  sing,  or  think,  will  •  remain  the  same 
unity  of  a  man, — is  admirable  for  roasting  eggs,  in  every  conceiv- 
able sense.  The  Teutonic  anthracite  again,  as  we  see  in  Luthers, 
Leibnitzes,  Shakespeares,  \z  preferable  for  smelting  metals.  How 
happy  is  our  Europe  that  has  both  kinds  ! — 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  Republic  is  clearly  triumphing.  In 
the  spring  of  the  year  Mentz  Town  again  sees  itself  besieged  ; 
will  again  change  master  :  did  not  Merlin  the  Thionviller,  '  with 
*  wild  beard  and  look,'  say  it  was  not  for  the  last  time  they  saw 
him  there  1  The  Elector  of  Mentz  circulates  among  his  brother 
Potentates  this  pertinent  query.  Were  is  not  advisable  to  treat  of 
Peace  ?  Yes  !  answers  many  an  Elector  from  the  bottom  of  his 
heart.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 'Austria  hesitates  ;  finally  refuses, 
being  subsidied  by  Pitt.  As  to  Pitt,  w^hoever  hesitate,  he,  sus- 
pending his  Habeas-corpuSp  suspending  his  Cash-payments, 
stands  inflexible, — spite  of  foreign  reverses  ;  spite  of  domestic 
obstacles,  of  Scotch  National  Conventions  and  English  Friends 
of  the  People,  whom  he  is  obliged  to  arraign,  to  hang,  or  even 
to  see  acquitted  with  jubilee  :  a  lean  inflexible  man.  The  Majesty 
of  Spain,  as  we  predicted,  makes  Peace  ;  also  the  Majesty  of 
Prussia  :  and  there  is  a  Treaty  of  Bale.*  Treaty  with  black 
Anarchists  and  Regicides  !  Alas,  what  help  1  You  cannot  hang 
this  Anarchy ;  it  is  like  to  hang  you  :  you  must  needs  treat 
with  it. 

Likewise,  General  Hoche  has  even  succeeded  in  pacificating  La 
Vendee.  Rogue  Rossignol  and  his  *  Infernal  Columns '  have 
vanished  :  by  firmness  and  justice,  by  sagacity  and  industry, 
General  Hoche  has  done  it.  Taking  ^  Movable  Columns,'  not 
infernal ;  girdling-in  the  Country  ;  pardoning  the  submissive, 
cutting  down  the  resistive,  limb  after  limb  of  the  Revolt  is  brought 
under.  La  Rochejacquelin,  last  of  our  Nobles,  fell  in  battle  ; 
Stofflet  himself  makes  t:rms  ;  Georges- Cadoudal  is  back  to 
*  5tli  April,  1795  (Montgaillard,  iv.  319). 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


Brittany,  among  his  Chouans  :  the  frightful  gangrene  of  La 
Vendee  seems  veritably  extirpated.  It  has  cost,  as  they  reckon 
in  round  numbers,  the  lives  of  a  Hundred  Thousand  fellow- 
mortals  ;  with  noyadings,  conflagratings  by  infernal  column,  which 
defy  arithmetic.    This  is  the      Vendee  War.*^ 

Nay  in  few  months,  it  does  burst  up  once  more,  but  once  only  : 
—blown  upon  by  Pitt,  by  our  Ci-devant  Puisaye  of  Calvados,  and 
others.  In  the  month  of  July  1795,  EngHsh  Ships  will  ride  in 
Ouiberon  roads.  There  will  be  debarkation  of  chivalrous  Ci- 
devants,  of  volunteer  Prisoners-of-war  —  eager  to  desert ;  of 
fire-arms,  Proclamations,  clothes-chests.  Royalists  and  specie. 
Whereupon  also,  on  the  Republican  side,  there  will  be  rapid 
stand-to-arms  ;  with  ambuscade  marchings  by  Quiberon  beach,  at 
midnight ;  storming  of  Fort  Penthievre  ;  war-thunder  mingling 
with  the  roar  of  the  nightly  main  ;  and  such  a  morning  light  as 
has  seldom  dawned  ;  debarkation  hurled  back  into  its  boats,  or 
into  the  devouring  billows,  with  wreck  and  wail  ; — in  one  word,  a 
Ci-devant  Puisaye  as  totally  ineffectcal  here  as  he  was  in  Calva- 
dos, when  he  rode  from  Vernon  Castle  without  boots.f 

Again,  therefore,  it  has  cost  the  lives  of  many  a  brave  man. 
Among  whom  the  whole  world  laments  the  brave  Son  of  Som- 
breuil.  Ill-fated  family  !  The  father  and  younger  son  went  to 
the  guillotine  ;  the  heroic  daughter  languishes,  reduced  to  want, 
hides  her  woes  from  History  :  the  elder  son  perishes  here  ;  shot 
by  military  tribunal  as  an  Emigrant ;  Hoche  himself  cannot  save 
him.  If  all  wars,  civil  and  other,  are  misunderstandings,  what  a 
thing  must  right-understanding  be  ! 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LION  NOT  DEAD. 

The  Convention,  borne  on  the  tide  of  Fortune  towards  foreign 
Victory,  and  driven  by  the  strong  wind  of  Public  Opinion  towards 
Clemency  and  Luxury,  is  rushing  fast ;  all  skill  of  pilotage  is 
needed,  and  more  than  all,  in  such  a  velocity. 

Curious  to  see,  how  ^we  veer  and  whirl,  yet  must  ever  whirl 
round  again,  and  scud  before  the  wind.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  we 
re-admit  the  Protesting  Seventy-Three,  we,  on  the  other  hand, 
agree  to  consummate  the  Apotheosis  of  Marat ;  hft  his  body  from 
the  Cordehers  Church,  and  transport  it  to  the  Pantheon  of  Great 
Men, — flinging  out  Mirabeau  to  make  room  for  him.  To  no  pur- 
pose :  so  strong  blows  Pubhc  Opinion  !  A  Gilt  Youthhood,  in 
plaited  hair-trcsses,  tears  down  his  Busts  from  the  Theatre 
Feydeau  ;  tramples  them  under  foot  ;  scatters  them,  with,  vocifera- 
tion into  the  Cesspool  of  Montmartre.J    Swept  is  his  Chapel- 

*  Histoire  de  la  Guerre,  de  la  Vcndi^e,  p.ir  M.  le  Comte  de  Vauban,  Mi^ 
Vtoires  de  Madame  de  la  Ro(:hej<iC(juelin,  ike. 

f  Deux  Amis,  xiv.  94-106  ;  Tuisnye,  Mi^ mo  ires,  iii.-vii. 
J  Monitcur^  du  25  Scptcnibrc  1794,  du  4  Feivrier  1795. 


LION  NOT  DEAD. 


209 


from  the  Place  du  Carrousel ;  the  Cesspool  of  Montmartre  will 
receive  his  very  dust.  Shorter  godhood  had  no  divine  man.  Some 
four  months  in  this  Pantheon,  Temple  of  All  the  Immortals  ;  then 
to  the  Cesspool,  grand  Cloaca  of  Paris  and  the  World  !  'His 
*  Busts  at  one  time  amounted  to  four  thousand.'  Between  Temple 
of  All  the  Immortals  and  Cloaca  of  the  World,  how  are  poor 
human  creatures  whirled  ! 

Furthermore  the  Question  arises,  When  wiD  the  Constitution  of 
Ntnety-three^  of  1793,  come  into  action?  Considerate  heads 
surmise,  in  all  privacy,  that  the  Constitution  of  Ninety-three  will 
never  come  into  action.  Let  them  busy  themselves  to  get  ready  a 
better. 

Or,  again,  v/here  now  are  the  Jacobins?  Childless,  most 
decrepit,  as  we  saw,  sat  the  mighty  Mother  ;  gnashing  not  teeth, 
but  empty  gums,  against  a  traitorous  Tbermidorian  Convention 
and  the  current  of  things.  Twice  w^ere  Billaud,  Collot  and  Com- 
pany accused  in  Convention,  by  a  Lecointre,  by  a  Legendre  ;  and 
the  second  time,  it  was  not  voted  calumnious.  Billaud  from  the 
Jacobin  tribune  ss^ys,  The  lion  is  not  dead,  he  is  only  sleeping/' 
They  ask  him  in  Convention,  What  he  means  by  the  awakening 
of  the  lion  ?  And  bickerings,  of  an  extensive  sort,  arose  in  the 
Palais-Egalit^  between  Tappe-durs  and  the  Gilt  Youthhood  ;  cries 
of  "  Down  with  the  Jacobins,  the  Jacoqums^^^  coqimi  meaning 
scoundrel !  The  Tribune  in  mid-air  gave  battle-sound  ;  answered 
only  by  silence  and  uncertain  gasps  Talk  was,  in  Government 
Committees,  of  'suspending'  the  Jacobin  Sessions.  Hark,  there  1 
■ — it  is  in  Allhallow-time,  or  on  the  Plallow-eve  itself,  month  ci- 
devant  November,  year  once  named  of  Grace  1794,  sad  eve  for 
Jacobinism, — volley  of  stones  dashing  through  our  windows,  with 
lingle  and  execration  1  The  female  Jacobins,  famed  Tricoteuses 
with  knitting-needles,  take  flight, ;  are  met  at  the  doors  by  a  Gilt 
Youthhood  and  '  mob  of  four  thousand  persons  ; '  are  hooted, 
flouted,  hustled  ;  fustigated,  in  a  scandalous  manner,  cotillons 
retroiisses J — and  vanish  in  mere  hysterics.  Sally  out  ye  male 
Jacobins  1  The  male  Jacobins  sally  out ;  but  only  to  battle, 
disaster  and  confusion.  So  that  armed  Authority  has  to  intervene  : 
and  again  on  the  morrow  to  intervene  ;  and  suspend  the  Jacobin 
Sessions  forever  and  a  day.^  Gone  are  the  Jacobins  ;  into  invisi- 
bility ;  in  a  storm  of  laughter  and  howls.  Their  place  is  made  a 
Normal  School,  the  first  of  the  kind  seen  ;  it  then  vanishes  into  a 
'  Market  of  Thermidor  Ninth  ; '  into  a  Market  of  Saint-Honore, 
where  is  now  peaceable  chaffering  for  poultry  and  greens.  The 
solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself  ;  the  baseless  fabric  !  Are 
not  we  such  stuff,  we  and  this  world  of  ours^  as  Dreams  are 
made  of? 

Maximum  being  abrogated,  Trade  was  to  take  its  own  free 
course.  Alas,  Trade,  shackled,  topsytur\  icd  in  the  way  we  saw, 
and  now  suddenly  let  go  again,  can  for  the  present  take  no  course 
at  all  ;  but  only  reel  and  stagger.  There  is,  so  to  speak,  no  Trade 
whatever  for  the  time  being.    Assignats,  long  sinking,  emitted  in 

*  Moniteur^  Seances  du  10-12  Novembre  1794 :  Deux  Amis,  xiii,  43-49- 


2IO 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


such   quantities,   sink   now   with   an  alacrity  beyond  parallel. 

Combien  ? "  said  one,  to  a  Hackney-coachman,  "  What  fare  ? " 
"  Six  thousand  livres,"  answered  he  :  some  three  hundred  pounds 
sterling,  in  Paper-money.*  Pressure  of  Maximum  withdrawn,  the 
thmgs  It  compressed  hkewise  withdraw.  '  Two  ounces  of  bread 
'per  dayMn  the  modicum  allotted  :  wide-waving,  doleful  are 
ihe  Bakers'  Queues  ;  Farmers'  houses  are  become  pawnbrokers' 
^hops. 

One  can  imagine,  in  these  circumstances,  with  what  humour 
Sansculottism  growled  in  its  throat,  ''La  Cabarus j''  beheld  Ci- 
devants  return  dancing,  the  Thermidor  effulgence  of  recivilisation, 
and  Balls  in  flesh-coloured  drawers.  Greek  tunics  and  sandals ; 
hosts  of  Af/<fj"^^7^/;/j-  parading,  with  their  clubs  loaded  with  lead; 
—and  we  here,  cast  out,  abhorred,  'picking   offals  from  the 

street  ;  'f  agitating  in  Baker's  Queue  for  our  two  ounces  of  bread  ! 
Will  the  Jacobin  lion,  which  they  say  is  meeting  secretly  *  at  the 

Acheveche,  in  bon7iet  rouge  yN\l\\  loaded  pistols,'  not  awaken.^ 
Seemingly,  not.  Our  Collot,  our  Billaud,  Barrere,  Vadier,  in  these 
last  days  of  March  1795,  are  found  worthy  of  Deportation,  of 
Banishment  beyond  seas  ;  and  shall,  for  the  present,  be  trundled 
off  to  the  Castle  of  Ham.  The  hon  is  dead  ;— or  writhing  in 
death- throes  ! 

Behold,  accordingly,  on  the  day  they  call  Twelfth  of  Germinal 
(which  is  also  called  First  of  April,  not  a  lucky  day),  how  lively 
are  these  streets  of  Paris  once  more  !  Floods  of  hungry  women, 
of  squalid  hungry  men  ;  ejaculating  :  "  Bread,  Bread  and  the 
Constitution  of  Ninety-three  I "  Paris  has  risen,  once  again,  like 
the  Ocean-tide  ;  is  flowing  towards  the  Tuileries,  for  Bread  and 
and  a  Constitution.  Tuileries  Sentries  do  their  best ;  but  it  serves 
not  :  the  Ocean-tide  sweeps  them  away  ;  inundates  the  Con- 
vention Hall  itself ;  howling,  "  Bread,  and  the  Constitution  ! " 

Unhappy  Senators,  unhappy  People,  there  is  yet,  after  all  toils 
and  broils,  no  Bread,  no  Constitution.  Du  pain,  pas  tant  de 
longs  discoiirs,  Bread,  not  bursts  of  Parliamentary  eloquence  ! " 
so  wailed  the  Menads  of  Maillard,  five  years  ago  and  more  ;  so 
wail  ye  to  this  hour.  The  Convention,  with  unalterable  counte- 
nance, with  what  thought  one  knows  not,  keeps  it  seat  in  this 
waste  howling  chaos  ;  rings  its  storm-bell  from  the  Pavilion  of 
Unity.  Section  Lepelletier,  old  Filles  Saint-Thomas,  who  are  of 
the  money-changing  species  ;  these  and  Gilt  Youtlihood  fly  to  the 
rescue  ;  sweep  chaos  forth  again,  with  levelled  bayonets.  Paris 
is  declared  '  in  a  state  of  siege.'  Pichegru,  Conquerer  of  Holland, 
who  happens  to  be  here,  is  named  Commandant,  till  the  dis- 
turbance end.  He,  in  one  day,  so  to  speak,  ends  it.  He  accom- 
plishes the  transfer  of  Billaud,  Collot  and  Company  ;  dissipating 
all  opposition  '  by  two  cannon-shots/  blank  cannon-shots,  and  the 

*  Mercier,  ii.  94.  ('ist  February,  1796:  at  the  Bourse  of  Paris,  the  gold 
louis.  of  20  francs  in  silver,  '  costs  5,300  francs  in  assignats.'  Montgaillard,  iv. 
419;. 

t  Tantm  Desodoards,  IJistoirc  de  la  Kiivoluiion,  vii.  c.  4. 


nON  NOT  DEAD. 


211 


terror  of  his  name  ;  and  thereupon  announcing,  with  a  Laconi- 
cism  which  should  be  imitated,  "  Representatives,  your  decrees 
are  executed/'"^  lays  down  his  Commandantship. 

This  Revolt  of  Germinal,  therefore,  has  passed,  like  a  vain  cry. 
The  Prisoners  rest  safe  in  Ham,  waiting  for  ships  ;  some  nine 
hundred  ^  chief  Terrorists  of  Paris '  are  disarmed.  Sansculottisra, 
swept  forth  with  bayonets,  has  vanished,  with  its  misery,  to  the 
bottom  of  Saint- Antoine  and  Saint- Marceau. — Time  was  when 
Usher  Maillard  with  Menads  could  alter  the  course  of  Legislation  ; 
but  that  time  is  not.  Legislation  seems  to  have  got  bayonets ; 
Section  Lepelletier  takes  its  firelock,  not  for  us  !  We  retire  to 
our  dark  dens ;  our  cry  of  hunger  is  called  a  Plot  of  Pitt ;  the 
Saloons  glitter,  the  flesh-coloured  Drawers  gyrate  as  before.  It 
was  for  "  The  Cabarus^^  then,  and  her  Muscadins  and  Money- 
changers, that  we  fought  ?  It  was  for  Balls  in  flesh-coloured 
drawers  that  we  took  Feudalism  by  the  beard,  and  did,  and  dared, 
shedding  our  blood  like  water  ?  Expressive  Silence,  muse  thou 
their  praise ! — 


CHAPTER  V. 

LION  SPRAWLING  ITS  LAST. 

Representative  Carrier  went  to  the  Guillotine,  in  December 
last  ;  protesting  that  he  acted  by  orders.  The  Revolutionary 
Tribunal,  after  all  it  has  devoured,  has  now  only,  as  Anarchic 
things  do,  to  devour  itself.  In  the  early  days  of  May,  men  see  a 
remarkable  thing  :  Fouquier-Tinville  pleading  at  the  Bar  once  his 
own.  He  and  his  chief  Jurymen,  Leroi  August-Tenth^  Juryman 
Vilate,  a  Batch  of  Sixteen  ;  pleading  hard,  protesting  that  they 
acted  by  orders  :  but  pleading  in  vain.  Thus  men  break  the  axe 
with  which  they  have  done  hateful  things  ;  the  axe  itself  having 
grown  hateful.  For  the  rest,  Fouquier  died  hard  enough  :  Where 
are  thy  Batches?"  howled  the  People.—"  Hungry  canaille^''  asked 
Fouquier,     is  thy  Bread  cheaper,  wanting  them 

Remarkable  Fouquier  ;  once  but  as  other  Attorneys  and  Law- 
beagles,  which  hunt  ravenous  on  this  Earth,  a  well-known  phasis 
of  human  nature  ;  and  now  thou  art  and  remainest  the  most  re- 
markable Attorney  that  ever  lived  and  hunted  in  the  Upper  Air  ! 
For,  in  this  terrestrial  Course  of  Time,  there  was  to  be  an  Avatar 
of  Attorneyism  ;  the  Heavens  had  said.  Let  there  be  an  Incarna- 
tion, not  divine,  of  the  venatory  Attorney-spirit  which  keeps  its  eye 
on  the  bond  only  ;— and  lo,  this  was  it ;  and  they  have  attorneyed 
it  in  its  turn.  Vanish,  then,  thou  rat-eyed  Incarnation  of  Attorney- 
ism ;  who  at  bottom  wert  but  as  other  Attorneys,  and  too  hungry 
Sons  of  Adam  !  Jur>^man  Vilate  had  striven  hard  for  life,  and 
pubhshed,  from  his  Prison,  an  ingenious  Book,  not  unknown  tc 
*  Moniteur,  Seance  du  13  Germinal  (2d  April)  1795. 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


us  ;  but  it  would  not  stead  :  he  also  had  to  vanish ;  and  this  his 
Book  of  the  Secret  Casues  of  Therniidor,  full  of  lies,  with  particles 
of  truth  in  it  undiscoverable  otherwise,  is  all  that  remains  of  him. 

Revolutionary  Tribunal  has  done  ;  but  vengeance  has  not  done. 
Representative  Lebon,  after  long  struggling,  is  handed  over  to  thb 
ordinary  Law  Courts,  and  by  them  guillotined.  Nay,  at  Lyons 
and  elsewhere,  resuscitated  Moderatism,  in  its  vengeance,  will  not 
wait  the  slow  process  of  Law ;  but  bursts  into  the  Prisons,  sets 
fire  to  the  Prisons  ;  burns  some  three  score  imprisoned  Jacobins  to 
dire  death,  or  chokes  them  '  with  the  smoke  of  straw.'  There  go 
vengeful  truculent  '  Companies  of  Jesus,'  '  Companies  of  the  Sun 
slaying  Jacobinism  wherever  they  meet  with  it ;  flinging  it  into  the 
Rhone-stream  ;  which,  once  more,  bears  sea-ward  a  horrid  cargo.^ 
Whereupon,  at  Toulon,  Jacobinism  rises  in  revolt ;  and  is  like  to 
hang  the  National  Representatives.  — With  such  action  and  re- 
action, is  not  a  poor  National  Convention  hard  bested  ?  It  is  hk^ 
the  settlement  of  winds  and  waters,  of  seas  long  tornado-beaten  ; 
and  goes  on  with  jumble  and  with  jangle.  Now  flung  aloft,  now 
sunk  in  trough  of  the  sea,  your  Vessel  of  the  Republic  has  need  ol 
all  pilotage  and  more. 

What  Parliament  that  ever  sat  under  the  Moon  had  such  a 
series  of  destinies,  as  this  National  Convention  of  France?  It 
came  together  to  make  the  Constitution  ;  and  instead  of  that,  it 
has  had  to  make  nothing  but  destruction  and  confusion  :  to  burn 
up  Catholicisms,  Aristocratisms,  to  worship  Reason  and  dig  Salt- 
petre  ;  to  fight  Titanically  with  itself  and  with  the  whole  world.  A 
Convention  decimated  by  the  Guillotine  ;  above  the  tenth  man 
has  bowed  his  neck  to  the  axe.  Which  has  seen  Carmagnoles 
danced  before  it,  and  patriotic  strophes  sung  amid  Church-spoils  ; 
the  wounded  of  the  Tenth  of  August  defile  in  handbarrovvs  ;  and, 
in  the  Pandemonial  Midnight,  Egahte's  dames  in  tricolor  drink 
lemonade,  and  spectrum  of  Sieyes  mount,  saying,  Death  sans 
phrase.  A  Convention  which  has  efl'ervesced,  and  which  has  con- 
gealed ;  which  has  been  red  with  rage,  and  also  pale  with  rage  : 
sitting  with  pistols  in  its  pocket,  drawing  sword  (in  a  moment  of 
effervescence)  :  now  storming  to  the  four  winds,  through  a  Danton- 
voice.  Awake,  O  France,  and  smite  the  tyrants  ;  now  frozen  mute 
under  its  Robespierre,  and  answering  his  dirge-voice  by  a  dubious 
gasp.  Assassinated,  decimated  ;  stabbed  at,  shot  at,  in  baths,  on 
streets  and  staircases  ;  which  has  been  the  nucleus  of  Chaos. 
Has  it  not  heard  the  chimes  at  midnight.^  It  has  deliberated, 
beset  by  a  Hundred  thousand  armed  men  with  artillery-furnaces 
and  provision-carts.  It  has  been  betocsined,  bestonned  ;  over- 
flooded  by  black  deluges  of  Sansculottism  ;  and  has  heard  the 
shrill  cry,  Bread  and  Soap.  For,  as  we  say,  it  was  the  nucleus  or 
Chaos  ;  it  sat  as  the  centre  of  Sansculottism  ;  and  had  spread  its 
pavillion  on  the  waste  Deep,  where  is  neither  path  nor  landmark, 
neither  bottom  nor  shore.  In  intrinsic  valour,  ingenuity,  fidelity, 
and  general  force  and  manhood,  it  has  perhaps  not  far  surpassed 
the  average  of  J'.i  rHaments  :  but  in  frankness  of  purpose,  in  singu- 
*  Moniteurt  du  27  juin,  du  31  Ao<it,  1795;  Deux  Amis,  xiii.  131-9. 


LION  SPRAWLING  ITS  LAST. 


21.1 


larity  of  position,  it  seeks  its  fellow.  One  other  Sansculottic  sub- 
mersion, or  at  most  two,  and  this  wearied  vessel  of  a  Convention 
reaches  land. 

Revolt  of  Germinal  Twe'ifth  ended  as  a  vain  cry ;  moribund 
Sansculottism  was  swept  back  into  invisibility.  There  it  has  lain 
moaning,  these  six  weeks  •  moaning,  and  also  scheming.  Jacobins 
disarmed,  flung  forth  from  their  Tribune  in  mid  air,  mus':  needs  try 
to  help  themselves,  in  secret  conclave  under  ground.  Lo,  there- 
fore, on  the  First  day  of  the  Month  Prairial,  20th  of  May  1795, 
sound  of  the  generale  once  more  ;  beating  sharp,  ran-tan,  To  arms. 
To  arms  ! 

Sansculottism  has  risen,  yet  again,  from  its  death-lair ;  waste 
wild-flowing,  as  the  unfruitful  Sea.  Saint-Antoine  is  a-foot : 
"  Bread  and  the  Constitution  of  Ninety-three,"  so  sounds  it ;  so 
stands  it  written  with  chalk  on  the  hats  of  men.  They  have  their 
pikes,  their  firelocks  ;  Paper  of  Grievances  ;  standards  ;  printed 
Proclamation,  drawn  up  in  quite  official  manner, — considering 
this,  and  also  considering  that,  they,  a  much-enduring  Sovereign 
People,  are  in  Insurrection  ;  will  have  Bread  and  the  Constitution 
of  Ninety- three.  And  so  the  Barriers  are  seized,  and  the  ghierale 
beats,  and  tocsins  discourse  discord.  Black  deluges  overflow  the 
Tuileries  ;  spite  of  sentries,  the  Sanctuary  itself  is  invaded  :  enter, 
to  our  Order  of  the  Day,  a  torrent  of  dishevelled  women,  wailing, 

Bread  !  Bread  !"  President  may  well  cover  himself ;  r.nd  have 
his  own  tocsin  rung  in  *  the  PaviJion  of  Unity  the  ship  of  the 
State  again  labours  and  leaks  :  overwashed,  near  to  swamping, 
with  unfruitful  brine. 

What  a  day,  once  more  !  Women  are  driven  out  :  men  storm 
irresistibly  in  ;  choke  all  corridors,  thunder  at  all  gates.  Deputies, 
putting  forth  head,  obtest,  conjute  ;  Saint-Antoine  rages,  "  Bread 
and  Constitution.^'  Report  has  risen  that  the  ^'  Convention  is 
'assassinating  the  women  crushing  and  rushin;^,  cbngc;  and 
furor  !  The  oak  doors  have  become  as  oak  tambourines,  sound- 
ing under  the  axe  of  Saint-Antoine  3  plaster-work  crackles,  wood- 
work booms  and  jingles  ;  door  starts  up  ; — bursts-in  Saint-Antoine 
with  frenzy  and  vociferation,  with  Rag-standards,  printed  Procla- 
mation, drum-music  :  astonishment  to  eye  r.ncl  ear.  Gendarmes, 
loyal  Sectioners  charge  through  the  other  door  ;  they  are  re- 
charged ;  musketry  exploding  :  Saint-Antoine  cannot  be  expelled. 
Obtesting  Deputies  obtest  vainly  ;  Respect  the  President;  ;  ap- 
proach not  the  President  !  Deputy  Feraud,  stretching  out  hi: 
hands,  baring  his  bosom  scarred  in  the  Spanish  wars,  obtestc 
vainly  :  threatens  and  resists  vainly.  Rebellious  Deputy  of  the 
Sovereign,  if  thou  have  fought,  have  not  we  too  ?  \\'e  have  no 
bread,  no  Constitution  !  They  wrench  poor  Feraud  ;  they  tumble 
him,  trample  him,  wrath  waxing  to  sec  itself  work  :  they  drag  him 
into  the  corridor,  dead  or  near  it  ;  sever  his  head,  and  fix  it  on  a 
pike.  Ah,  did  an  unexampled  Convention  want  this  variety  of 
destiny  too,  then  ?  Feraud's  bloody  head  goes  on  a  pike.  Such  a 
game  has  begun  ;  Paris  and  the  Earth  may  wait  how  it  will  end. 


^14 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


And  so  it  billows  free  through  all  Corridors  ;  within,  and  with> 
out,  far  as  the  eye  reaches,  nothing  but  Bedlam,  and  the  great 
Deep  broken  loose  !  President  Boissy  d'Anglas  sits  like  a  rock  : 
the  rest  of  the  Convention  is  floated  '  to  the  upper  benches  ; '  Sec- 
tioners  and  Gendarmes  still  ranking  there  to  form  a  kind  of  wall 
for  them.  And  Insurrection  rages  ;  rolls  i-ts  drums  ;  will  read  its 
Paper  of  Grievances,  will  have  this  decreed,  will  have  that 
Covered  sits  President  Boissy  ;  unyielding  ;  like  a  rock  in  the 
beatmg  of  seas.  They  menace  him,  level  muskets  at  him,  he 
yields  not  ;  they  hold  up  Feraud's  bloody  head  to  him,  with  grave 
stern  air  he  bows  to  it,  and  yields  not. 

And  the  Paper  of  Grievances  cannot  get  itself  read  for  uproar  ; 
and  the  drums  roll,  and  the  throats  bawl  ;  and  Insurrection,  like 
sphere-music,  is  inaudible  for  very  noise  :  Decree  us  this.  Decree 
us  that.  ^  One  man  vv^e  discern  bawling  '  for  the  space  of  an  hour 
'  at  all^  intervals,'  Je  demande  rarres/ation  des  coquins  et  des 
laches y  Really  one  of  the  most  comprehensive  Petitions  ever 
put  up  :  which  indeed,  to  this  hour,  includes  all  that  you  can 
reasonably  ask  Constitution  of  the  Year  One,  Rotten-Borough, 
Ballot-Box,  or  other  miraculous  Pohtical  Ark  of  the  Covenant  to 
do  for  you  to  the  end  of  the  world  !  I  - also  demand  arrestment 
of  the  Knaves  and  Dastards,  and  nothing  more  whatever.  National 
Representation,  deluged  with  black  Sansculottism  glides  out ;  for 
help  elsewhere,  for  safety  elsewhere  :  here  is  no  help. 

About  four  in  the  afternoon,  there  remain  hardly  more  than 
some  Sixty  Members  :  mere  friends,  or  even  secret-leaders  ;  a 
remnant  of  the  Mountain-crest,  held  in  silence  by  ThermidoriW 
thraldom.  Now  is  the  time  for  them  ;  now  or  never  let  then?, 
descend,  and  speak  !  They  descend,  these  Sixty,  invited  by  SansJ 
culottism  :  Romme  of  the  New  Calender,  Ruhl  of  the  Sacrecf, 
Phial,  Goujon,  Duquesnoy,  Soubrany,  and  the  rest.  Glad  Sans- 
culottism  forms  a.  ring  for  them;  Romme  takes  the  President^ 
chair;  they  begin  resolving  and  decreeing.  Fast  enough  now 
comes  Decree  after  Decree,  in  alternate  brief  strains,  or  strophe 
and  antistrophe,— what  will  cheapen  bread,  what  will  awaken  the 
dormant  lion.  And  at  every  new  Decree,  Sansculottism  shouts, 
Decreed^  Decreed;  and  rolls  its  drums. 

Fast  enough  ;  the  work  of  months  in  hours,— when  see,  a  Figure 
enters,  whom  in  the  lamp-light  we  recognise  to  be  Legendre  ;  and 
utters  words  :  fit  to  be  hissed  out  1  And  then  see,  Section  Lepel- 
letier  or  other  Muscadin  Section  enters,  and  Gilt  Youth,  with 
levelled  bayonets,  countenances  screwed  to  the  sticking-place  ! 
Tramp,  tramp,  with  bayonets  gleaming  in  the  lamp-light  :  what 
can  one  do,  worn  down  with  long  riot,  grown  heardess,  dark, 
hungry,  but  roll  back,  but  rush  back,  and  escape  who  can.?  The 
very  windows  need  to  be  thrown  up,  that  Sansculottism  may  escape 
fast  enough.  Money-changer  Sections  and  Gilt  Youth  sweep 
them  forth,  with  steel  besom,  far  into  the  depths  of  Saint-Antoinc. 
Triumph  once  more  !  Tlie  Decrees  of  that  Sixty  are  not  so 
much  as  rescinded ;  they  are  declared  null  and  non-extant. 
Romme,  Ruhl,  Goujon  and  the  ringleaders,  some  thirteen  in  all. 


2IS 


are  decreed  Accused.  Permanent-session  ends  at  three  in  the 
morning."^  Sansculottism,  once  more  flung  resupine,  lies  sprawling  j 
sprawling  its  last. 

Such  was  the  First  of  Prairial,  20th  of  May,  1795.  Second 
and  Third  of  Prairial,  during  which  Sansculottism  still  sprawled, 
and  unexpectedly  rang  its  tocsin,  and  assembled  in  arms,  availed 
Sansculottism  nothing.  What  though  with  our  Rommes  and  Ruhls, 
accused  but  not  yet  arrested,  we  make  a  new  'True  National  Con- 
*vention'  of  our  own,  over  in  the  East ;  and  put  the  others  Out  of 
iaw  ?  What  though  we  rank  in  arms  and  march  ?  Armed  Force 
4nd  Muscadin  Sections,  some  thirty  thousand  men,  environ  that 
old  False  Convention  :  we  can  but  bully  one  another  :  bandying 
nicknames,  "  Muscadins^^  against  "  Blooddrinkers,  Buveurs  de 
Sa7tgP  Feraud^s  Assassin,  taken  with  the  red  hand,  and  sen- 
tenced, and  now  near  to  Guillotine  and  Place  de  Gr^ve,  is  re- 
taken ;  is  carried  back  into  Saint- Antoine  :  to  no  purpose.  Con- 
vention Sectionaries  and  Gilt  Youth  come,  according  to  Decree, 
to  seek  him  ;  nay  to  disarm  Saint- Antoine  !  And  they  do  disarm 
it  :  by  rolling  of  cannon,  by  springing  upon  enemy's  cannon  ;  by 
military  audacity,  and  terror  of  the  Law.  Saint-Antoine  sur- 
renders its  arms  ;  Santerre  even  advising  it,  anxious  for  life  and 
brewhouse.  Feraud's  Assassin  flings  himself  from  a  high  roof : 
and  all  is  lost.f 

Discerning  which  things,  old  Ruhl  shot  a  pistol  through  his  old 
white  head  ;  dashed  his  life  in  pieces,  as  he  had  done  the  Sacred 
Phial  of  Rheims.  Romme,  Goujon  and  the  others  stand  ranked 
before  a  swiftly-appointed,  swift  Military  Tribunal.  Hearing  the 
sentence,  Goujon  drew  a  knife,  struck  it  into  his  breast,  passed  it 
to  his  neighbour  Romme  ;  and  fell  dead.  Romme  did  the  like  ; 
and  another  all  but  did  it ;  Roman-death  rushing  on  there,  as  in 
electric-chain,  before  your  Bailiffs  could  intervene  !  The  Guillo- 
tine had  the  rest. 

They  were  the.  Ulti7ni  Romanorum.  Billaud,  Collot  and  Com- 
pany are  now  ordered  to  be  tried  for  life  ;  but  are  found  to  be 
already  off,  shipped  for  Sinamarri,  and  the  hot  mud  of  Surinam. 
There  let  Billaud  surround  himself  with  flocks  of  tame  parrots  : 
Collot  take  the  yellow  fever,  and  drinking  a  whole  bottle  of 
brandy,  burn  up  his  entrails.f  Sansculottism  spraws  no  more. 
The  dormant  lion  has  become  a  dead  one  ;  and  now,  as  we  see, 
any  hoof  may  smite  him. 


CHAPTER  VL 

GRILLED  HERRINGS. 

So  dies  Sansculottism,  the  body  oi  Sansculottism;  or  is  changed. 
Its  ragged  Pythian  Carmagnole-<iance  has  transformed  itself  into 
a  Pyrrhic,  into  a  dance  of  Cabarus  Balls.    Sansculottism  is  dead  ; 
*  Deux  Amis,  xiii.  129-46. 

SToulongeon,  v.  297 ;  Mo?iitetir,  Nos.  ^^44,  5,  6. 
Dictioniiaire  des  Homines  Manjua/is,  §§  Billaud,  Collot. 


2l6 


VENDEMIAIRE. 


extinguished  by  new  isms  of  that  kind,  which  were  its  own  natural 
progeny  ;  and  is  buried,  we  may  say,  with  such  deafening  jubila- 
lation  and  disharmony  of  funeral-knell  on  their  part,  that  only 
after  some  half  century  or  so  does  one  begin  to  learn  clearly  why 
it  ever  was  alive. 

And  yet  a  meaning  lay  in  it  :  Sansculottism  verily  was  alive,  a 
New-Birth  of  Time;  nay  it  still  hves,  and  is  not  dead,  but  changed. 
The  soul  of  it  still  lives  ;  still  works  far  and  wide,  through  one 
bodily  shape  into  another  less  amorphous,  as  is  the  way  of  cunning 
iime  with  his  New-Births  :~till,  in  some  perfected  shape,  it  em- 
brace the  whole  circuit  of  the  world  !  For  the  wise  man  may  now 
everywhere  discern  that  he  must  found  on  his  manhood,  not  on  the 
garnitures  of  his  mi.ihood.  He  who,  in  these  Epochs  of  our 
Europe,  founds  on  garnitures,  formulas,  culottisms  of  what  sort 
soever,  is  founding  on  old  clotJi  and  sheep-skin,  and  cannot  endure. 
But  as  for  the  body  of  Sansculottism,  that  is  dead  and  buried^ 
— and,  one  hopes,  need  not  reappear,  in  primary  amorphous  shape, 
for  another  thousand  years  ! 

It  was  the  frightfullest  thing  ever  borne  of  Time  ?  One  of  the 
frightfullest.  This  Convention,  now  grown  Anti-Jacobin,  did,  with 
an  eye  to  justify  and  fortify  itself,  publish  Lists  of  what  the  Reign 
of  Terror  had  perpetrated  :  Lists  of  Persons  Guillotined.  The 
Lists,  cries  splenetic  Abbe  Montgaillard,  were  not  complete.  They 
contain  the  names  of,  How  many  persons  thinks  the  reader? — • 
Two  Thousand  all  but  a  few.  There  were  above  Four  Thousand, 
cries  Montgaillard  :  so  many  were  guillotined,  fusilladed,  noyaded, 
done  to  dire  death  ;  of  whom  Nine  Hundred  were  women."^  It  is 
a  horrible  sum  of  human  lives,  M.  I'Abbe  :— some  ten  times  as 
many  shot  rightly  on  a  field  of  battle,  and  one  might  have  had  his 
Glorious- Victory  with  Te-Dtum.  It  is  not  far  from  the  two- 
hundredth  part  of  what  perished  in  the  entire  Seven  Years  War. 
By  which  Seven  Years  War,  did  not  the  great  Fritz  wrench  Silesia 
from  the  great  Theresa  ;  and  a  Pompadour,  stung  by  epigrams, 
satisfy  herself  that  she  could  not  be  an  Agnes  Sorel  ?  The  head 
of  man  is  a  strange  vacant  sounding-shell,  M.  FAbbe  ;  and  studies 
Cocker  to  small  purpose. 

But  what  if  Llistory,  somewhere  on  this  Planet,  were  to  hear  of 
a  Nation,  the  third  soul  of  whom  had  not  for  thirty  weeks  each 
year  as  many  third-rate  potatoes  as  would  sustain  him  ?t  History^ 
in  that  case,  feels  bound  to  consider  that  starvation  is  starvation  ; 
that  starvation  from  age  to  age  presupposes  much  :  History  ven- 
tures to  assert  that  the  French  Sansculotte  of  Ninety-three,  who, 
roused  from  long  death-sleep,  could  rusli  at  once  to  the  frontiers, 
and  die  fighting  for  an  immortal  Hope  and  Faith  of  Deliverance 
for  him  and  his,  was  but  the  sccoiid-\\\\'s>^Ydh\^s\.  of  men  !  The 
Irish  Sans-potato,  had  he  not  senses  then,  nay  a  soul?  In  his 
frozen  darkness,  it  was  bitter  for  him  to  die  famishing  ;  bitter  to 
see  his  children  famish.  It  was  bitter  for  him  to  be  a  beggar,  a 
liar  and  a  knave.    N.iy,  if  that  dreary  ( Ircenl;ind-wind  of  be* 

*  Montgaillard,  iv.  241. 
f  Report  of  the  Irish  Poor- 1  aw  C>ii,'mhsio/t,  1836^ 


GRILLED  HERRINGS. 


217 


niehtecl  Want,  perennial  from  sire  to  son,  had  frozen  him  mto  a 
kind  of  torpor  and  numb  callosity,  so  that  he  saw  not,  felt  not,  was 
this,  for  a  creature  with  a  soul  m  it,  some  assuagement  ;  or  tne 
cruellest  wretchedness  of  all  ? 

Such  things  were  ;  such  things  are  ;  and  they  go  on  m  silence 
peaceably  :  and  Sansculottisms  follow  them.  History,  looking 
back  over  this  France  through  long  times,  back  to  Turgot's  time 
for  instance,  when  dumb  Drudgery  staggered  up  to  its  King's 
Palace,  and  in  wide  expanse  of  sallow  laces,  squalor  and  winged 
raggedness,  presented  hieroglyphically  its  Petition  of  Grievances  ; 
and  for  answer  got  hanged  on  a  '  new  gallows  forty  feet  high,'-- 
confesses  mournfullv  that  there  is  no  period  to  be  met  with,  m 
which  the  general  "Twenty-five  Millions  of  France  suffered  less 
than  in  this  period  which  they  name  Reign  of  Terror  !  But  it  was 
not  the  Dumb  Millions  that  suffered  here  ;  it  was  the  Speaking 
Thousands,  and  Hundreds,  and  Units  ;  who  shrieked  and  pub- 
lished, and  made  the  world  ring  with  their  wail,  as  they  could  and 
should  :  that  is  the  grand  peculiarity.  The  frightfullest  Births  of 
Time  are  never  the  loud-speaking  ones,  for  these  soon  die  ;  they 
are  the  silent  ones,  which  can  live  from  century  to  century ! 
Anarchy,  hateful  as  Death,  is  abhorrent  to  the  whole  nature  of 
man  ;  and  so  must  itself  sooE  die. 

Wherefore  let  all  men  know  what  of  depth  and  of  height  is  still 
revealed  in  man  ;  and,  with  fear  and  wonder,  with  just  sympathy 
and  just  antipathy,  with  clear  eye  and  open  heart,  contemplate  it 
and  appropriate  it  \  and  draw  innumerable  inferences  from  it. 
This  inference,  for  example,  among  the  first  :  '  That  if  the  gods  of 
'  this  lower  world  will  sit  on  their  glittering  thrones,  indolent  as 

*  Epicurus'  gods,  with  the  living  Chaos  of  Ignorance  and  Hunger 

*  weltering  uncared  for  at  their  feet,  and  smooth  Parasites  preach- 
ing.  Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace,'  then  the  dark  Chaos, 

iit  would  seem,  will  rise  ;  has  risen,  and  O  Heavens  !  has  it  not 
tanned  their  skins  into  breeches  for  itself?  That  there  be  no 
second  Sansculottism  in  our  Earth  for  a  thousand  years,  let  us 
understand  well  what  the  first  was  ;  and  let  Rich  and  Poor  of  us 
go  and  do  otherwise. — But  to  our  tale. 

The  Muscadin  Sections  greatly  rejoice  ;  Cabarus  Balls  gyrate  : 
the  well-nigh  insoluble  problem  Republic  without  Anarchy ^  have 
we  not  solved  it? — Law  of  Fraternity  or  Death  is  gone  :  chimerical 
Obtain-who-need  has  become  practical  Hold-who-have .  To 
anarchic  Repubhc  of  the  Poverties  there  has  succeeded  orderly 
Repubhc  of  the  Luxuries  ;  which  will  continue  as  long  as  it  can. 

On  the  Pont  au  Change,  on  the  Place  de  Greve,  in  long  sheds, 
Mercier,  in  these  summer  evenings,  saw  working  men  at  their 
repast.  One's  allotment  of  daily  bread  has  sunk  to  an  ounce  and 
^  half.    '  Plates  containing  each  three  grilled  herrings,  sprinkled 

*  with  shorn  onions,  wetted  with  a  little  vinegar  ;  to*  this  add  some 

*  morsel  of  boiled  prunes,  and  lentils  swimming  in  a  clear  sauce  : 
*at  these  frugal  tables,  the  cook's  gridiron  hissing  near  by,  and  the 
•pot  simmering  on  a  fire  between  two  stones,  I  have  seen  them 


2l8 


VENDEMIAIRE, 


'  ranged  by  the  hundred  ;  consuming,  without  bread,  their  scant 
^'messes,  far  too  moderate  for  the  keenness  of  their  appetite,  and 
the  extent  of  their  stomach/*    Seine  water,  rushing  plenteous 
by,  will  supply  the  deficiency. 

O  Man  of  Toil,  thy  struggling  and  thy  daring,  these  six  long 
years  of  insurrection  and  tribulation,  thou  hast  profited  nothing  by 
It,  then  ?  Thou  consumest  thy  herring  and  water,  in  the  blessed 
gold-red  evening.  O  why  was  the  Earth  so  beautiful,  becrimsoned 
with  dawn  and  twilight,  if  man's  deahngs  with  man  were  to  make 
It  a  vale  of  scarcity,  of  tears,  not  even  soft  tears  ?  Destroying  of 
Bastilles,  discomfiting  of  Brunswicks,  fronting  of  Principalities 
and  Powers,  of  Earth  and  Tophet,  all  that  thou  hast  dared  and 
endured,— It  was  for  a  Republic  of  the  Cabarus  Saloons? 
Patience  ;  thou  must  have  patience  :  the  end  is  not  yet 


CHAPTER  VIL 

THE  WHIFF  OF  GRAPESHOT. 

In  fact,  what  can  be  more  natural,  one  may  say  inevitable,  as  a 
Post-Sansculottic  transitionary  state,  than  even  this?  Confused 
wreck  of  a  Republic  of  the  Poverties,  which  ended  in  Reign  of 
Terror,  is  arranging  itself  into  such  composure  as  it  can.  Evangel 
of  Jean-Jacques,  and  most  other  Evangels,  becoming  incredible 
what  is  there  for  it  but  return  to  the  old  Evangel  of  Mammon  ? 
Contr at- Social  is  true  or  untrue.  Brotherhood  is  Brotherhood  or 
Death  ;  but  money  always  will  buy  money's  v/crth  :  in  the  wreck 
of  human  dubitations,  this  remains  indubitable,  that  Pleasure  is 
pleasant.  Aristocracy  of  Feudal  Parchment  has  passed  away 
with  a  mighty  rushing  ;  and  now,  by  a  natural  course,  we  arrive  at 
Aristocracy  of  the  Moneybag.  It  is  the  course  through  which  all 
European  Societies  are  at  this  hour  travelling.  Apparently  a  still 
baser  sort  of  Aristocracy  ?  An  infinitely  baser  ;  the  basest  yet 
known  ! 

In  which  however  there  is  this  advantage,  that,  like  Anarchy 
itself,  it  cannot  continue.  Hast  thou  considered  how  Thought  is 
stronger  than  Artillery-parks,  and  (were  it  fifty  years  after  death 
and  martyrdom,  or  were  it  two  thousand  years)  writes  and  unwrites 
Acts  of  Parliament,  removes  mountains;  models  the  World  like 
soft  clay?  Also  how  the  beginning  of  all  Thought,  worth  the 
name,  is  Love  ;  and  the  wise  head  never  yet  was,  without  first  the 
generous  heart?  The  Heavens  cease  not  their  bounty:  they 
send  us  generous  hearts  into  every  generation.  And  now  what 
generous  heart  can  pretend  to  itself,  or  be  hoodwinked  into 
believing,  that  Loyalty  to  the  Moneybag  is  n  noble  Loyalty  ? 
Mammon,  cries  the  generous  heart  out  of  all  ages  and  countries, 
is  the  basest  of  known  Gods,  even  of  known  Devils.  In  him  what 
glory  is  there,  that  ye  should  worship  him?    No  glory  discern- 


THE  WHIFF  OF  GRAPES  HOT.  m 


able  ;  not  even  terror  :  at  best,  detestability,  ill-matched  with 
despicability  !— Generous  hearts,  discerning,  on  this  band,,  wide^ 
spread  Wretchedness,  dark  without  and  within,  rnoistening  its 
ounce-and-half  of  bread  with  tears  ;  and  on  that  hand,  mere  Balls 
in  fleshcoloured  drawers,  and  inane  or  foul  glitter  of  such  sort,— 
cannot  but  ejaculate,  cannot  but  announce  :  Too  much,  O  divme 
Mammon;  somewhat,  too  much  !— The  voice  of  these,  once 
announcing  itself,  carries  fiat  and  pereat  in  it,  for  all  tnings  here 

^^Meanwhile,  we  will  hate  Anarchy  as  Death,  which  it  is  ;  and 
the  things  worse  than  Anarchy  shall  be  hated  more  !  burely 
Peace  alone  is  fruitful.  Anarchy  is  destruction  :  a  burning  up, 
say,  of  Shams  and  Insupportabilities  ;  but  which  leaves  Vacancy 
behind.  Know  this  also,  that  out  of  a  world  of  Unwise  nothing 
but  an  Unwisdom  can  be  made.  Arrange  it,  Constitution-build  it, 
sift  it  through  Ballot-Boxes  as  thou  wilt,  it  is  and  remains  an 
Unwisdom— the  new  prey  of  new  quacks  and  unclean  things,  the 
latter  end  of  it  slightly  better  than  the  beginning.  Who  can  bring  a 
wise  thing  out  of  men  unwise  ?  Not  one.  And  so  Vacancy  and 
general  AboHtion  having  come  for  this  France,  what  can  Anarchy 
do  more  ?  Let  there  be  Order,  were  it  under  the  Soldier's  Sword  ; 
let  there  be  Peace,  that  the  bounty  of  the  Heavens  be  not  spilt ; 
that  what  of  Wisdom  they  do  send  us  bring  fruit  in  its  season  !— 
It  remains  to  be  seen  how  the  quellers  of  Sansculottism  were 
themselves  quelled,  and  sacred  right  of  Insurrection  was  blown 
away  by  gunpowder  :  wherewith  this  singular  eventful  History 
catted  French  Revolution  ends. 

The  Convention,  driven  such  a  course  by  wild  wind,  wild  tide, 
and  steerage  and  non-steerage,  these  three  years,  has  become 
weary  of  its  own  existence,  sees  all  men  weary  of  it  ;  and  wishes 
heartily  to  finish.    To  the  last,  it  has  to  strive  with  contradictions: 
it  is  now  getting  fast  ready  with  a  Constitution,  yet  knows  no 
peace.    Sieyes,  we  say,  is  making  the  Constitution  once  more; 
has  as  good  as  made  it.    Warned  by  experience,  the  great  Archi- 
tect alters  much,  admits  much.    Distinction  of  Active  and  Passive 
Citizen,  that  is.  Money-qualification  for  Electors :  nay  Two  Cham- 
bers, '  Council  of  Ancients,'  as  well  as  'Council  of  Five  Hundred; 
to  that  conclusion  have  we  come  !    In  a  like  spirit,  eschewing  that 
fatal  self-denying  ordinance  of  your  Old  Constituents  we  enact 
not  only  that  actual  Convention  Members  are  re-ehgible,  but  that 
Two-thirds  of  them  must  be  re-elected.    The  Active  CUizen  Elec- 
tors shall  for  this  time  have  free  choice  of  only  One-third  ot  their 
OSfational  Assembly.    Such  enactment,  of  Two-thirds  to  toe  re- 
flected, we  append  to  our  Constitution  ;  we  submit  our  Constitu- 
tion to  the  Townships  of  France,  and  say,  Accept  both,  or  reject 
both.    Unsavoury  as  this  appendix  may  be,  the  Townships,  by 
'overwhelming  majority,  accept  and  ratify.    With  Directory  ot 
Five  •  with  Two  good  Chambers,  double-majority  of  them  nomi- 
nated by  ourselves,  one  hopes  this  Constitution  may  prove  final. 
March  it  will ;  for  the  legs  of  it,  the  re-elected  Two-thirds,  are 


2iQ 


VENDEMIATRE. 


"^^X^^^^t^  '°  ^'^y^^  ^"^'^^  Paper  Fabric 

r^^f  vT'^"  '''"'' ^''^  contumacious  Sections,  Lepelletier  fore- 
most kick  against  the  pricks  !  Is  it  not  manifest  infraction  of 
one's  Elective  Franchise,  Rights  of  Man,  and  Sovereignty  of  the 
People,  this  appendix  of  re-electing  youy  Two-thirds  ?  Greedy 
cyrants  who  would  perpetuate  yourselves  .'—For  the  truth  is  vic- 
^nnn.rfif  Samt-Antoine,  and  long  right  of  Insurrection,'  has 
spoiled  these  men  Nay  spoiled  all  men.  Consider  too  how  each 
free  to  hope  what  he  liked  ;  and  now  there  is  to  be  no 
hope,  there  is  to  be  fruition,  fruition  of  this. 

In  men  spoiled  by  long  right  of  Insurrection,  what  confused 
ferments  will  rise,  tongues  once  begun  wagging  !  Journalists  de- 
claim your  Lacretelles,  Laharpes ;  Orators  spout.  There  is 
Royahsm  traceable  in  it,  and  Jacobinism.  On  the  West  Frontier 
m  deep  secrecy,  Pichegru,  durst  he  trust  his  Army,  is  treating 
with  Conde:  in  these  Sections,  there  spout  wolves  in  sheepi 
r^'u™'''^^  Emigrants  and  Royalists!*  All  men,  as  we 
say,  had  hoped,  each  that  the  Election  would  do  something  for 
his  own  side  :  and  now  there  is  no  Election,  or  only  the  third  of 
fv"-^  against  this  clause  of  the  Two- 

thirds  ;  all  the  Unruly  of  France,  who  see  their  trade  thereby 
near  ending. 

Section  Lepelletier,  after  Addresses  enough,  finds  that  such 
clause  IS  a  manifest  infraction  ;  that  it,  Lepelletier,  for  one  will 
simply  not  conform  thereto;  and  invites  all  other  free  Sections  to 
jom  It,  in  central  Committee,'  in  resistance  to  oppression.!  The 
Sections  join  it,  nearly  all  ;  strong  with  their  Forty  Thousand 
tigJiting  men.  The  Convention  therefore  mav  look  to  itself '  Le- 
pelletier, on  this  I2fh  day  of  Vendemiaire,  4th  of  October  ivoc  is 
sitting  in  open  contravention,  in  its  Convent  of  Filles  S^aim- 
Ihomas,  Rue  V.vienne,  with  guns  primed.  The  Convention  has 
some  Five  Thousand  regular  troops  at  hand  ;  Generals  in  abund- 
ance ;;  and  a  i<  ifteen  Hundred  of  miscellaneous  persecuted  Ultra- 
Jacobins,  whom  in  this  crisis  it  has  hastily  got  together  and  armed, 
under  the  title  Patriots  of  Eighty-nine.  Strong  in  Law,  it  sends 
Its  General  Menou  to  disarm  Lepelletier. 

General  Menou  marches  accordingly,  with  due  summons  and 
demonstration  ;  with  no  result.  General  Menou,  about  ei<du  in 
the  evening,  finds  that  he  is  standing  ranked  in  the  Rue  VivTenne 
emitting  vain  summonses  ;  v  ith  primed  guns  pointed  out  of  every 
window  at  him  ;  and  that  he  cannot  disarm  Lepelletier.  He  has 
to  return,  with  whole  skin,  but  without  success  ;  and  be  thrown 
into  arrest  as  '  a  traitor.'  Whereupon  the  whole  Forty  Thous  ind 
join  this  Lepelletier  which  cannot  be  vanquished  :  to  what  hand 
shall  a  quiikmg  Convention  now  turn.'  Our  poor  Convention 
after  such  voyaging,  just  entering  harbour,  so  to  speak,  has  struck 
onihe  /uir;~:im\  labours  there  frightfully,  with  breakers  roaring- 
round  it,  forty  thousand  of  them,  like  to  wash  it,  and  its  Sieyes 

*  Napoleon,  \ .aF.  Carres  {C/w/x  dis  RcrMoris,  xvii.  i<i3-4ii) 
i  Deux  Amis,  xhi.  275-406.  t  / 


THE  WHIFF  OF  GRAPESHOT. 


221 


Cargo  and  the  whole  future  of  France,  into  the  deep  !  Yet  one 
last  time,  it  struggles,  ready  to  perish. 

Some  call  for  Barras  to  be  made  Commandant  ;  he  conquered 
in  Thermidor.  Some,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  bethink  them 
of  the  Citizen  Buonaparte,  unemployed  Artillery  Officer,  who  took 
Toulon.  A  man  of  headj  a  man  of  action  :  Barr?„s  is  named  Com- 
mandant's-Cloak ;  this  young  Artillery  Officer  is  named  Com- 
mandant. He  was  in  the  Gallery  at  the  moment,  and  heard  it ; 
he  withdrew,  some  half  hour,  to  consider  with  himself :  after  a 
half  hour  of  grim  compressed  considering,  to  be  or  not  to  be,  he 
answers  Vea. 

And  now,  a  man  of  head  being  at  the  centre  of  it,  the  whole 
matter  gets  vital.  Swift,  to  Camp  of  Sablons ;  to  secure  the 
Artillery,  there  are  not  twenty  men  guarding  it  !  A  swift  Adju- 
tant, Murat  is  the  name  of  him,  gallops  ;  gets  thither  some 
minutes  within  time,  for  Lepelletier  was  also  on  march  that  way  : 
the  Cannon  are  ours.  And  now  beset  this  post,  and  beset  that ; 
rapid  and  firm  :  at  Wicket  of  the  Louvre,  in  Cul  de  Sac  Dauphin, 
in  Rue  Saint- Honore,  from  Pont  Neuf  all  along  the  north  Quays, 
southward  to  Pont  ci-devant  Royal, — rank  round  the  Sanctuary  of 
the  Tuileries,  a  ring  of  steel  discipline  ;  let  every  gimner  have  his 
match  burning,  and  all  men  stand  to  their  arms  ! 

Thus  there  is  Permanent-session  through  night ;  and  thus  at 
sunrise  of  the  morrow,  there  is  seen  sacred  Insurrection  once 
again  :  vessel  of  State  labouring  on  the  bar  ;  and  tumultuous  sea 
all  round  her,  beating  generaie,  arming  and  sounding, — not  ring- 
ing tocsin,  for  we  have  left  no  tocsin  but  our  own  in  the  Pavilion 
of  Unity.  It  is  an  imminence  of  shipwreck,  for  the  whole  world . 
to  gaze  at.  Frightfully  she  labours,  that  poor  ship,  within  cable- 
length  of  port  ;  huge  peril  for  her.  However,  she  has  a  man  at 
the  helm.  Insurgent  messages,  received,  and  not  received  ;  mes- 
senger admitted  blindfolded  ;  counsel  and  counter-counsel  :  the 
poor  ship  labours  ! — Vendemiaire  13th,  year  4  :  curioHS  enough,  of 
all  days,  it  is  the  Fifth  day  of  October,  anniversary  of  that  Menad- 
march,  six  years  ago  ;  by  sacred  right  of  Insurrection  we  are  got 
thus  far. 

Lepelletier  has  seized  the  Church  of  Saint-Roch  ;  has  seized  the 
Pont  Neuf,  our  piquet  there  retreating  without  fire.  Stray  shots 
fall  from  Lepelletier  ;  rattle  down  on  the  very  Tuileries  staircase. 
On  the  other  hand,  women  advance  dishevelled,  shrieking,  Peace  ; 
Lepelletier  behind  them  waving  its  hat  in  sign  that  we  shall  frater- 
nise. Steady  !  The  Artillery  Officer  is  steady  as  bronze  ;  can  be 
quick  as  lightning.  He  sends  eight  hundred  muskets  with  ball- 
cartridges  to  the  Convention  itself ;  honourable  Members  shall  act 
with  these  in  case  of  extremity  :  whereat  they  look  grave  enough. 
Four  of  the  afternoon  is  struck."^  Lepelletier,  making  nothing  by 
messengers,  by  fraternity  or  hat-waving,  bursts  out,  along  the 
Southern  Ouai  Voltaire,  along  streets,  and  passages,  treble-quick, 
in  huge  veritable  onslaught  !  Whereupon,  thou  bronze  Artillery 
Dfficer — ?  "FireT'  say  the  bronze  lips.  Roar  and  again  roar-. 
Moniteur,  Sdance  du  5  Octobre  1795. 


222 


VENDEMIAIRE, 


continual,  volcano-like,  goes  his  great  gun,  in  the  Cul  de  Sac 
Dauphin  against  the  Church  of  Saint-Roch  ;  go  his  great  guns  on 
the  Pont  Royal  ;  go  all  his  great  guns  ; — blow  to  air  some  two 
hundred  men,  mainly  about  the  Church  of  Saint-Roch  !  Lepel- 
letier  cannot  stand  such  horse-play  ;  no  Sectioner  can  stand  it  ; 
the  Forty-thousand  yield  on  all  sides,  scour  towards  covert.  ^Som« 
'  hundred  or  so  of  them  gathered  about  the  Theatre  de  la  Repub- 

*  lique  ;  but,'  says  he,  '  a  few  shells  dislodged  them.  It  was  all 
'  finished  at  six/ 

The  Ship  is  over  the  bar,  then  ;  free  she  bounds  shoreward, — 
amid  shouting  and  vivats  !     Citoyen  Buonaparte  is    ^  named 

*  General  of  the  Interior,  by  acclamation  quelled  Sections  have 
to  disarm  in  such  humour  as  they  may  ;  sacred  right  of  Insurrec- 
tion is  gone  for  ever  !  The  Sieyes  Constitution  can  disembark 
itself,  and  begin  marching.  The  miraculous  Convention  Ship  has 
got  to  land  ;— and  is  there,  shall  we  figuratively  say,  changed,  as 
Epic  Ships  are  wont,  into  a  kind  of  Sea  Nyjnph^  never  to  sail 
more  ;  to  roam  the  waste  Azure,  a  Miracle  in  History  ! 

^  It  is  false,'  says  Napoleon,  *  that  we  fired  first  with  blank 

*  charge  ;  it  had  been  a  waste  of  life  to  do  that.'  Most  false  the 
firing  was  with  sharp  and  sharpest  shot  :  to  all  mefi  it  was  plain 
that  here  was  no  sport  ;  the  rabbets  and  plinths  of  Saint-Roch 
Church  show  splintered  by  it,  to  this  hour. — Singular  :  in  old 
Broglie's  time,  six  years  ago,  this  Whiff  of  Grapeshot  was  pro- 
mised ;  but  it  could  not  be  given  then  ;  could  not  have  profited 
then.  Now,  however,  the  time  is  come  for  it,  and  the  man  ;  and 
behold,  you  have  it  ;  and  the  thing  we  specifically  call  French 
Revolution  is  blown  into  space  by  it,  and  become  a  thing  that 
was  ! — 

Homer's  Epos,  it  is  remarked,  is  like  a  Bas-relief  sculpture  :  it 
does  not  conclude,  but  merely  ceases.  Such,  indeed,  is  the  Epos 
of  Universal  History  itself  Directorates,  Consulates,  Emperor- 
ships, Restorations,  Citizen-Kingships  succeed  this  Business  in  due 
series,  in  due  genesis  one  out  of  the  other.  Nevertheless  the 
First-parent  of  all  these  may  be  said  to  have  gone  to  air  in  the 
way  we  see.  A  Baboeuf  Insurrection,  next  year,  will  die  in  the 
birth  ;  stifled  by  the  Soldiery.  A  Senate,  if  tinged  with  Royalism, 
can  be  purged  by  the  Soldiery  ;  and  an  Eighteenth  of  Fructidor 
transacted  by  the  mere  shew  of  bayonets."^  Nay  Soldiers'  bayonets 
can  be  used  a  posteriori  on  a  Senate,  and  make  it  leap  out  of 
window,--still  bloodless ;  and  produce  an  Eighteenth  of  Brumaire.t 
Such  changes  must  happen  :  but  they  are  managed  by  intriguings, 
caballings,  and  then  by  orderly  word  of  command  ;  almost  like 
mere  changes  of  Ministry.  Not  in  general  by  sacred  right  of 
Insurrection,  but  by  milder  methods  growing  ever  milder,  shall  the 
Events  of  French  Ilistory  be  henceforth  brought  to  pass. 

It  is  admitted  that  this  Directorate,  which  owned,  at  its  starting, 
these  three  things,  nn  *  old  table,  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  an  ink 

*  Mofiiteur,  du  5  Septenibre  1797. 

t  9th  November  1799  {Choix  des  Rapports,  xvii.  1-96). 


THE  WHIFF  OF  GRAPES  HOT, 


223 


*  bottle/  and  no  visible  money  or  arrangement  whatever,*  did 
wonders  :  that  France,  since  the  Reign  of  Terror  hushed  itself, 
has  been  a  new  France,  awakened  like  a  giant  out  of  torpor  ;  and 
has  gone  on,  in  the  Internal  Life  of  it,  with  continual  progress. 
As  for  the  External  form  and  forms  of  Life, — what  can  we  say 
except  that  out  of  the  Eater  there  comes  Strength  ;  out  of  the  Un- 
wise there  comes  7iot  Wisdom  !  Shams  are  burnt  up  ;  nay,  what 
as  yet  is  the  peculiarity  of  France,  the  very  Cant  of  them  is  burnt 
«jp.  The  new  Realities  are  not  yet  come  :  ah  no,  only  Phantasms, 
Paper  models,  tentative  Prefigurements  of  such  !  In  France  there 
are  now  Four  Million  Landed  Properties  ;  that  black  portent  of  an 
Agrarian  Law  is  as  it  were  realised  I  What  is  still  stranger,  we 
understand  all  Frenchmen  have  '  the  right  of  duel  the  Hackney- 
coachman  with  the  Peer,  if  insult  be  given  :  such  is  the  law  of 
Public  Opinion.  Equality  at  least  in  death  !  The  Form  of  Govern- 
ment is  by  Citizen  King,  frequently  shot  at,  not  yet  shot. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  has  it  not  been  fulfilled  what  was  pro- 
phesied, ex-postjacto  indeed,  by  the  Archquack  Cagliostro,'  or 
another  ?  He,  as  he  looked  in  rapt  vision  and  amazement  into 
these  things,  thus  spake  :t  '  Ha  1  What  is  this  ?  Angels,  Uriel, 
'  Anachiel,  and  the  other  Five  ;  Pentagon  of  Rejuvenescence  ; 
'  Power  that  destroyed  Original  Sin  ;  Earth,  Heaven,  and  thou 
'  Outer  Limbo,  which  men  name  Hell  !    Does  the  Empire  of 

*  Imposture  waver  t  Burst  there,  in  starry  sheen  updarting,  Light- 
^  rays  from  out  its  dark  foundations  ;  as  it  rocks  and  heaves,  not  in 

*  travail-throes,  but  in  death-throes  1    Yea,  Light-rays,  piercing, 

*  clear,  that  salute  the  Heavens,— lo,  they  kindle  it ;  their  starry 

*  clearness  becomes  as  red  Hellfire  ! 

'  Imposture  is  burnt  up  :  one  Red-sea  of  Fire,  wild-billowing 

*  enwraps  the  World  ;  with  its  fire-tongue,  licks  at  the  very  Stars. 

*  Thrones  are  hurled  into  it,  and  Dubois  Mitres,  and  Prebendal 
*•  Stalls  that  drop  fatness,  and — ha!    what  see  I      all  the  Gigs  of 

*  Creation  ;  all,  all  !   Wo  is  me  !   Never  since  PharaolVs  Chariots, 

*  in  the  Red-sea  of  water,  was  there  wreck  of  Wheel- vehicles  like 

*  this  in  the  Sea  of  Fire.  Desolate,  as  ashes,  as  gases,  shall  they 
'  wander  in  the  wind.    Higher,  higher  yet  flames  the  Fire-Sea  ; 

*  crackling  with  new  dislocated  timber ;  hissing  with  leather  and 
^  prunella.  The  metal  Images  are  molten  ;  the  marble  Images 
'  become  mortar-hme  ;  the  stone  Mountains  sulkily  explode, 
'  Respectability,  with  all  her  collected  Gigs  inflamed  for  funeral 
'  pyre,  wailing,  leaves  the  earth  :  not  to  return  save  under  new 

*  Avatar.    Imposture,  how  it  burns,  through  generations  :  how  it 
is  burnt  up  ;  lor  a  time.    The  World  is  black  ashes  ;  which,  ah. 

*  when  will  they  grow  green  ?   The  Images  all  run  into  amorphous 

*  Corinthian  brass  ;  all  Dwellings  of  men  destroyed  ;   the  very 

*  mountains  peeled  and  riven,  the  valleys  black  and  dead  :  it  is  an 

^  empty  World  !   Wo  to  them  that  shall  be  born  then  !  A  King, 

^  a  Queen  (ah  me  !)  were  hurled  in  ;  did  rustle  once  ;  flew  aloft, 
'  crackling,  like  paper-scroll.    Iscariot  Egalite  was  hurled  in  ;  thoif 

*  Bailleul,  Examen  critique  des  Considerations  de  Mad.  de  Stael,  ii.  275. 
t  Diamond.  Necklace,  p.  35. 


224 


*  grim  De  Laimay,  with  thy  grim  Bastille  ;  whole  kindreds  and 

*  peoples  ;  five  millions  of  mutually  destroying  Men.  For  it  is  the 
'  End  of  the  Dominion  of  Imposture  (which  is  Darkness  and 
'  opaque  Firedamp)  ;  and  the  burning  up,  with  unquenchable  fire, 
'  of  all  the  Gigs  that  are  in  the  Earth.'  This  Prophec)-,  we  say 
has  it  not  been  fulfilled,  is  it  not  fulfilling  1 

And  so  here,  O  Reader,  has  the  time  come  for  us  two  to  part. 
Toilsome  was  our  journeying  together  ;  not  without  offence  ;  but 
it  is  done.  To  me  thou  wert  as  a  beloved  shade,  the  disembodied 
or  not  yet  embodied  spirit  of  a  Brother.  To  thee  I  v/as  but  as  a 
Voice.  Yet  was  our  relation  a  kind  of  sacred  one ;  doubt  not  that  \ 
Whatsoever  once  sacred  things  become  hollow  jargons,  yet  while 
the  Voice  of  Man  speaks  with  Man,  hast  thou  not  there  the  living 
fountain  out  of  which  all  sacrednesses  sprang,  and  will  yet  spring^ 
Man,  by  the  nature  of  him,  is  definable  as  '  an  incarnated  Word/ 
111  stands  it  with  me  if  I  have  spoken  falsely  :  thine  also  it  was  to 
bear  truly.  Farewell, 


ME  Em 


INDEX. 


Abba  YE  massacres,  iii.  22 ;  Jourg- 
niac,  Sicard,  and  Maton's  account 
of,  25-30. 

Acceptation,  grande,  by  Louis  XVI., 

ii.  137-142. 

Agoust,  Captain  d',  seizes  two  Parle- 
menteers,  i.  81, 

AiguiUon,  d',  at  Quiberon,  i.  12  ;  ac- 
count of,  12;  in  favour,  13;  at  death 
of  Louis  XV.,  26. 

A  intrigues,  Count  d',  i.  91. 

Altar  of  Fatherland  in  Champ-de- 
Mars,  ii.  42;  scene  at,  135;  chris- 
tening at,  175. 

Ainiral,  assassin,  iii.  184;  guillotined, 

ise. 

Anglas,  Boissy  d',  President,  First  of 

Prairial,  iii.  214. 
Angouleme,  Duchesse  d',  parts  from 

her  father,  iii.  77. 
Angremont,  Collenot  d',  guillotined, 

iii.  10. 

Antoinette,  Marie,  splendour  of,  i. 
36;  applauded,  38;  compromised 
by  Diamond  Necklace,  49;  griefs 
of,  75,  iii;  weeps,  unpopular, 
162 ;  at  Dinner  of  Guards,  178 ; 
courage  of,  197 ;  Fifth  October,  at 
Versailles,  200;  shows  herself  to 
people,  203;  and  Louis  at  Tuile- 
ries,  ii.  6;  and  the  Lorrainer,  45; 
and  Mirabeau,  88,  97  ;  previous  to 
flight,  III  ;  flight  from  Tuileries, 
113  ;  captured,  127  ;  and  Barnave, 
132;  Coblentz  intrigues,  156;  and 
Lamotte 's  Memoires,  166 ;  during 
Twentieth  June,  182;  during  Tenth 
August,  203 ;  as  captive,  210  ;  and 
Princess  de  Lamballe,  iii.  24;  in 
Temple  Prison,  58;  parting  scene 
with  King,  77 ;  to  the  Conciergerie, 
135  ;  trial  of,  136  ;  guillotined,"  138. 

Argonne  Forest,  occupied  by  Du- 
mouriez,  iii.  18 ;  Brunswick  at,  38. 

Aristocrats,  officers  in  French  army, 

ii.  55 ;  number  in  Paris,  iii.  10  ; 
seized,  14  ;  condition  in  1794,  170. 

Aries,  state  of,  ii.  152. 

Arms,  smiths  making,  i.  133,   134 ; 

search  for,  133;  at  Charleville,  135  ; 

manufacture,  ii.  96,  196  ;  in  1794, 

iii.  164;  scarcity  in  1792,  11  ;  Dan- 
ton's  search  for,  13. 

Anny,  French,  after  Bastille,  ii.  53-58 ; 
^'^cered  by       '>  •  -.ats,  55 ;  \o  be 
VOL.  Ill 


disbanded,  58;  demands  arrearr., 
59,  63  ;  general  mutiny  of,  57  ;  out- 
break of,  59,  63,  64 ;  Nanci  mili- 
tary executions,  72;  Royalists  leave, 
77 ;  state  of,  163,  176 ;  iii.  16,  39 ; 
in  want,  56  ;  recruited,  160,  161  ; 
Revolutionary,  05,  133  ;  fourteen 
armies  on  foot,  168. 

Arras,  guillotine  at,  iii.  155. 

Arrests  in  August  1792,  iii.  14. 

Arsenal,  attempted  destruction  of,  i. 
138. 

Artois,  M.  d',  ways  of,  i.  33;  un- 
popularity of,  70  ;  memorial  by,  92  ; 
flies,  148 ;  at  Coblentz,  ii.  160 ;  re- 
fusal to  return,  166. 

Assemblies,  Primary  and  Secondary, 

i.  94. 

Assembly,  National,  Third  Estate 
becomes,  i.  119;  to  be  extruded, 
120 ;  stands  grouped  ni  the  rain, 
121 ;  occupies  Tennis-Court,  121 ; 
scene  there,  121  ;  joined  by  clergy, 
121  ;  doings  on  King's  speech,  123  ; 
ratified  by  Knig,  124 ;  cannon 
pointed  at,  125  ;  regrets  Necker, 
136  ;  after  Bastille,  136. 

Assembly,  Constituent,  National,  be- 
comes, i.  -57  ;  pedantic.  Irregular 
Verbs,  156  ;  what  it  can  do,  157 ; 
Night  of  Pentecost,  159 ;  Left  and 
Right  side,  160;  raises  money,  157; 
on  the  Veto,  157;  Fifth  October, 
women,  187;  in  Paris  Riding-Hall, 

ii.  8  ;  on  deficit,  assigiiats,  10  ;  on 
clergy,  10  :  and  riot,  16  ;  prepares 
for  Louis's  visit,  28  ;  on  P^ederation, 
38  ;  Anacharsis  Clootz,  38  ;  eldest 
of  men,  41  ;  on  Franklin's  death, 
49;  on  state  of  army,  60  ;  thanks 
Bouille,  71  ;  on  Nanci  affair,  72  ;  on 
Emigrants,  93  ;  on  death  of  Mira- 
beau, loi  ;  on  escape  of  King,  116  ; 
after  capture  of  King,  133  ;  com- 
pletes Constitution,  137  ;  dissolves 
itself.  140;  what  it  has  done,  141. 

Assembly,  Legislative,  First  French 
Parliament,  ii  142-153;  book  of 
law,  dispute  with  King,  146  ;  Baiser 
de  Lamourette,  147  ;  High  Court, 
^,65  ;  decrees  vetoed,  165  ;  scenes  in, 
166  ;  reprimands  King's  ministers, 
168  ;  declares  war,  174  ;  declares 
France  in  danger,  187  ;  reinstates 
Petion,  190 ;  nonplused.  Lafavette, 


226 


INDEX. 


197,  198,  202  ;  King  and  Swiss, 
August  Tenth,  204-208  ;  becoming 
defunct, 211  ;  iii.  7;  September  mas- 
sacres, 30  ;  dissolved,  43. 

Assignats,  origin  of,  ii.  10  ;  false 
Royalist,  161  ;  forgers  of,  iii.  23  ; 
coach-fare  in,  209. 

Aubriot,  Sieur,  after  King's  'capture, 
ii.  129. 

Aubry,  Colonel,  at  Jales,  ii.  164. 
Auch,  M.  Martin  d',  in  Versailles 

Court,  i.  122. 
Austria  quarrels  with  France,  ii.  160. 
Austrian  Committee,  at  Tuileries,  ii. 

158. 

Austrian  Army,  invades  France,  iii. 
12;  defeated  at  Jemappes,  61  ; 
Dumouriez  escapes  to,  103  ;  re- 
pulsed, Watigny,  166. 

Avignon,  Union  of,  ii.  140  ;  described, 
148  ;  state  of,  149 ;  riot  in  church 
at,  149  ;  occupied  by  Jourdan,  150  ; 
massacre  at,  150. 

Bachaumont,  his  thirty  volumes,  i. 
48. 

Bailie,  involuntary  epigram  of,  ii. 
169, 

Bailly,  Astronomer,  account  of,  i. 
109  ;  President  of  National  Assem- 
bly, 120;  Mayor  of  Paris,  147;  re- 
ceives Louis  in  Paris,  148  ;  and  Paris 
Parlement,  ii.  10  ;  on  Petition  for 
Deposition,  135;  dechne  of,  168  ; 
in  prison,  iii.  136  ;  at  Queen's  trial, 
168  ;  guillotined  cruelly,  148. 

Bakers',  French  in  tail  at,  i.  168  ;  ii. 
81 ;  iii,  58. 

Barbaroux  and  Marat,  ii.  15  ;  Mar- 
seilles Deputy,  153 ;  and  the  Ro- 
lands, 153  ;  on  Map  of  France,  179  ; 
demand  of,  to  Marseilles,  179 ; 
meets  Marseillese,  195  ;  in  National 
Convention,  iii.  37  ;  against  Robes- 
pierre, 54 ;  cannot  be  heard,  64  ; 
the  Girondins  declining,  92  ;  arrest- 
ed, 113;  and  Charlotte  Corday,  118  ; 
retreats  to  Bourdeaux,  124  \  fare- 
well of,  140  ;  shoots  himself,  141. 

Bardy,  Abbd,  massacred,  iii.  26. 

Barentin,  Keeper  of  Seals,  i.  119. 

fiarnave,  at  Grenoble,  i.  82  ;  member 
of  Assembly,  108  ;  one  of  a  trio, 
i6o;  Jacobin,  25 ;  duel  withCazales, 
83  ;  escorts  theKing  fromVarennes, 
131  ;  conciliates  Queen,  132  ;  be- 
comes (Constitutional,  133"';  retires 
to  (irenoble,  172 ;  treason,  in  pri- 
son, iii.  55;  guillotined,  149, 

Bfirras,  Paul-Francois,  in  National 
(Convention,  iii.  38  ;  commands  m 
J  hermidor,  195  ;  appoints  Napo- 
Ip^'D  in  Venrlt'niiaire,  220. 

i.    1;  i  ;  Kinju 


trial,  iii.  67 ;  peace-maker,  92 ;  levy 
in  mass,  134  ;  plot,  191  ;  banished, 
210. 

Bartholomew  massacre,  iii.  33. 

Bastille,  Linguet's  Book  on,  i.  48  ; 
meaning  of,  100  ;  shots  fired  at,  137  ; 
summoned  by  insurgents,  139  ;  be- 
sieged, 140  ;  capitulates,  143  ;  treat- 
ment of  captured,  144 ;  C^ueret- 
Demery,i45  ;  demolished,  key  sent 
to  Washington,  152  ;  Heroes,  169. 

Bazire,  of  Mountain,  ii.  17  ;  impri- 
soned, iii.  163. 

Beam,  riot  at,  i.  83. 

Beauharnais  in  Champ-de-Mars,  ii. 
44  ;  Josephine,  imprisoned, iii.  145  ; 
and  Napoleon,  at  La  Cabarns's, 
204. 

Beaumarchais,  Caron,  his  lawsuit,  i. 

40  ;  his  '  Manage  de  Figaro,'  51  ; 

commissions  arms  from  Holland, 

iii.  II  ;  his  distress,  15. 
Beaumont,  Archbishop,  notice  of,  i. 

21. 

Beaurepaire,   Governor  of  Verdun, 

shoots  himself,  iii,  17. 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  naturalised,  iii.  8. 
Berline,  towards  Varennes,  ii.  119- 

122. 

Berthier,    Intendant,   fled,   i.    148  ; 

arrested  and  massacred,  151. 
Berthier,  (Jommandant,  at  Versailles, 
ii.  91. 

Besenval,  Baron,  Commandant  of 
Paris,  on  French  Finance,  i.  54 ; 
in  riot  of  Rue  St.  Antoine,  100 ;  on 
corruption  of  Guards,  126;  at 
Champ-de  -  Mars,  136;  apparition 
to,  137;  decamps,  146;  and  Louis 
XVL,  161. 

Bethune,  riot  at,  i.  120. 

Beurnonville,  with  Dumouriez,  impri- 
soned, iii.  103. 

Billaud-Varennes,  Jacobin,  ii.  169 ; 
cruel,  iii.  21  ;  at  massacres,  Sept. 
1792,  31;  in  Salut  Committee,^6i  ; 
and  Robespierre's  Etre  Supreme, 
186;  accuses  Robespierre,  194  ;  ac- 
cused, 208  ;  banished,  210. 

Blanc,  Le,  landlord  at  Varennes,  ii. 
127  ;  escape  of  family,  iii.  17. 

Blood,  baths  of.  i.  18. 

Bonchamps,  in  La  Vendue  War,  iii. 
12. 

Bonnemdre,  Aubin,  at  Siege  of  Bas- 
tille, i.  142. 

Bouilld,  at  Metz,  ii.  52  ;  account  of ; 
52;  character  of,  70;  troops  mutin- 
ous, 58  ;  and  Salm  regiment,  59 ; 
intrepidit|  of,  59 ;  marches  on 
^^anci,  67  ;  quells  Nanci  mutineers, 
I  Mirabeau's  funeral,  102; 
^'xpects  rn<;itiv(^  King,  ;  w  nihl 
A'hncattt  Kii)«r.  I  :?o ;  emigr  iM'      ,  . 


INDE>c, 


Bouill^,  Junior,  asleep  at  Varcnnes, 

ii.  126  ;  flies  to  father,  129. 
Bourdeaux,  priests  hanged  at.ii.  -'^^  ; 

for  Girondisiii,  iii.  108. 

Boyer,  duellist,  ii.  85. 

Brest,  sailors  revolt,  ii.  72  ;  state  of, 
in  1791,  149;  Feder^s  in  Paris, 194; 
in  1793,  i"-  149- 

Breteuil,  Home-Secretary,  i.  78. 

Breton  Club,  germ  of  Jacobins,  i.  82. 

Bretons,  deputations  of,  i.  82  ;  Giron- 
dins,  iii.  124. 

Br^ze,  Marquis  de,  his  mode  of  usher- 
ing, i.  loi;  and  National  Assembly, 
120  ;  extraordinary  etiquette,  123. 

Brienne,   Lomenie,  anti-protestant, 

i.  35  ;  in  Notables,  61 ;  incapacity 
of,  65 ;  failure  of,  68  ;  arrests  Paris 
Parlement,  68  ;  secret  scheme,  28  ; 
scheme  discovered,  79  ;  arrests  two 
Parlementeers,  79  ;  bewildered,  83  ; 
desperate  shifts  by,  84 ;  wishes  for 
Necker,  85 ;  dismissed,  and  pro- 
vided for,  85  ;  his  effigy  burnt,  85. 

Brissac,  Duke  de,  commands  Consti- 
tutional Guard,  ii.  137  ;  disbanded, 
167. 

Brissot,  edits  '  Moniteur,'  i.  103 ; 
friend  of  Blacks,  ii.  12 ;  in  First 
Parliament,  143 ;  plans  in  1792, 
163 ;  active  in  Assembly,  167  ;  in 
Jacobins,  171 ;  at  Roland's,  172 ; 
pelted  in  Assembly,  190 ;  arrested, 

iii.  113  ;  trial  of,  139 ;  guU^o tired, 
140. 

Brittany,  disturbances  in,  i.  19. 
Broglie,   Marshal,   against  Plenar? 

Court,  i.  82  ;  in  command,  117 ; 

in  office,  130  ;  dismissed,  147. 
Brunswick,  Duke,  marches  on  France, 

ii.  176  (iii.  10)  ;  advances.  Procla- 
mation, 191  ;  at  Verdun,  iii.  17  ;  at 
Argonne,  38  ;  retreats,  44. 

Biiffon,  Mme.  de,  and  Duke  d'Or- 
.    16ans,  i.  74 ;  at  d'Orleans'  execu- 
tion, iii.  146. 
Buttafuoco,  Napoleon's  letter  to,  iio 

Buzot,  in  National  Convention,  iii. 
37,  107;  arrested,  113  ;  retreats  to 
Bourdeaux,  125  ;  end  of,  140. 

Cabanis,  Physician  to  Mirabeau,  ii. 
100. 

■  Cabanis,  Mile.,  andTallien,  iii.  150; 

imprisoned,  190. 
Caen,  Girondins  at,  iii.  116. 
Calendar,    Romme's  new,  iii.  12^- 

131  ;  comparative  ground-scheme 

of,  131. 

Calonne,  M,  de,  Financier,  character 
of,  i.  56  ;  suavity  and  «,'enius  of, 
57  ;  his  difficulties,  59  ;  dismissed, 
62;  marriage  and  aftjr-courtje,  6=. 


Calvados,  for  Girondism,  iii.  lof, 
Camus,  Archivist,  ii.   146 ;  in  iv^^r 

tional   Convention,  iii.    45;  wf':M 

Dumouriez,  imprisoned,  103. 
Cannon,  Siamese,  i.   133 ;  woodeHp 

iii.  II ;  fever,  Goethe  on,  41. 
Carmagnole,  costume,  what,  iii.  150; 

dances  in  Convention,  157. 
Carnot,  Hippolyte,  notice  of,  ii,  144; 

plan  for  Toulon,  iii.  153  ;  discovery 

in  Robespierre's  pocket,  191. 
Carpentras,    against    Avignon,  ii, 

149. 

Carra,  on  plots  for  King's  flight,  ii, 
89 ;  in  National  Convention,  iii, 
37. 

Carrier,  a  Revolutionist,  ii.  17 ;  in 
National  Assembly,  iii.  37  ;  Nantes 
noyades,  150;  guillotined,  211. 

Cartaux,  General,  fights  Girondins, 
lii.  122  ;  at  Toulon,  153, 

Castries,  Duke  de,  duel  with  Lameth, 
ii.  84. 

Cathelineau,  of  La  Vendee,  ii.  153. 
Cavaignac,  Convention  Representa- 
tive, 165. 

Cazales,  Royalist,  i.  108  ;  in  Consti- 
tuent Assembly,  160. 
Cazotte, author  of  '  DiableAmoureux,' 

ii.  173 ;  seized,  iii.  14 ;  saved  for  a 
time  by  his  daughter,  ^14. 

Cercle,  Social,  of  Fauchet,  ii.  80. 

Cerutti,  his  funeral  oration  on  Mira- 
beau, ii.  102. 

Cevennes,  revolt  of,  ii.  164. 

Chabot,  of  Mountain,  ii.  145  ;  against 
Kings,  iii.  7  ;  imprisoned,  163. 

Chabray,  Louison,  at  Versailles,  Oc- 
tober Fifth,  i.  191. 

Chalier,  Jacobin,  Lyons,  iii.  89  ;  exe« 
cuted,  122  ;  body  raised,  151. 

Chambon,  Dr.,  Mayor  of  Paris,  iii. 
57 ;  retires,  71. 

Chamfort,  Cynic,  i.  91 ;  arrested, 
suicide,  iii.  183, 

Champ-de-Mars,  Federation,  ii.  36; 
preparations  for,  38 ;  accelerated 
by  patriots,  41 ;  anecdotes  of,  43  ; 
Federation-scene  at,  46-51;  funeral- 
service,  Nanci,  71  ;  riot,  Patriot 
petition,  1791,  135;  new  Federa- 
tion, 1792,  188. 

Champs  Elysees,  Menads  at,  i.  184; 
festivities  in,  ii.  49. 

Chantilly  Palace,  a  prison,  iii.  149. 

Chapt-Rastignac,Abbe  de.massacred, 

iii.  26. 

Charenton,  Marseillese  at,  ii.  196. 
Charles  L,  Trial  of,  sold  in  Paris,  iii. 

59- 

('harleville  Artillery,  i.  133. 
C^hartres,  grain-riot  at,  iii.  58. 
CharGaubriands   in  French  Rev^p^ 
fion,  iii,,i§2. 


228 


TNDEX. 


1 


Chatelet,  Achille  de,  advises  Repub- 
lic, ii.  117. 

Chatillon-sur-Sevre,  insurrection  at, 
iii.  12. 

Ciiaumette,  notice  of,  ii.  t6  (iii.  162); 
signs  petition,  135 ;  in  governing 
committee,  iii.  8  ;  at  King's  trial, 
67  ;  demands  constitution,  i.22  ;  ar- 
rest and  death  of,  180. 

Chauvelin,  Marquis  de,  in  London, 

ii.  141;  dismissed,  iii.  81. 
Chenaye,  Baudin  de  la,  massacred, 

iii.  27. 

Chenier,  Poet,  and  Mile.  Theroigne, 

ii.  171. 

Chepy,  at  La  Force  in  September, 

iii.  27. 

Choiseul,  Duke,  why  dismissed,  i.  12. 
Choiseul,  Colonel  Duke,  assists  Louis's 

flight,  ii.  112  ;  too  late  at  Varennes, 

128. 

Choisi,  General,  at  Avignon,  ii.  151. 
Church,  spiritual  guidance,  i.  16  ;  of 

Rome,  decay  of,  17. 
Citizens,  French,  demeanour  of,  ii. 

22. 

Clairfait,  Commander  of  Austrians, 
iii.  12. 

Claviere,  edits  '  Moniteur,'  i.  103  ; 
account  of,  ii.  17  ;  Finance  Mini- 
ster, 172,  210;  arrested,  iii.  113; 
suicide  of,  149, 

Clergy,  French,  in  States-General,  i. 
in;  conciliators  of  orders,  116; 
joins  Third  Estate,  117;  lands,  na- 
tional, ii.  10;  power  of,  &c.,  11. 

Clermont,  flight  of  King  through,  ii. 
124;  Prussians  near,  iii.  17. 

Clery,  on  Louis  s  last  scene,  iii.  77. 

Clootz,  Anacharsis,  Baron  de,  account 
of,  ii.  20 ;  disparagement  of,  40 ; 
in  National  Convention,  iii.  37 ; 
universal  republic  of,  56  ;  on  nuUity 
of  religion,  157 ;  purged  from  the 
Jacobins,.  174  ;  guillotined,  176. 

Clovis,  in  the  Champ-de-Mars,  i.  17. 

Club,  Electoral,  at  Paris,  i.  129  ;  be- 
comes Provisional  Municipality, 
132 ;  permanent,  137. 

Clugny,  M.,  as  Finance  Minister,  i. 
42. 

Coblentz,  Emigrants  at,  ii.  153. 
Cobourg  and  f)umouriez,  iii.^  102. 
Cockades,  green, i.  130;  tricolor,  133  ; 

black,  176;  national,  trampled,  178  ; 

white,  178. 
Coffmhal,  Judge,  delivers  Ilenriol,  iii. 
,  ^.95- 

Coigny,  Duke  de,  a  sinecurist,  i.  -,6. 

Commissioners,  Convention,  like 
Kings,  iii.  163. 

Committee  of  Defence,  ii.  193  (iii. 
icq)  ;  Central,  193  ;  of  Watchful- 
ness, of  IHiblic  Salvation,  iii.  H: 


C.'ircular  of,  33  ;  of  theConsttfeutioBi^ 
51  ;  Revolutionary,  99. 
Commune,  Council-General  of  the, 

ii.  211 ;  Sovereign  of  France,  iii.  7  ; 
enlisting,  8. 

Conde,  Prince  de,  attends  Louis  XV., 

i.  22  ;  departure  of.  148. 
Conde,  Town,  surrender  of,  iii.  127. 
Condorcet, Marquis,  edits  'Moniteur,' 

i.  103  ;  Girondist,  ii.  144  ;  prepares 
Address,  167;  on  Robespierre,  iii. 
92  ;  death  of,  183. 

Constitution,  French,  completed,  ii. 
137-140 ;  will  not  march,  147  ; 
burst  in  pieces,  208  ;  new,  of  1793, 

iii.  127. 

Convention,  National,  in  what  case 
to  be  summoned,  ii.  139;  demand- 
ed by  some,  166  ;  determined  on, 
210 ;  Deputies  elected,  iii.  8  ;  con< 
stituted,  43  ;  motions  in.  43  ;  worl{ 
to  be  done,  50 ;  hated,  politeness, 
effervescence  of,  52  ;  on  Septembei 
Massacres,  53  ;  guard  for,  54  ;  trv 
the  King,  68  ;  debate  on  trial,  69'; 
invite  to  revolt,  70 ;  condemn 
Louis,  72-76;  armed  Girondins  in 
98  ;  power  of,  loi ;  removes  to 
Tuileries,  107  ;  besieged,  June  2nd 
1793,  extinction  of  Girondins,  113  ; 
Jacobins  and,  126;  on  forfeited  pro- 
perty, 150  ;  Carmagnole,  Goddess  ol 
Reason,  159  ;  Representatives,  163  ; 
at  Feast  of  Etre  Supreme,  186 ;  end 
of  Robespierre,  92  ;  retrospect  of, 
211  -214;  Feraud,  Germinal, 
Prairial,  213-215 ;  termination,  its 
successor,  219. 

Corday,  Cliarlotte,  account  of,  iii. 
118;  in  Paris,  118;  assassinates 
Marat,  119;  examined.,  120;  exe- 
cuted, 121. 

Cordeliers,  Club,  ii.  26  ;  Hebert  in, 
iii.  174. 

Court,  Chevalier  de,  ii.  94. 

Couthon,  of  Mountain,  in  Legislative. 

ii.  145 ;  in  National  Convention, 

iii.  43;  at  Lyons,  152;  in  Salut 
Committee,  162 ;  his  question  in 
Jacobins,  175 ;  decree  of.  186  ; 
arrest  and  execution,  195,  198. 

Covenant,  Scotch,  ii.  32,36;  French, 
^  32,  3^- 

Crussol,  Marquise  de,  executed,  iii. 
182. 

Cuissa,  massacre  of,  at  La  Force,  iii. 
26. 

('us.sy,    Girondin,    retreats  to  Bour 

(J(iau\,  iii.  124. 
('u:;tine,  General,  takes  Mentz,  iii. 

.10;  retreats,  91;  censured,  117; 

guillotined,   J35 ;    his  son  guillo 

tiu(xl, 
•'.■;)  ,  ,iM-I  mi.t;,!  ,,  iii. 


INDEX. 


229 


Damas,  Colonel  Comte  de,  at  Cler- 
mont, ii.  125 ;  at  Varennes,  129. 

Dampierre,  General,  killed,  iii.  117. 

Dampmartin,  Captain,  at  riot  in  Rue 
St.  Antoine,  i.  99 ;  on  condition  of 
army,  ii.  56 ;  of  "*ate  of  France, 
78  ;  at  Avignor.  .jx ;  on  Maiseil- 
lese,  188. 

Dandoins, Captain,  F  light  to  Varennes, 

ii.  121-124. 
Dan  ton,  notice  of,  i.  104  f  Pre^' dent 
of  Cordeliers,  171  ;  ii.  i'  '  £^nd 
Marat,  21  ;  served  with  writs,  21; 
in  Cordeliers  Club,  26;  elected 
Councillor,  97  ;  Mirabeau  of  Sans- 
culottes, 144 ;  in  Jacobins,  171  ; 
for  Deposition,  187  ;  of  Committee, 
August  Tenth,  193 ;  Minister  of 
Justice,  210 ;  lii.  9  ;  after  Septem- 
ber massacre,  35;  after  Jemappes, 
61  ;  and  Robespierre, 63  ;  in  Nether- 
lands, 66  ;  at  King's  trial,  73  ;  on 
war,  81  ;  rebukes  Marat,  91 ;  peace- 
maker, 91 ;  and  Dumouriez,  98  ; 
in  Salut  Committee,  :  100  ;  breaks 
with  Girondins,  105;  his  law  of 
Forty  sous,  133 ;  and  RevoUition- 
ary  Government,  161  ;  and  Paris 
Municipality,  162  ;  retires  to  Arcis, 
175 ;  and  Robespierre,  177  ;  arrest- 
ed, tried,  and  guillotined,  177-180. 
David,  Painter,  in  National  Conven- 
tion, iii.  37  ;  works  by,  127 ;  hem- 
lock with  Robespierre,  193. 
Democracy,  on  Bunker  Hill,  i.  15  ; 

spread  of,  in  France,  41,  93. 
Departments,  France  divided  into,  ii.  • 
10. 

Des^ze,  Pleader  for  Louis,  iii.  68. 
Deshuttes  massacred.  Fifth  October, 
i.  204. 

Desilles,  Captain,  in  Nanci,  ii.  69. 
Deslons,  Captain,  at  Varennes,  ii. 

129;  would   liberate    the  King, 

130. 

Desmoulins,  Camille,  notice  of,  i.  104; 
in  arms  at  Cafe  de  Foy,  130 ;  on 
Insurrection  of  Women,  182;  in 
Cordeliers  Club,  ii.  26  ;  and  Brissot, 
171;  in  National  Convention,  iii. 
37;  on  Sansculotnsm,  loi;  on  plots, 
109  ;  suspect,  174 ;  for  a  committee 
of  mercy,  175  ;  ridicules  law  of  the 
•uispect,  176 ;  his  journal,  176 ; 
/rial  of,  179 ;  guillotined,  180 ; 
widow  guillotined,  180. 

Diderot,  prisoner  in  Vincennes,  ii.  92. 

Dinners,  defined,  i.  178. 

Doppet,  General,  at  Lyons,  iii.  153. 

Drouet,  Jean  B.,  notice  of,  ii.  122; 
discovers  Royalty  in  flight,  123 ; 
raises  Varennes,  126 ;  blocks  the 
bridge,  127  ;  defends  his  prize,  128  ; 
WWardOd,  140;  to  b»  in. Conven- 


tion, iii.  17 ;  captured   by  Aus- 
trians,  166. 
Dubarry,  Dame,  and  Louis  XV.,  i 
12 ;  flight  of,  25  ;  imprisoned,  iii 
145- 

Dubois  Crance  bombards  and  cap 

tures  Lyons,  iii.  132. 
Duchatel  votes,  wrapped  in  blanketr. 

iii.  75  ;  at  Caen,  116. 
Ducos,  Girondin,  ii.  144. 
Dugommier,  General,  at  Toulon,  iii. 

^53.  165. 

Duhamel,  killed  by  Marseillese,  li. 
196. 

Dumont,  on  Mirabeau,  i.  174 ;  ii.  99- 
Dumouriez,  notice  by,  i.  12 ;  account 
of  him,  ii.  218;  in  Brittany,  no  ;  at 
Nantes,  ii.  18  ;  in  La  Vendee,  153  ; 
sent  for  to  Paris,  163;  Foreign 
Minister,  172;  dismissed,  to  Army, 
178  ;  disobeys  Liickner,  187  ;  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, 212  ;  his  army, 
iii.  16;  Council  of  War,  18;  seizes 
Argonne  Forest,  18;  Grand  Pre, 
39  ;  and  mutineers,  39  ;  and  Marat 
in  Paris,  47 ;  to  Netherlands,  48 ; 
at  Jemappes,  61  ;  in  Paris,  72 ; 
discontented,  80 ;  retreats,  93  ; 
beaten,  98;  will  join  the  enemy, 
102  ;  arrests  his  arresters,  103; 
escapes  to  Austrians,  104. 
Dupont,  Deputy,  Atheist,  iii.  70. 
Duport,  Adrien,  in  Paris  Parlement, 

i.  66  ;  in  Constituent  Assembly,  one 
of  a  trio,  160;  law-reformer,  ii.  8. 

Duportail,  in  office,  ii.  89. 

Durosoy,  Royahst,  guillotined,  iii.  10. 

Dusaulx,  M.,  on  taking  of  Baf^ille,  i 

153  ;  notice  of,  iii.  30. 
Dutertre,  in  office,  ii.  89. 

Edge  worth,  Abbe,  attends  Louis,  iii. 
77  ;  at  execution  of  Louis,  79. 

Eglantine,  Fabre  d',  in  National  Con- 
vention, iii.  37 ;  assists  in  New 
Calendar,  129;  imprisoned,  174. 

Elie,  Capt.,  at  Siege  of  Bastille,  1. 
142  ;  after  victory,  144. 

EHzabeth,  Princess,  flight  toVarennes, 

ii.  115  ;  August  ioth,205;  in  Temple. 
Prison,  iii.  58  ;  guillotined,  182 

England  declares  war  on  France, 

81,  9^  ;  captures  Toulon,  131. 
Enraged  Club,  the,  i.  85. 
Equahtv,  reign  of,  iii.  n. 
Escuyef,  Patriot  1',  at  Avignc.i.  .1, 

150.  -  . 

Espremenil, Duval  d*.  notice  of,  1.  66  t 
patriot,  speaker  in  Paris  Parleme i... 
68;  with  crucifix,  76;  discovers 
Brienne's  plot,  78;  arrest  and 
speech  of,  79-81  ;  turncoat,  no; 
ia  Constituent  Assembly,  160; 
'--ifen  by  iKjpulace,  ii.  95  ;  S^iU©- 


230 


INDEX. 


tined,  iii.  i8i ;  widow  guillotined, 
187. 

Estaing,  Count  d',  notice  of,  i.  176 ; 
National  Colonel,  188 ;  Royalist, 
191 ;  at  Queen's  Trial,  iii.  137. 

Estate,  Fourth,  of  Editors,  i.  170. 

Etoile,  beginning  of  Federation  at  ii. 
33- 

Famine,  in  France,  i.  33 ;  in  1788- 
1792,  84  ;  Louis  and  Assembly  try 
to  relieve,  194;  ii.  81 ;  in  1792,  and 
remedy,  iii.  57;  remedy  by  maxi- 
mum, &c. ,  100. 

Fauchet,  Abbe,  at  siege  of  Bastille,  i. 
142;  his  Te-Deums,  168;  his  ha- 
rangue on  FrankHn,  ii.  49;  his 
Cercle  Social,  80  ;  in  First*  Parlia- 
ment, 143  ;  motion  by,  152  ;  doffs 
his  insignia,  167;  King's  death, 
lamentation,  iii.  81;  will  demit,ii3  ; 
trial  of,  139. 

Faussigny,  sword  in  hand,  ii.  82. 

Favras,  Chevalier,  execution  of,  ii. 

Federation,  spread  of,  ii.  35;  of 
Champ-de-Mars,  36  ;  deputies  to, 
38 ;  human  species  at,  39 ;  cere- 
monies of,  46-50 ;  a  new,  1792,  185. 

Feraud,  in  National  Convention,  iii. 
37;  massacred  there,  213. 

Fersen,  Count,  ii.  112;  gets  Berline 
built,  112  ;  acts  coachman  in  King's 
flight,  113. 

Feuillans,  Club,  ii.  26;  denounce 
Jacobins,  138 ;  decline,  169 ;  ex- 
tinguished, 169  ;  Battalion,  177  ; 
Justices  and  Patriotism,  185. 

Finances,  serious  state  of,  i.  42  ;  how 
to  be  improved,  66 ;  ii.  10. 

Flanders,  how  Louis  XV.  conquers, 
i.  15.^ 

Flandre,  regiment  de,  at  Versailles, 
i.  176. 

Flesselles,  Paris  Provost,  i.  129 ;  shot, 
144. 

1^'leuriot,  Mayor,  guillotined,  iii.  198. 
Fleury.Joly  de, Controller  of  Finance 
^  i-  55. 

Fontenai,  Mme.,  iii.  150. 

Forster,  and  French  soldier,  iii.  48 ; 
account  of,  94. 

Fouche,  at  Lyons,  iii,  152. 

Foulon,  bad  repute  of,  i.  56;  sobri- 
quet, 72  ;  funeral  of,  148 ;  alive, 
judged,  massacred,  150. 

Fournier,  and  Orleans  Prisoners,  iii. 

^34- 

Foy,  (,af(5  de,  revolutionary,  i.  17^. 
France,  abject,  under  Louis  XV.,  i. 

19-21  ;  Kings  of,  15;  early  history 

of,  15;  decay  of  Kingship  in,  i8; 

oi?  accession  of  Louis  XVL,  30; 

ABd  Philosophy,  31;   famine  'in.  1 


i775»  33;  state  of,  prior  Revolu- 
tion^. 35  i  aids  America,  40 ;  in 
1788,  83;  inflammable,  July  178^, 
130  ;  gibbets, general  overturn,  175 ; 
how  to  reform,  ii.  14;  riotousness 
of,  86;  Mirabeau  and,  98  ;  after 
King's  flight,  117;  petitions  against 
Royalty,  134 ;  warfare  of  towns  in, 
149  ;  European  league  against,  160  ; 
terror  of,  in  Spring  1792,  164 ;  de- 
cree of  war,  174 ;  France  in  danger, 
187  ;  general  enlisting,  191 ;  rage 
of,  Autumn  1792,  iii.  5  ;  Marat's 
Circular,  September,  33;  Sanscu- 
lottic,  50;  declaration  of  war,  81  ; 
Mountain  and  Girondins  divide,  89; 
communes  of,  127;  coalition  against, 
131 ;  levy  in  mass,  134. 
Franklin,  Ambassador  to  France,  i. 
40;  his  death  lamented,  ii.  49; 
bust  in  Jacobins,  170. 
French  Anglomania,  i.  44  ;  character 
of  the,  50 ;  literature,  in  1784,  51 ; 
Parlements,  nature  of,  53  ;  Mira- 
beau, type  of  the,  105 ;  mob,  cha- 
racter of,  181. 
Freron,  notice  of,  ii.  22;  renegade, 

iii.  202  ;  Gilt  Youth  of,  205. 
Freteau,  at  Royal  Session,  i.  73 ;  ar- 
rested, 74 ;  liberated,  76. 
Freys,  the  Jew  brokers,  ii.  18 ;  im- 
prisoned, iii.  163. 

Gallois,  to  La  Vendee,  ii.  153. 
Gamain,  Sieur,  informer,  iii.  65. 
Garat,  Minister  of  Justice,  iii.  75. 
Genlis,  Mme.,  account  of,  ii.  21 ;  and 

D' Orleans,  iii.  91 ;  to  Switzerland, 

102. 

Gensonnd,  Girondist,  ii.  144 ;  to  La 
Vendee,  153;  arrested,  iii.  113  ; 
trial  of,  139. 

Georges- Cadoudal,  in  La  Vendee,  iii. 
207. 

Georget,  at  taking  of  Bastille,  i.  141. 
Gerard,  Farmer,  Rennes  deputy,  i. 
108. 

Gerle,  Dom,  at  Th^ofs,  iii.  186. 
Germinal  Twelfth,  First  of  April  1795, 
iii.  210. 

Girondins,  origin  of  term,  ii.  144 ;  in 
National  Convention, iii. 53;  against 
Robespierre,  55;  on  King's  trial, 
7^-75;  and  Jacobins,  63-65;  for- 
mula of,  74;  favourers  of,  87; 
schemes  of,  88  ;  to  be  seized  ?  97  ; 
break  with  Danton,  105 ;  armed 
againstMountain,  105;  accuseMarat, 
105  ;  departments,  107  ;  commissioD. 
of  !\v«Mve,  iii;  commission  hroi:*3ii;j. 
1  10  ;  iiriTsttjtl,  1 13  ;  disperser*--  ^17, 
wai-  hy,  123  ;  retreat  of  elev^-,^^^ 
■  il  iiiifi  fl(\'ith  of,  T40. 

Aichbi.Jiop  to  ije.  ii.  8 ;  m 


INDEX. 


231 


nounces  religion,  iii.  157  ;  arrested, 
174 ;  guillotined,  181. 

Goethe,  at  Argonne,  iii.  41 ;  in  Prus- 
sian retreat,  45-47  ;  at  Mentz,  126. 

Goguelat,  Engineer,  assists  Louis's 
flight,  ii.  134 ;  intrigues,  156. 

Gondran,  captain  of  Guard,  i.  201. 

Gorsas,  Journalist,  pleads-  for  Swiss, 

ii.  207;  in  National  Convention, 

iii.  37;  his  house  broken  into,  97  ; 
guillotined,  136. 

Goujon,  Member  of  Convention,  in 
riot  of  Prairial,  iii.  214  ;  suicide  of, 
215. 

Goupil,  on  extreme  left,  ii.  133. 

Gouvion,  Major-General,  at  Paris,  i. 
182;  fli«;ht  to  Varennes,  ii.  112; 
death  of,  176. 

Government,  Maurepas's,  i.  38  ;  bad 
state  of  French,  91 ;  French  revo- 
lutionary, iii.  161  ;  Danton  on,  178. 

Grave,  Chev.  de,  War-Minister,  loses 
head,  ii.  174. 

Gr^goire,  Cure,  notice  of,  i.  in  ;  in 
National  Convention,  iii.  37 ;  de- 
tained in  Convention,  113  ;  and  de- 
struction of  religion,  157, 

Guadet,  Girondin,  ii.  144;  cross- 
questions  Ministers,  168 ;  arrested, 
iii.  114  ;  guillotined,  141. 

Cuards,  Swiss,  and  French,  at  R6- 
veillon  riot,  i.  100  ;  French  refuse 
to  fire,  123 ;  come  to  Palais-Royal, 
128  ;  fire  on  Royal-Allemand,  132  ; 
to  Bastille,  134;  name  changed, 
145  ;  National  origin  of,  126;  num- 
ber of,  134;  Body  at  Versailles, 
October  Fifth,  192 ;  fight,  199 ; 
fly  in  Chateau,  200 ;  Body,  and 
French,  at  Versailles,  200 ;  Na- 
tional, at  Nanci,  ii.  65 ;  French, 
last  appearance  of,  137  ;  National, 
how  commanded,  1791,  141 ;  Con- 
stitutional, dismissed,  167;  Filles- 
St.-Thomas,  177;  routed,  196; 
Swiss,  at  Tuileries,  200;  ordered 
to  cease,  destroyed,  207 ;  eulogy  of, 
208 ;  Departmental,  for  National 
Convention,  iii.  54. 

Guillaume,  Clerk,  pursues  King,  ii. 
123. 

Guillotin,  Doctor,  summoned  by  Paris 
Parlemeiit,  i.  97 ;  invents  the  guil- 
lotine, 109  ;  deputed  to  King,  188. 

Guillotine  invented,  i.  109  ;  described, 
iii.  10 ;  in  action,  136 ;  to  be  im- 
proved, 187;  number  of  sufferers 
by,  207. 

Hassenfratz,  in  War-otfice,  iii.  56. 

Hebert,  Editor  '  P^re  Duchesne,' 
ii.  78  ;  signs  pet^tios,  13c;  (see  '  P^r^ 
Duchesne');  arrested,  lii.  no;  at 
Queen's  trial,  137  ;  quickens  Revo- 


lutionary Tribunal,  139 ;  arrested, 
and  guillotined,  176  ;  widow  guil- 
lotined, 181. 
Renault,  President,  on  Surnames,  i. 
II. 

Henriot,  General  of  National  Guard, 
iii.  Ill ;  and  the  Convention,  113  ; 
to  deliver  Robespierre,  194  ;  seized, 
rescued,  195  ;  end  of,  198. 

Herbois,  Collot  d',  notice  of,  ii.  17  ; 
in  National  Convention,  iii.  37;  at 
Eyons  massacre,  152 ;  in  Salut 
Committee,  162 ;  attempt  to  assas- 
sinate, 184;  bullied  at  Jacobins,  193; 
President,  night  of  Thermidor,  195; 
accused,  209;  banished,  210. 

Heritier,  Jerome  1',  shot  at  Versailles, 
i.  200. 

Hoche,   Sergeant   Lazare,  i.    127  ; 

General  against  Prussia,  iii.  167  ; 

pacifies  La  Vendee,  207. 
Hondschooten,  Battle  of,  iii.  166. 
Hotel  des  Invalides,  plundered,  i.  138. 
Hotel  de  Ville,  after  Bastille  taken,  i. 

144  ;  harangues  at,  147. 
Houchard,  General,  unsuccessful,  iii. 

149. 

Howe,  Lord,  defeats  French,  iii.  168. 
Huguenin,  Patriot,  tocsin  in  heart,  ii. 

167  ;  2oth  June  1792,  181. 
Hulin,  half-pay,  at  siege  of  Bastille, 

i.  143. 

Inisdal's,  Count  d',  plot,  ii.  87. 
Insurrection,  most  sacred  of  duties,  i. 

181;  of  Women,  173-203;  of  August 

Tenth,  ii.  198-202;  difficult,  200; 

of  Paris,  against  Girondins,  1793, 

iii.  111-115  ;  sacred  right  of,  222; 

last  Sansculottic,  213-215 ;  of  Ba- 

boeuf,  222. 
Isnard,  Max,  notice  of,  ii.  34  ;  in  First 

Parliament,  144  ;  on  Ministers,  168  ; 

to  demolish  Paiis,  iii.  no. 

Jacob,  Jean  Claude,  father  of  men, 

ii.  41. 

Jacobins,  Society,  beginning  of,i.  82  ; 
Hall,  described,  and  members,  ii. 
25;  Journal,  «S:c.,  of,  26;  daughters 
of,  26 ;  at  Nanci,  suppressed,  72 ; 
Club  increases,  79  ;  and  Mirabeau, 
82 ;  prospers,  169 ;  '  Lords  of  the 
Articles,'  170;  extinguishes  Feuil- 
lans,  170;  Hall  enlarged,  described, 
170 ;  and  Marseillese,  195 ;  and 
Lavergne,  iii.  13  ;  message  to  Du- 
mouriez,  47  ;  missionaries  in  Army, 
61  ;  on  King's  trial,  62  ;  on  accu- 
sation of  Robespierre,  63  ;  against 
Girondins,  64 ;  National  Conven- 
tion and,  126  ;  Popular  Tribunals 
of,  150 ;  purges  members,  174 ;  to 
- .  beconi^  ^^ominant.  191  ;  lo»ui*tl  out 


INDEK. 


by  Legendre,  196 ;  begs  back  its 
keys,  202  ;  decline  of,  208  ;  mobbed, 
suspended,  209 ;  hunted  down, 
211. 

Jales,  Camp  of,  ii.  12 ;  Royalists  at, 

164;  destroyed,  164. 
Jaucourt,  Chevalier,  and  Liberty,  ii. 

145- 

Jay,  Dame  l^-;,  ii.  22. 

Jones,  Paul,  equipped  for  America, 

i.  40;  at  Paris,  account  of,  ii.  38  ; 
burial  of,  190. 

Jounneau,  Deputy,  in  danger  in  Sep- 
tember, iii.  30. 

Jourdan,  General,  repels  Austria,  iii. 
166. 

Jourdan,  C:oupe-tete,  at  Versailles,  i. 
190 ;  leader  of  Brigands,  ii.  149 ; 
supreme  in  Avignon,  150;  massacre 
by,  151;  flight  of,  152;  guillotined, 
iii.  151. 

Julien,  SieurJean,  guillotined,  iii.  19. 

Kaunitz,  Prince,  denounces  JacobinS, 

ii.  170. 

Kellermann,  at  Valmy,  iii.  41. 
Klopstock,  naturalised,  iii.  8. 
Knox,  John,  and  the  Virgin,  ii.  71. 
Korff,  Baroness  de,  in  flight  to  Va- 
rennes,  ii.  112. 

Lafarge,  President  of  Jacobins,  Ma- 
dame Lavergne  and,'iii.  13. 

Lafayette,  bust  of,  erected,  i.  2  ; 
against  Calonne,  61  \  demands  by, 
in  Notables,  65  ;  Crora\.-ell-Grandi- 
son,  no;  Bastille  time,  Vice-Pre- 
sident of  National  Assembly,  146 ; 
General  of  National  Guard,  147  ; 
resigns  and  reaccepts,  152 ;  Scipio- 
Americanus,  1C9;  thanked,  re- 
warded, 175  ;  French  Guards  and, 
185  ;  to  Versailles.  186  ;  Fifth  Oc- 
tober, at  Versailles,  196 ;  cv/eai^ 
the  Guards,  203  ;  Feuillant,  ii.  26  ; 
on  abolition  of 'IMtlcG,  39;  at  Champ- 
de-Mars  F'ederation,  46 ;  at  De 
astries'  riot,  05  ;  character  of,  86  ; 
in  pay  of  Poniards,  93 ;  difficult 
position  of,  94  ;  at  King' s  going  to 
St.  Cloud,  10/  ;  resigns  and  reac- 
cepts, 93  ;  at  flight  from  'I  uileries, 
114;  after  escape  of  King,  116; 
moves  for  amnesty,  140;  resigns, 
T42;  decline  of,  168;  doubtful 
against  Jacobins,  179;  journey  to 
i'aris,  183;  to  be  accu.sed,  190; 
Hies  to  Holland,  212. 

Laflotte,  poison-plot,  informer,  iii. 
180. 

Lais,  Sicur,  Jacobin,  with  Louis  Phi- 
lippe, ii.  26. 
Laliy,  death  of,  i.  70. 
Lamarche  guillotined,  iii.  ^nn'  ' 


Lamarck's,  illness  of  Mirabeau  at,  ii. 
100. 

Lamballe,  Princess  de,  to  England, 

ii.  119  ;J^t:  .\gues  for  Royalists,  158  ; 
at  La  L  c  ijc,  iii.  15  ;  massacred, 
23. 

Lameth,  in  Constituent  Assembly, 
one  of  a  trio,  i.  161 ;  brothers,  no- 
tice of,  ii.  8  ;  Jacobins,  25 ;  Charles, 
Duke  de  Castries,  84  ;  brothers  be- 
come constitutional,  133 ;  Theodore, 
in  First  Parliament,  145. 

Lamoignon,  Keeper  of  Seals,  i.  61  ; 
dismissed,  87  ;  effigy  burned,  and 
death  of,  88. 

Lamotte,  Countess  de,  and  Diamond 
Necklace,  i.  48 ;  in  the  Salp^triere, 
58;  'Memoirs'  burned,  ii.  166;  in 
London,  iii.  15  ;  M.  de,  in  prison. 
26. 

Lamourette,  Abb^,  kiss  of,  ii.  147 ; 

guillotined,  iii.  151. 
Lanjuinais,   Girondin,  clothes  torn, 

iii.  113;  arrested,  113;  recalled, 
202. 

Laporte,  Intendant,  guillotined,  iii. 
10. 

Lariviere,  Justice,  imprisoned,  ii.  185. 

Larochejaquelin,  in  La  Vendue,  iii. 
12  ;  death  of,  207. 

Lasource,  accuses  Danton,  iii.  105; 
president,  and  Marat,  107  ;  arrest* 
ed,  113 ;  condemned,  139. 

Latour-Maubourg,  notice  of,  ii.  131. 

Launay,  Marquis  de,  Governor  of 
Bastille,  i.  137  ;  besieged,  139 ;  un^ 
assisted,  140;  to  blow  up  Bastille, 
143  ;  massacred,  144. 

Lavergne,  surrenders  Longwi,  iii.  12, 

Lavoisier,  Chemist,  guillotined,  iii» 
183. 

Law,  Martial,  in  Paris,  ii.  16 ;  Book 
of  the,  146. 

Lawyers,  their  influence  on  the  Revo- 
lution, i.  20 ;  number  of,  in  Tiers 
Etat,  109 ;  in  Parliament  First,  ii. 

^  143- 

Lazare,  Maison  de  St. ,  plundered,  i. 
134- 

Lebas  at  Strasburg,  iii.  163  ;  arrested, 
194. 

Lebon,  Priest,  in  National  Conven- 
tion, iii.  37;  at  Arras,  155;  guillo- 
tined, 212. 

Lechapeiier,  Deputy,  and  Insuircction 
of  Women,  i.  185. 

Lecointre,  National  Major,  i.  177; 
will  not  fight,  179 ;  active,  193  ;  in 
First  Parliament,  ii.  145. 

Lefcvre,  Abb6,  distributes  powder,!. 
145- 

Legendre,  in  danger,  ii.  177 ;  at 
Tuilerie«  not,  x8x&   in  National 


/NDEX. 


233 


Convention,  iii.  37  ;  against  Giron- 

dins,  113  ;  for  Danton,  178  ;  locks 

out  jacobins,    196;    in    First  of 

Prairial,  215. 
Lenfant,  Abb6,  on  Protestant  claims, 

i.  76;  massacred,  iii.  26. 
Lepelletier.    Section  for  Convention, 

iii.  210 ;  revolt  of,  in  Vendemiaire, 

220. 

Lettres-de-Cachet,  and  Pa'rlement  of 

Paris,  i.  74. 
Levasseur,  in  National  Oonvention, 

iii.  37  ;  Convention  Representative, 

166. 

Liancourt,  Duke  de,  Liberal,  i.  no  ; 

not  a  revolt,  but  a  revolution,  146. 
Lies,  Philosophism  on,  i.  20;  to  be 

extinguished,  how,  37. 
Ligne,  Prince  de,  death  of,  iii.  39. 
Lille,  Colonel  Rouget  de,  Marseille"  " 

Hymn,  ii.  189. 
Lille,  besieged,  iii.  44. 
Linguet,  his  '  Bastille  Unveiled,'  1. 

48;  returns,  103. 
LoiseroUes,  General,  guillotined 

his  son.  iii.  196. 
Longwi,  surrender  of,  iii.  12;  fiv'. 

tives  at  Paris,  12. 
Lords  of  the  Articles,  Jacobins  as,  iii . 

162. 

Lorraine  F^deres  and  the  Queen,  ii. 
45  ;  state  of,  in  1790,  58. 

Louis  XIV.,  I'etat  c'est  moi,  i.  16; 
booted  in  Parlement,  73 ;  pursues 
Louvois,  iii.  52. 

Louis  XV.,  origm  of  his  surname,  i. 
II ;  last  illness  of,  11-20;  dismisses 
Dame  Dubarry,  12;  Choiseul,  12  ; 
wounded,  has  small-pox,  12 ;  his 
mode  of  conquest,  15 ;  impover- 
ishes France,  20;  his  daughters, 
22;  on  death,  23;  on  ministerial 
capacity,  25 ;  death  and  burial  of, 
27. 

Louis  XVL,  at  his  accession,  i.  27; 
good  measures  of,  30  ;  temper  and 
pursuits  of,  32  ;  ditficulties  of,  38  ; 
commences  governing,  54 ;  and 
Notables,  64;  holds  Royal  Session, 
73,  74  ;  receives  States-General  De- 
puties, loi  ;  in  States-General  pro- 
cession, 102 ;  speech  to  States- 
General,  113  ;  National  Assembly, 
123;  unwise  policy  of,  124;  dis- 
misses Necker,  129 ;  apprised  of 
the  Revolution,  146  ;  conciliatory, 
visits  Assembly,  147 ;  Bastille,  visits 
Paris,  149  ;  deserted,  will  fiy,  162  ; 
languid,  177  ;  at  Dinner  of  Guards, 
178  ;  deposition  of,  proposed,  185  ; 
October  Fifth,  women  deputies. 
191  ;  to  fly  or  not  ?  193  ;  grams  the 
acceptance,  195;  Paris  propositions 
to,  197 ;  in  the  Chateau  uuiiuit, 


202  ;  ar)pears  to  mob,  203 ;  will  go 
to  i'aris,  204 ;  his  Wisest  course, 
204  ;  procession  to  Paris,  205-207  ; 
review  of  his  position,  ii.  5  ;  lodged 
at  Tuileries,  6;  Restorer  of  French 
Liberty,  7  ;  no  hunting,  locksmith, 
7  ;  schemes,  28  ;  visits  Assembly, 
28;  Federation,  45;  Flereditary 
Representative,  86 ;  will  fly,  86  ; 
and  D'lnisdal's  plot,  87;  Mira- 
beau,  97  ;  useless,  97  ;  indecision 
of,  106  ;  ill  of  catarrh,  107;  pre- 
pares for  St.  Cloud,  108  ;  hindered 
by  populace,  108  ;  effect,  should  he 
escape,  108  ;  prepares  for  flight, 
his  circular,  in  ;  flies,  113  ;  letter 
to  Assembly,  116;  manner  of  flight, 
119;  loiters  by  the  way,  119-122; 
detected  by  Drouet,  122  ;  captured 
"  t  Varennes,  127  ;  indecision  there, 
^27-129 ;  return  to  Paris,  131  ;  re- 
ception there,  132  ;  to  be  deposed] 
133-135  ;  reinstated,  137  ;  reception 
of  Legislative,  146  ;  position  of,  156 ; 
proposes  war,  with  tears,  174 ; 
vetoes,  dissolves  Roland  Ministry, 
178  ;  in  riot  of,  June  20,  181 ;  and 
Petion,  184;  at  Federation,  with 
cuirass,  190 ;  declared  forfeited, 
196 ;  last  levee  of,  197 ;  Tenth 
August,  203  ;  quits  Tuileries  for 
Assembly,  205  ;  in  Assembly,  209  ; 
sent  to  Temple  prison,  211  ;  in 
Temple,  iii.  58;  to  be  tried,  61; 
and  the  Locksmith  Gamain,  65  ;  at 
the  bar,  67  ;  his  will,  68 ;  con- 
demned, 72-76  ;  parting  scene,  and 
execution  of,  77-80  ;  his  son,  182. 

Louis-Philippe,  King  of  the  French, 
Jacobin  door-keeper,  ii.  26 ;  at 
Valmy,  iii.  43;  bravery  at  Je- 
mappes,  61  ;  and  sister,  102;  with 
Dumouriez  to  Austrians,  103 ;  to 
Switzerland,  104. 

Loustalot,  Editor,  i.  170;  ii.  22. 

Louvet,  his  '  Chevalier  de  Faublas,' 
i.  51  ;  his  '  Sentinelles,'  ii.  23  ;  and 
Robespierre,  171  ;  in  National  Con- 
vention, iii.  37  ;  Girondin  accuses 
Robespierre,  63;  arrested,  114; 
retreats  to  Bourdeaux,  125;  escape 
of,  140 ;  recalled,  202. 

Liickner,  Supreme  General,  ii.  52; 
and  Dumouriez,  187;  guillotined, 
iii.  149. 

Lun^ville,  Inspector  Malseigne  at,  ii. 
65- 

Lux,  Adam,  guillotined,  iii.  145. 

Lyons,  Federation  at,  ii.  35;  dis- 
'orders  in,  iii.  89;  Chalier,  Jacobin, 
executed  at,  122  ;  capture  of  maga- 
zine,      ;  massacres  at,  152. 


234 


INDEX. 


Mailhe,  Deputy,  on  trial  of  Louis, 
iii.  6i. 

Maillard,  Usher,  at  siege  of  Bastille, 

i.  142 ;  Insurrection  of  Women, 
drum.  Champs  Elysees,  183;  en- 
tering Versailles,  187;  addresses 
National  Assembly  there,  188 ; 
signs  Decheance  petition,  ii.  135; 
inJ^eptember  IVIassacres,  iii.  23. 

Maill^,  Camp-Marshal,  at  Tuileries, 

ii.  198  ;  massacred  at  La  Force,  iii. 
28. 

Mailly,  Marshal,  one  of  Four  Gene- 
rals, 1790,  ii.  52. 

Malesherbes,  M.  de,  in  King's  Coun- 
cil, i.  71  ;  defends  Louis,  iii.  ,68. 

Malseigne,  Army  Inspector,  at  Nanci, 

ii.  64-66  ;  imprisoned,  66 ;  liber- 
ated, 88. 

Maridat,  Commander  of  Guards, 
August,  1792,  ii.  J 98, 

Manuel,  Jacobin,  slow-sure,  ii.  169; 
in  August  Tenth,  203  ;  in  Govern- 
ing Committee,  iii.  8  ;  haranguing 
at  La  Force,  27  ;  in  National  Con- 
vention, 37  ;  motions  in,  43  ;  vote 
at  King's  trial,  74 ;  in  prison,  136  ; 
guillotined,  149. 

Marat,  Jean  Paul,  horseleech  toD'Ar- 
tois,  i.  44  ;  notice  of,  104 ;  against 
violence,  129;  at  siege  of  Bastille, 
142  ;  summoned  by  Constituent, 
not  to  be  gagged,  170;  astir,  i8o; 
how  to  regenerate  France,  ii.  15  ; 
police  and,  21 ;  on  abolition  of 
titles,  40  ;  would  gibbet  Mirabeau, 
78  ;  bust  in  Jacobins,  170  ;  conceal- 
ed in  cellars,  194;  in  seat  of  honour, 

iii.  8 ;  signs  circular,  33  ;  elected 
to  Convention,  37;  and  Dumouriez, 
47  ;  oatlis  by,  in  Convention,  53  ; 
on  sufferings  of  People,  84  ;  and 
Girondins,  90  ;  arrested,  106  ;  re- 
turns in  triumj)]),  107  ;  fall  of 
Girondins,  113. 

Marechal,  Atheist,  Calendar  by,  iii. 
129. 

Marechale,  the  Lady,  on  nobility  i 
18. 

Marseilles,  Brigands  at,  i.  125  ;  on 
Decheance,  tlie  bar  of  iron,  ii.134  ; 
for  Girondism,  iii.  106. 

Mar.seillese,  March  and  Hymn  of,  ii. 
188;  (iii.  10);  at  Charenton,  195; 
at  Paris,  195;  Filles-St. -Thomas 
and,  195  ;  barracks,  197. 

Massacre,  Avignon,  ii.  150;  Septem- 
ber, iii.  21-24;  number  slain  in, 
35;  compared  to  Bartholomew,  33. 

Maton,  Advocate,  his  '  Resurrection,' 
iii.  25. 

Maupeou,  under  Louis  XV.,  i.  12; 

_and  Lame  iJubarry,  12. 
Iviaurepas,  Prime  Minisf  r,  character  , 


'      of,  i.  32  ;  government  of,  37;  death 

Maury,  Abbe,  character  of,  i.  iii ;  in 
Constituent  Assembly,  160 ;  seized 
emigrating,  205 ;  dogmatic,  ii.  8  ; 
efforts  fruitless,  82 ;  made  Cardinal, 
141. 

Memmay,  M. ,  of  Qiiincey,  explosion 
of  rustics,  i.  166. 

Menou,  General,  arrest  of,  iii.  220. 

Mentz,  occupied  by  French,  iii.  48 ; 
siege  of,  117  ;  surrender  of,  126. 

Mercier,  on  Paris  revolting,  i.  126  ; 
Editor,  170;  the  September  Mas- 
sacre, iii.  32  ;  in  National  Conven- 
tion, 37  ;  King's  trial,  74, 

Merlin  of  Thionville  in  Mountain,  ii. 
145;  irascible,  167;  at  Mentz,  iii. 
126. 

Merlin  of  Douai,  Law  of  Suspect,  iii. 
134- 

Metz,  Bouille  at,  ii.  52 ;  troops  mu- 
tinous at,  58. 

Meudon  tannery,  iii.  171. 

Miomandre  de  Ste.  Marie,  Body- 
guard, October  Fifth,  i.  200;  left 
for  dead,  revives,  201  ;  rewarded, 
ii.  88. 

Mirabeau,  Marquis,  on  the  state  of 
France  in  1775,  i.  34  ;  and  his  son, 
48  ;  his  death,  137. 

Mirabeau,  Count,  his  pamphlets,  i. 
59 ;  the  Notables,  60  ;  Lettres-de- 
Cachet  against,  60  ;  expelled  by  the  , 
Provence  Noblesse,  96  ;  cloth-shop, 
96  ;  is  Deputy  for  Aix,  96 ;  king  of 
Frenchmen,  105  ;  family  of,  105  ; 
wanderings  of,    105 ;    his  future  ; 
course,  107  ;  groaned  at,  in  Assem-  j 
bly,  115  ;  his  newspaper  suppressed,  | 
118  ;  silences  Usher  de  Breze,  123  ;  ; 
at  Bastille  ruins,  152;  on  Robes-  j 
pierre,    160 ;    fame  of,    160 ;   on  j 
French  deficit,  174  ;  populace,  on  > 
veto,  175  ;  Mounier,  October  Fifth,  i 
185  ;  insight  of,  defends  veto,  ii.  8  ;  ; 
courage,  revenue  of,  9  ;  saleable  ?  i 
10 ;  and  Danton,  on  Constitution,  ; 
17  ;  at  Jacobins,  25  ;  his  courtship,  ' 
40 ;  on  state  of  Army,  57  ;  Marat 
would  gibbet,  78  ;    his  power  in 
France,  82  ;  on  D' Orleans,  82;  on 
duelling,  83;  interview  with  Queen, 
88 ;    speech    on    emigrants,    the  * 
'  trente  voix,'  93  ;  in  Council,  96  ;  i 
Ins  plans  for  France,  97  ;  probable 
career  of,  98 ;   last  appearance  in 
Assembly,  100;  anxiety  of  populace  1 
■^"^r,  100;  last  sayings  of,  100;  death 
and  funeral  of,  102 ;  burial-place 
of,  f02  ;  character  of,  103;  last  of 
Mirabeaus,  104;  bust  in  Jacobins, 
17^;  bust  demolished,  iii.  65. 
Mirabeau  the  younger,  nicknamed 


INDEX, 


Tonneau,  i.   no;   in  Constituent 
Assembly,  breaks  his  sword,  124. 
Miranda,  General,  attempts  Holland, 
iii.  93. 

Mifomenil,  Keeper  of  Seals,  i.  61. 

Moleville,  Bertrand  de,  Historian,  i. 
82  ;  ii.  155  ;  minister,  his  plan,  156  ; 
frivolous  pohcy  of,  157  ;  and  D' Or- 
leans, 157  ;  Jesuitic,  168  ;  concealed, 
iii.  10. 

Mbmoro,  Bookseller,  agrarian,  iii.  8  ; 

arrested,  174  ;  guillotined,  176  ;  his 

Wife,  '  Goddess  of  Reason,'  160. 
Monge,  Mathematician,  in  office,  ii. 

211  ;  assists  in  new  Calendar,  iii. 

129. 

Monsabert,  G.  de.  President  of  Paris 

Parlement,  i.  78;  arrested,  79-81. 
Montelimart,  covenant  sworn  at,  ii. 
-33- 

Montesquiou,  General,  takes  Savoy, 
ifi.  48. 

Montgaillard,  on  captive  Queen,  ii. 
210;  on  September  Massacres,  iii. 
31- 

Montmartre,  trenches  at,  iii.  11. 
Montmorin,  War-Secretary,  i.  72. 
Moore,  Doctor,  at  attack  of  Tuileries, 

ii.  207  ;  at  La  Force,  iii.  23. 
Morande,  De,  newspaper  by,  i.  48  ; 

will  return,  103  ;  in  prison,  iii.  15. 

Morellet,  Philosophe,  i.  170. 

Moucheton,  M.  de,  of  King's  Body- 
guard, i.  192. 

MxDudon,  Abbe,  confessor  to  Louis 
XV.,  i.  21. 

Mdunier,  at  Grenoble,  i.  82 ;  pro- 
poses Tennis- Court  oath,  122; 
October  Fifth,  President  of  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  185  ;  deputed  to 

.  King,  188  ;  dilemma  of,  195. 

Mountain,  members  of  the,  ii.  145  ; 
re-elected  in  National  Convention, 
■  iii.  37  ;  Gironde  and,  86-89  5 
vourers  of  the,  88  ;  vulnerable  points 
of,  90 ;  prevails,  92  ;  Danton,  Du- 
perret,  105  ;  after  Gironde  dispersed, 
116  ;  in  labour,  122. 

Mliller,  General,  expedition  to  Spain, 

iii.  165. 

Murat,  in  Vend^miaire  revolt,  iii. 
221. 

Nanci,  revolt  at,  ii.  12;  description 
of  town, 62  ;  deputation  imprisoned, 
64  ;  deputation  of  mutineers,  67  ; 
state  of  mutineers  in,  67  ;  Bouille's 
fight,  69  ;  Paris  thereupon,  71  ; 
military  executions  at,  71  ;  Assem- 
bly Commis=;ioners,  71. 

Nantes,  after  King's  flight,  ii.  tt8  ; 

massacres  at,  iii.  150, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  stndyinc  m  ni  . 
.natics,  i.  84;  piunphict  by, 


democratic,  in  Corsica,  87  ;  August 
Tenth,  207;  under  General  Car- 
taux,  iii.   122;   at  Toulon,  131; 

Josephine  and,  at  La  Cabarus's, 

203  ;  Vendemiaire,  220. 
Narbonne,  Louis  de,  assists  flight  of 

King's  Aunts,  ii.  91 ;  to  be  War- 
Minister,  158  ;  demands  by,  158  ; 
secreted,  iii.  10 ;  escapes,  14. 

Navy,  Louis  XV.  on  French,  i.  47. 

Necker,  and  finance,  account  of,  i. 
42  ;  dismissed,  43  ;  refuses  Brienne, 
85 ;  recalled,  86 ;  difficulty  as  to 
>  tates-General,  92;  reconvokes 
Notables,  93  ;  opinion  of  himself, 
103  ;  popular,  124;  dismissed,  129  ; 
recalled,  147  ;  returns  in  glory,  167  ; 
his  plans,  174  ;  becoming  un- 
popular, ii.  12  ;  departs,  with  diffi" 
culty,  71. 

Necklace,  Diamond,  i.  48. 

Nerwinden,  battle  of,  iii.  98. 

Nievre-Chol,  Mayor  of  I^yons,  iii. 
89. 

Nobles,  state  of  the,  under  Louis 
XV.,  i.  18;  new,  ^20 ;  join  Third 
Estate,  124 

Notables,  Calonne's  convocation  of, 
i.  59 ;  assembled  22nd  Feb.  1787, 
59  ;  members  of,  59  ;  eft'ects  of  dis- 
missal of,  65  ;  reconvoked,  6th  No- 
vember 1788,  93  ;  dismissed  again, 
93- 

Noyades,  Nantes,  iii.  154. 

October  Fifth,  1789,  i.  181-183. 

Oge,  condemned,  ii.  155. 

Orleans,  High  Court  at,  ii.  165  ; 
prisoners  massacred  at  Versailles, 
iii.  33-36. 

Orleans,  a  Duke  d',  in  Louis  XV. 's 
sick-room,  i.  22. 

Orleans,  Philippe  (Egahte),  Due  d', 
Duke  de  Chay-tres  (till  1785),  i.  59  ; 
waits  on  Dauphin,  Father,  with 
Louis  XV. ,  22 ;  not  Admiral,  41  ; 
wealth,  debauchery,  Palais-Royal 
buildings,  45;  in  Notables  {Duki 
d' OrUa7is  now),  59;  looks  of.  Bed- 
of-Justice,  1787,  73  ;  arrested,  74 ; 
liberated,  76  ;  in  States-General 
Procession,  no;  joins  Third  Es- 
tate, 124  ;  his  party,  in  Constituent 
Assembly,  160  ;  Fifth  October  and, 

204  ;  shunned  in  England,  ii.  21 ; 
IVIirabeau,  82  ;  cash  deficiency,  82  ; 
use  of,  in  Revolution,  82  ;  accused 
by  Royalists,  95;  at  Court,  insulted, 
157  ;  inNational  Convention, iii.  38  ; 
decline  of,  in  Convention.  61  ;  vote 
on  King's  trial,  74  ;  at  King's  exe- 
(Mition,  79;  .iriesied,  inip  ^soned, 
•<4;   condemned,  and  e--.cuted, 

146. 


236 


INDEX, 


Ormesson,  d'.  Controller  of  Finance, 
i.  55. 

Pache,   Swiss,  account  of,  ii.    18 ; 

Minister  of  War,  iii.  56;  Mayor, 

no;   dismissed,  reinstated,  in; 

imprisoned,  18 1. 
Pan,  Mallet  du,  solicits  for  Louis,  ii. 

156. 

Pan  is.  Advocate,  in  Governing  Com- 
mittee, iii.  9;  and  Beaumarchais, 
16  ;  confidant  of  Danton,  21. 

Pantheon,  first  occupant  of,  ii.  102. 

Parens,  Curate,  renounces  religion, 
iii.  157. 

Paris,  origin  of  city,  i.  16  ;  police  in 
1750.  19 1  ship  Ville-de-Paris,  41 ; 
riot  at  Palais-de-Justice,  70 ;  beau- 
tified, in  1788,  78  ;  election,  1789, 
94;  troops  called  to,  117;  mihtary 
preparations  in,  125;  July  Four- 
teenth, cry  for  arms,  131 ;  search 
for  arms,  133 ;  Bailly,  mayor  of, 
147 ;  trade-strikes  in,  171  ;  Lafay- 
ette patrols,  175 ;  October  Fifth, 
propositions  to  Louis,  197  ;  Louis 
in,  207 ;  ii.  18  ;  Journals,  22-24  I 
bill-stickers,  23  ;  undermined,  41  ; 
after  Champ-de-Mars  Federation, 
49  ;  on  Nanci  affair,  71 ;  on  death 
of  Mirabeau,  loi  ;  on  flight  to 
Varennes,  116-119;  on  King's  re- 
turn, 132 ;  Directory  suspends  Pe- 
tion,  184 ;  enlisting,  1792,  195 ; 
(iii.  19)  ;  on  forfeiture  of  King,  196; 
196  ;  Sections,  rising  of,  198 ; 
August  Tenth,  prepares  for  insur- 
rection, 198-201  ;  Municipality  sup- 
planted, 200;  statues  destroyed ,  King 
and  Queen  to  prison,  210 ;  Septem- 
ber, 1792,  iii.  31  ;  names  printed  on 
house-door,  99 ;  in  insurrection, 
Girondins,  May  1793,  ^^oi  Muni- 
cipality in  red  caps,  162  ;  brotherly 
supper,  183 ;  Sections  to  be  abol- 
ished, 202. 

Paris,  Guardsman,  assassinates  Le- 
pelletier,  iii.  76. 

Paris,  friend  of  Danton,  iii.  178. 

Parlement,  patriotic,  i.  53 ;  against 
Taxation,  66  ;  remonstrates,  at  Ver- 
sailles, 67  ;  arrested,  70  ;  origin  of, 
69 ;  nature  of,  corrupt,  69 ;  at 
Troyes,  yields,  71  ;  Royal  Session 
in,  72-74;  how  to  be  tamed,  77; 
oath  and  declaration  of,  79  ;  firm- 
ness of,  79-82;  scene  in,  and  dis- 
missal of,  80 ;  reinstated,  87 ;  un- 
popular, 90  ;  summons  Dr.  Guiilo- 
tin,  97  ;  abolished,  ii.  10. 

Parlements,  Provincial,  adhere  to 
Paris,  i.  68  ;  rclxjllious,  76;  exiled, 
fia;  grand  deputations  of,  82;  re- 
*^tated,  87 ;  abolished,  ii.  10.  ' 


Peltier,  Royalist  Pamphleteer,  iii.  14. 
'  Pere  Duchesne,'  Editor  of,  ii.  78  ; 
iii.  89. 

Pereyra,  Walloon,  account  of,  ii.  18  ; 
imprisoned,  iii.  175. 

Petion,  account  of,  i.  107;  Dutch- 
built,  ii.  8  ;  and  D'Esprem^nil,  95  ; 
::o  be  mayor,  97 ;  Varennes,  meets 
ib.ing,  131  ;  and  Royalty,  132;  at 
close  of  Assembly,  140  ;  in  London, 
141 ;  Mayor  of  Paris,  169 ;  in 
Twentieth  June,  181  ;  suspended, 
185 ;  reinstated,  190 ;  welcomes 
Marseillese,  195  ;  August  Tenth,  in 
Tuileries,  199;  rebukes  Septem- 
La*-ers,  iii.  31 ;  in  National  Con- 
^  ?i:ition,  37;  decHnes  mayorship, 
^  ;  against  Mountain,  105  ;  retreat 
Bourdeaux,  124-133;  end  of, 
141. 

Petion,  National-Pique,  christening 
of,  ii.  176. 

Petition  of  famishing  French,  i.  33  ; 
at  Fatherland's  altar,  ii.  135 ;  of  the 
Eight  Thousand^  177. 

Petitions,  on  capture  of  King,  ii.  134  ; 
for  deposition,  &c. ,  196. 

Phelippeaux,  purged  out  of  the  Jaco- 
bins, iii.  174. 

Philosophism,  influence  of,  on  Revo- 
lution, i.  20  ;  what  it  has  done  with 
Church,  35 ;  with  Religion,  50. 

Pichegru,  General,  account  of,  iii. 
167  ;  in  Germinal,  210. 

Pilnitz,  Convention  at,  ii.  160. 

Pin,  Latour  du,  War-Minister,  ii.  63  ; 
dismissed,  89. 

Pitt,  against  France,  ii.  160 ;  and 
Girondins,  iii.  84  ;  inflexible,  207. 

Plots,  of  King's  flight,  i.  176  ;  various, 
of  Aristocrats,  October  Fifth,  181- 
187  ;  Royalist,  of  Favras  ^and  others, 
ii.  13  ;  cartels.  Twelve  bullies  from 
Switzerland,  83-85  ;  D'Inisdal,  will- 
o'-wisp,  87  ;  Mirabeau  and  Queen, 
88 ;  poniards,  93,  94 ;  Mallet  du 
Pan,  156 ;  Narbonne's,  158 ;  traces 
of,  in  Armoire  de  Fer,  iii.  65 ; 
against  Girondins,  97 ;  Desmoulins 
on,  109 ;  prison,  t8i. 

Polignac,  Duke  de,  a  sinecurist,  i.  54 ; 
dismissed,  148 ;  at  Bale,  162 ; 
younger,  in  Ham,  162. 

Pompignan,  President  of  National 
Assembly,  i.  136. 

Pope  Pius  VI.  excommunicates  Tal- 
leyrand, ii.  110;  his  efligy  burnCt^, 
no. 

Prairial  First  to  Third,  May  20-22, 
T795,  iM.  213-215. 

Pn'^cy,  si(^ge  of,  T>yons,  iii.  132. 
Priesthood,  disrobing  of,  ii.  i;(J7;  Cas- 

tuir'^«  in  Carmagnole,  ii?» 
Priest..,^  i>r.,  riot  against/lT  160 • 


INDEX. 


237 


naturalised,  iii.  8  ;  elected  to  Na- 
tional Convention,  38. 

Priests,  dissident,  ii.  107  ;  marry  in 
France,  165  ;  Anti-national,  hanged, 
186  ;  many  killed  near  the  Abbaye, 
iii.  21  ;  number  slain  in  September 
Massacre,  32  ;  to  rescue  Louis,  76  i 
drowned  at  Nantes,  154. 

Prisons,  Paris,  in  Bastille  time,  i.  13.;  ,  ^ 
full,  August  1792,  iii.  15  ;  numbe: 
of,  in  France,  149  ;  state  of,  in  Ter-  j 
ror,  188-190;  thinned  after  Terror,  1 
201.  I 

Prison,  Abbaye,  refractory  Members  ! 
sent  to,  ii.  166;   Temple,  Louis  I 
sent  to,  cii ;  Abbaye,  Priests  killed 
near,   iii.   22 ;    maccr.cres  at  La 
Force,  Chatelet,  and  Conciergerie, 
23-30. 

Procession,  of  States-General  Depu- 
ties, i.  102  ;  of  Necker  and  D' Or- 
leans busts,  130  ;  of  Louis  to  Paris, 
205-207  ;  again,  after  Varennes,  ii. 
131  ;  of  Louis  to  trial,  iii.  67 ;  at 
Constitution  of  1793,  128. 

Provence  Noblesse,  expel  Mirabeau, 
i.  96. 

P^udhomme,  Editor,  ii.  22  ;  on  assas- 

I  sins,  85  ;  cn  Cavaignac,  166  n. 
Prussia, .  Fritz  of,   i.   204 ;  against 

France,  ii.  190;  army  of,  ravages 

France,   iii.    11 ;   King    of,  and 

French  Princes,  42. 
Piisaye,  Girondin  General,  iii.  117; 

at  Quiberon,  208. 

Qberet-Demery,  in  Bastille,  i.  145. 
Qiiiberon,  debarkation  at,  iii.  208. 

nkbaut,  St.  Etienne,  French  Re- 
Iformer,  i.  107;  in  National  Con- 
jvention,  iii.  37  ;  in  Commission  of 
{Twelve,  108  ;  arrested,  113  ;  between 
:two  walls,  125  ;  guillotined,  149. 

Riiynal,  Abbe,  Philosophe,  i.  48 ; 
jhis  letter  to  Constituent  Assembly, 
I170. 

Rebecqui,  of  Marseilles,  ii.  152  ;  in 
^National  Convention,  iii.  37 : 
|igainst  Robespierre,  54;  retires, 
"09  ;  drowns  himself,  122. 

Riding,  Swiss,  massacred,  iii.  25. 

RfeHgion,  Christian,  and  French  Re- 
volution, iii.  143 ;  aboHshed,  156- 
158  ;  Clootz  on,  157;^  a  new,  158- 
185. 

Remy,  Cornet,  at  Clermont,  ii.  125. 

Renault,  Cecile,  to  assassinate  Robes- 
pierre, iii.  184;  guillotined,  187. 

Rene,  King,  bequeathed  Avignon  to 
^©ps,  iL  149. 

>  *nnes,  riot  m,  i.  82. 

Kenwick   last  of  Cameroiuans,  iii. 

as.  1 


Repaire,  Tardivet  du.  Body-guard, 
Fifth  October,  i.  199 ;  rewarded, 
ii.  87. 

Representatives,  Paris,  Town,  i.  169. 

cj-.public,  French,  first  mention  of, 
i..  11^  ;  first  year  of,  iii.  37  ;  estab- 
lished, 43  ;  universal,  Clootz's,  56; 
Girondin,  98;  one  and  indivisible, 
104  ;  its  triumphs,  206-208. 

Resson,  Sieur,  reports  I>afayette  to 
Jacobins,  ii.  184. 

Rev  elilon,  house  destroyed,  99. 

Revolt,  Paris,  in,  i.  133  ;  of  Gardes 
Fran^aises,  134  ;  becomes  Revolu- 
tion, 146  ;  military,  what,  ii.  54  ;  of 
Lepelletier  section,  iii.  220-222. 

Revolution,  French,  causes  of  the,  i. 
19  ;  Lord  Chesterfield  on  the,  20  ; 
not  a  revolt,  146  ;  meaning  of  the 
term,  154;  whence  it  grew,  154 ; 
general  commencement  of,  164; 
prosperous  characters  in,  ii.  16: 
Philosophes  and,  20  ;  state  of  army 
in,  55;  progress  of,  75;  duelling 
in,  83  ;  Republic  decided  on,  117  ; 
European  powers  and.  158-160; 
Royalist  opinion  of,  161  ;  cardinal 
movements  in,  iii.  6 ;  Danton  and 
the,  35  ;  changes  produced  by  the, 
49 ;  effect  of  King's  death  on,  82, 
83  ;  Girondin  idea  of,  88  ;  suspi- 
cion in,  no  ;  Terror  and,  142  ;  and 
Christian  religion,  143 ;  Revolu- 
tionary Committees,  99 ;  Govern' 
ment  doings  in,  169 ;  Robespierre 
essential  to,  200  ;  end  of,  222. 

Rheims,  in  September  massacre,  iii. 
33- 

Richelieu,  at  death  of  Louis  XV.,  i. 
22  ;  death  of,  89. 

Riot,  Paris,  in  May  1750,  i.  19  ;  Corn- 
law  (in  1775),  33  I  Palais  dejus- 
tice  (1787),  70;  triumph,  88;  of 
Rre  St.  Antoine,  99;  of  July  Four- 
teenth (1789),  and  Bastille,  131- 
136  ;  at  Strasburg,  167  ;  Paris,  on 
the  veto,  174 ;  Versailles  Chateau 
October  Fifth  (1789),  182-202; 
uses  of,  to  National  Assembly,  ii. 
16;  Paris,  on  Nanci  affair,  71  ;  at 
De  Castries'  Hotel,  85 ;  on  flight 
of  King's  Aunts,  90  ;  at  Vincennes, 
92  ;  or.  King  s  proposed  journey  to 
St.  Cloud,  107;  in  Champ-de- 
Mars,  with  sharp  shot,  136;  Paris, 
Twentieth  June,  1792,  181  ;  August 
Tenth,  1792,  199-211  ;  Grain,  iii. 
57  ;  Paris,  at  Theatre  de  la  Nation, 
54  ;  selling  sugar,  84  ;  of  The^mi- 
dor,  1794,  194-199 ;  of  (jerminal, 
1795,  210;  of  Prairial,  21^?  final, 
of  Vend^miaire,  220-224. 

Riouffe,  Girondin,  iii.  124  ;  to  Bour- 
deaux,  124;  in  prison,  133;  OQ 


INDEX. 


death  of  Girondins,  139  ;  on  Mme. 
Roland,  147. 
Robespierre,  Maximilien,  account  of, 

i.  107 ;  derided  in  Constituent  As- 
sembly, 160;  Jacobin,  ii.  25  ;  in- 
corruptible, on  tip  of  left,  82 ; 
elected  public  accuser,  97;  after 
King's  flight,  118  ;  at  close  of  As- 
sembly, 140  ;  at  Arras,  position  of, 
141 ;  plans  in  1792,  163 ;  chief 
priest  of  Jacobins,  171 ;  invisible 
on  August  Tenth,  200  ;  reappears, 
iii.  9 ;  on  September  Massacre,  32  ; 
in  National  Convention, 37;  accused 
byGirondins,54;  accused  byLouvet, 
63  ;  acquitted,  63 ;  King's  trial,  66  ; 
Condorcet  on,  92;  at  Queen's  trial, 
137 ;  in  Salut  Committee,  161  ;  and 
Paris  Municipality,  162  ;  embraces 
Danton,i74  i  Desmoulins  and,  176  ; 
and  Danton,  177  ;  Danton  on,  at 
trial,  179 ;  his  three  scoundrels, 
179;  supreme,  181;  to  de  assasi- 
nated,  184  ;  at  Feast  of  Etre  Su- 
preme, 185-187 ;  apocalyptic,  Theot, 
186  ;  on  Couthon's  plot-decree,  186  ; 
reserved,  190;  his  schemes,  191; 
fails  in  Convention,  191  ;  applauded 
at  Jacobins,  193  ;  accused,  194  ; 
rescued,  195  ;  atTownhall,  declared 
out  of  law,  196;  half-killed,  197; 
guillotined,  198 ;  essential  to  Revo- 

'  lution,  200. 

Robespierre,  Augustin,  decreed  ac- 
cused, iii.  195 ;  guillotined,  197. 
Rochambeau,  one  of  Four  Generals, 

ii.  52;  retires,  176. 
Roche-Aymon,   Grand  Almoner  of 

Louis  XV.,  i.  21. 

Rochefoucault,  Duke  de  la,  Liberal, 
i.  no;  President  of  Directory,  ii. 
185 ;  killed,  iii.  34. 

Roederer,  Syndic,  Feuillant,  ii.  179 ; 
'  Chronicle  of  Fifty  Days,'  18 t  ;  on 
Federes  Ammunition,  198;  dilem- 
ma at  Tuileries,  August  itoh,  204. 

Rohan,  Cardinal,  Diamond  Necklace, 

i.  48. 

Roland,  Madame,  notice  of,  at  Lyons, 

ii.  35 ;  narrative  by,  35  ;  in  Paris, 
after  King's  flight',  ji8  ;  and  Ikr- 
baroux,  153 ;  public  dinners  and 
business,  172  ;  character  of,  172  ; 
misgivings  of,  iii.  56 ;  accused,  72  ; 
Ciirondin  declining,  92;  arrested, 
114  ;  condemned  and  guillotined, 
147. 

Roland,  M.,  notice  of,  ii.  35;  m 
Paris,  153;  Minister,  171;  letter, 
and  dismissal  of,  178;  recnlled, 
211  ;  decline  of,  iii.  7;  on  Septem- 
K  i  Massacres,  31;  and  J^achc,  56; 
doings  of,  56;  resigns,  80;  flie^ 
suicide  of,  148.      ^      ^  \ 


Romme,  in  National  Convention,  ill. 
37  :  in  Caen  prison,  117;  his  new 
Calendar,  129,  130;  in  riot  of 
Prairial,  1795,  215  ;  suicide,  215. 

Romoeuf,  pursues  King,  ii.  119. 

Ronsin.  General  of  Revolutionary 
Army,  iii.  150 ;  arrested  and  guil- 
lotined, 176. 

Rosiere,  Thuriot  de  la,  summons 
Bastille,  i.  139 ;  in  First  Parlia- 
ment, ii.  145  ;  in  National  Conven- 
tion, iii.  70 ;  President  at  Robes- 
pierre's fall,  194. 

Rossignol,  in  September  Massacre, 
iii.  ^7  ;  in  La  Vendue,  150. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  Contrat  So- 
cial of,  i.  47  ;  Gospel  according  to, 

ii.  29  ;  (iii.  143)  ;  burial-place  of, 
102  ;  statue  decreed  to,  140. 

Roux,  M. ,  '  Histoire  Parle mentaire/ 

iii.  T43. 

Royalty,  signs  of  demolished,  ii.  117; 

abolition  of,  iii.  43. 
Ruamps,  Deputy,  against  Couthon, 

iii.  186. 

Ruhl,  notice  of,  ii.  145  ;  in  riot  of 
Prairial,  iii.  215  ;  suicide,  215. 

Sabatier  de  Cabre,  at  Royal  Session, 

i.  73  ;  arrested,  74  ;  liberated,  76. 
St.   Antoine  to  Versailles,  i.  186; 

Warhorse  supper,  193 ;  Nanci 
affair,  ii.  66 ;  at  Vincennes,  92 ;  at 
Jacobins,  176  ;  and  Marseillese,  195  ; 
August  Tenth,  204. 
St.  Cloud,  Louis  prohibited  from,  ii. 
107. 

St.  Denis,  Mayor  of,  hanged,  i.  169. 

St.  Fargeau,  Lepelletier,  in  National 
Convention,  iii.  38  ;  at  King's  trial, 
74  ;  assassinated,  76 ;  burial  of,  80. 

St.  Huruge,  Marquis,  i.  149;  bull- 
voice  ;  17T ;  imprisoned,  174 ;  at 
Versailles,  190 ;  and  Pope's  effigy, 

ii.  no  ;  at  Jacobins,  176  ;  on  King's 
trial,  iii.  71. 

St.  Just  in  National  Convention,  iii. 
37  ;  on  King's  trial,  66 ;  in  Salut 
Committee,  161  ;  at  Strasburg, 
163 ;  repels  Prussians,  167 ;  on 
Revolution,  173 ;  in  Committee- 
room,  I  hermidor,  193;  his  report, 
193  ;  arrested,  194. 

St.  Louis  Church,  States-General 
procession  from,  i.  102. 

St.  Meard,  Jourgniac  de,  in  prison, 

iii.  V  r  ;  his  'Agony'  at  La  Force, 

St.  Mdry,  Moreau  de,  i.  146  ;  pros- 
trated, ii.  196. 

Salles,  Deputy,  guillotined,  iii.  141. 

San.sculollism,  apparition  of,  i.  15.*^; 
effects  of,  t68  ;  growth  of,  ii.  6\ 
at  work,  13  ;  origin  of  term,  88; 


INDEX, 


239 


and  Royalty,  181 ;  above  theft, 
iii.  31 ;  a  fact,  36  ;  French  Nation 
and,  50;  Revolutionary  Tribunal 
and,  100 ;  how  it  lives,  100  ;  con- 
summated, 142  ;  fall  of,  200 ;  last 
rising  of,  213-215  ;  death  of,  215. 
Santerre,  Brewer,  notice  of,  104 ;  at 
siege  of  Bastille,  142  ;  at  Tuileries, 

ii.  88  ;  ]une  Twentieth,  181  ;  meets 
Marseillese,  195 ;  Commander  of 
Guards,  202  ;  how  to  relieve  famine, 

iii.  57 ;  at  King's  trial,-  67 ;  at 
King's  execution,  78  ;  fails  in  La 
Vendee,  131;  St.  Antoine  disarmed, 

215-  ,  ... 

Sapper,  Fraternal,  ni.  107. 

Sausse,  M.,  Procureur  of  Varennes, 
ii.  127  ;  scene  at  his  house,  128 ; 
flies  from  Prussians,  iii.  17. 

Savonnieres,  M.  de.  Body-guard,  Oc- 
tober Fifth,  loses  temper,  i.  191. 

Savoy,  occupied  by  French,  iii.  48. 

Sechelles,  Herault  de,  in  National 
Convention,  iii.  51 ;  leads  Conven- 
tion out,  113  ;  arrested  and  guillo- 
tined, i^. 

Sections,  of  Paris,  iii.  95  ;  denounce 
Girondins,  124;  Committee  of, 
108. 

Seigneurs,  French,  compelled  to  fly, 
i.  165 ;  ii.  77- 

Seirgent,  Agate,  Engraver,  m  Com- 
mittee, iii.  9  ;  nicknamed  '  Agate,' 
31 ;  signs  circular,  33. 

Sejrvan,  War-Minister,  ii.  172  ;  pro- 
posals of,  176. 

Sevres,  Potteries,  Lamotte's  '  Md- 
moires'  burnt  at,  ii.  166. 

Sicard,  Abb^,  imprisoned,  iii.  15 ;  in 
danger  near  the  Abbaye,  21 ;  ac- 
count of  massacre  there,  27. 

Side,  Right  and  Left,  of  Constituent 
Assembly,  i.  160;  ii.  13;  Right  and 
Left,  83  ;  tip  of  Left,  popular,  97  ; 
Right  after  King's  flight,  116; 
Right  quits  Assembly,  137  ;  Right 
and  Left  in  First  Parliament,  145. 

Sieyes,  Abbe,  account  of,  i.  109; 
Constitution-builder,  109 ;  ii.  8  ;  in 
Champ-de-Mars,  44  ;  in  National 
Convention,  iii.  37;  of  Constitution 
Committee,  1790,  51 ;  vote  at  King's 
trial, 74;  making  fresh  Constitution, 
219. 

Sillery,  Marquis,  ii.  21. 

Siinon,  Cordwainer,  Dauphin  com- 
mitted to,  iii.  182 ;  guillotined,  98. 

Simoneau,  Mayor  of  Etampes,  death 
of,  ii.  154  ;  festival  for,  175. 

Sombreuil,  Governor  of  Hotel  des 
lnvalides,i.  137;  examined,  h.  i66 ; 
seized, iii.  14 ;  saved  by  his  daughter, 
24  ;  g'lillotinf**^,  187  ;  his  son  shot. 
208. 


Spain,  at  war  with  France,  ii.  160; 
iii.  81  ;  invaded  by  France,  165. 

Staal,  Dame  de,  on  liberty,  ii.  22. 

Stael,  Mme.  de,  at  States-General 
procession,  i.  103  ;  intrigue  for 
Narbonne,  ii.  158 ;  secretes  Nar- 
bonne,  iii.  10. 

Stanhope  and  Price,  their  club  and 
Paris,  ii.  19. 

States-General,  first  suggested,  i.  65 ; 
meeting  announced,  84  ;  how  con* 
stituted,  90;  orders  in,  92;  Re- 
presentatives to,  127 ;  Parlements 
against,  97 ;  Deputies  to,  in  Paris, 
98  ;  number  of  Deputies,  loi  ;  place 
of  Assembly,  loi  ;  procession  of, 
102-110;  installed,  113  ;  union  of 
orders,  115-119. 

Strasburg,  riot  at,  in  1789,  i.  1^7.' 

Suffren,  Admiral,  notice  of,  i.  41. 

Sulleau,  Royalist,  editor,  ii.  162; 
massacred,  202. 

Suspect,  Law  of  the,  iii.  134 ;  Chau- 
mette  jeered  on,  174. 

Sweden,  King  of,  to  assist  Marie 
Antoinette,  ii.  112 ;  shot  by  Ankar- 
strom,  160. 

Swiss  Guards  at  Brest,  ii.  194 ;  pri- 
soners at  La  Force,  iii.  23. 

Talleyrand- Perigord,  Bishop,  notice 
of,  i.  Ill  ;  at  fatherland's  altar,  his 
blessing,  ii.  48  ;  excommunicated, 
no;  in  London,  141;  to  America, 
iii.  81. 

Tallien,  notice  of,  ii.  17 ;  editor  of 
'Ami  des  Citoyens,'  162  ;  in  Com- 
mittee of  Townhall,  August  1792, 
iii.  8  ;  in  National  Convention,  37  ; 
at  Bourdeaux,  140  ;  and  Madame 
Cabarus,  150;  recalled,  suspect, 
190 ;  accuses  Robespierre,  194 ; 
Thermidorian,  202. 

Talma,  actor,  his  soiree,  iii.  47. 

Tannery  of  human  skins,  iii.  171 ; 
improvements  in,  169. 

Target,  Advocate,  dechnes  King's 
defence,  iii.  68. 

Tassin,  M.,  and  black  cockade,  i.  179. 

Tennis-Conrt,  National  Assembly  in, 

i.  121  ;  Club  of,  and  profession  to, 

ii.  38  ;  master  of,  rewarded,  140. 
Terror,  consummation  of,  iii.  142 ; 

reign  of,  designated,  144 ;  number 
guillotined  in,  216. 

Theatins  Church,  granted  to  Dissi- 
dents, ii.  207. 

Theot,  Prophetess,  on  Robespierre, 

iii.  186. 

Thermidor,  Ninth  and  Tenth.  July 
27  and  28,  T794,  iii.  194 -rc,c) 

Th^roigne,  Mdlle.,  notice  of.  i.  103; 
in  Insurrection  of  Women,  iS  it 
Versailles  (October  Fifth),  190;  io 


INDEX, 


Austrian  prison,  ii.  130;  in  Jacobin 
tribune,  171  ;  armed  for  insurrec- 
tion (August  Tenth),  199;  keeps 
her  carriage,  iii.  94  ;  fustigated,  in- 
sane, 109. 

Thionville  besieged,  iii.  12 ;  siege 
raised,  42. 

Thouret,  Law-reformer,  ii.  8 ;  dis- 
solves Assembly,  140 ;  guillotined, 
iii.  182. 

Thouvenot  and  Dumouriez,  iii.  18. 

Tinville,  Fouquier,  revolutionist,  ii. 
17  ;  Jacobin,  25  ;  Attorney-General 
in  Tribunal  R^volutionnaire,  iii. 
100  ;  at  Queen's  trial,  137  ;  at  trial 
of  Girondins,  139  ;  at  trial  of  Mme. 
Roland,  147 ;  at  trial  of  Danton, 
178;  and  Salut  Public,  180;  his 
prison-plots,  180  ;  his  batches,  187  ; 
the  prisons  under,  mock  doom  of, 
188-190;  at  trial  of  Robespierre, 
198  ;  accused,  guillotined,  211. 

Follendal,  I^Uy,  pleads  for  father,  i. 
70;  in  States-General,  no;  popu- 
lar, crowned,  147. 

Torn^,  Bishop,  ii,  167. 

Toulon,  Girondin,  iii.  122  ;  occupied 
by  English,  131;  besieged,  153; 
surrenders,  154. 

Toulongeon,  Marquis,  notice  of,  ii. 
8  ;  on  Barnave  triumvirate,  133  ; 
describes  Jacobins  Hall,  169. 

jToumay,  Louis,  at  siege  of  Bastille, 
i.  140. 

Tourzelle,  Dame  de,  escape  of,  iii.  15. 
Tronchet,  Advocate,  defends  King, 
^  iii.  68. 

'ruileries,  Louis  XVI.  lodged  at,  ii. 
6;  a  tile-field,  8;  Twentieth  June 
at,  180  ;  tickets  of  entry,  '  C'oblentz,' 
J94;  Marseillese  chase  Filles-Saint- 
Thomas  to,  197 ;  August  Tenth, 
198  ;  King  quits,  205  ;  attacked, 
205;  captured,  207;  occupied  by 
National  Convention,  iii,  107. 

Turgot,  Controller  of  France,  i.  31  ; 
on  Corn-law,  33;  dismissed,  39; 
death  of,  71. 

Tyrants,  French  people  rise  against, 
iii.  133- 

United  States,  declaration  of  Liberty, 
i.  15  ;  embassy  to  Ivouis  XVI.,  41  ; 
aided  by  France,  41  ;  of  Congress 
in,  161. 

Ushant,  battle  off,  i.  41. 

Valadi,  Marquis,  i.  103 ;  Gardes 
Franyaises  and,  128  ;  guillotined, 
iii.  140. 

Valii/A  Girondin,  ii.  144  ;  on  trial  of 
Lrjuis,  iii.  6f  ;  plots  Jtt  his  house, 
no;  tria,  of,  135;  '"  Us  himself, 


Valenciennes,  besieged,  iii.  117;  :ur' 

rendered,  126. 
Varenne.  Maton  de  la,  his  experi«. 

ences  in  September,  iii.  15. 
Varigny,  Body-guard,  massacred,  i. 

199. 

Varlet,  'Apostle  of  Liberty,'  iii.  71; 
arrested,  no. 

Vendee,  I, a.  Commissioners  to,  ii. 
153;  state  of,  in  1792,  164;  insur- 
rection in,  iii.  12  ;  war,  afterKing's 
death,  95;  on  fire,  182;  pacificated 
207. 

Vend^miaire,  Thirteenth,  Oct.  4, 
1795,  i'l-  220-222. 

Verdun,  to  be  besieged,  iii.  12 ;  sur- 
rendered, 17. 

Vergennes,  M.  de.  Prime  Minister, 

i.  54 ;  death  of,  61. 
Ve^gniaud,  notice  of,  ii.  144 ;  August 

T^^nth,  181  ;  orations  of,  iii.  7  ; 

/■jsident  at  King's  condemnation, 
v3;  in  fall  of  Girondins,  112;  trial 
of,  139 ;  at  last  supper  of  Girondins, 
139- 

Vermond,  Abbe  de,  i.  61. 

Versailles,  death  of  Louis  XV.  at~  i. 
II  ;  in  Bastille  time.  National  As- 
sembly at,  136 ;  troops  to,  176 ; 
march  of  women  on,  183  ;  of  French 
Ga-^r^V:  on,  186;  insurrection  scene 
at,  :Xo%  the  Chateau  forced,  199; 
prisoners  massacred  at,  iii.  35. 

Viard,  Spy,  iii.  72. 

Vilate,  Juryman,  guillotined,  iii.  211; 

book  by,  211. 
Villaret-Jo)^euse,  Admiral,  defeated 

by  Howe,  iii.  168. 
Villequier,  Duke  de,  emigrates,  ii. 

95- 

Vincennes,  riot  at,  92  ;  saved  by  La- 
fayette, 94. 

Vincent,  of  War-Office,  iii.  160  ;  ar- 
rested, 174  ;  guillotined,  176. 

Voltaire,  at  Paris,  described,  i.  39; 
burial-place  of,  ii.  102. 

War,  civil,  becomes  general,  69, 
Washington,  key  of  Bastille  sent  to,i. 
152;  formula  for  Lafayette,  no; 

ii.  21J. 

Watigny,  Battle  of,  iii.  166. 

Weber,  in  Insurrection  of  Women,  i. 

198 ;    Queen  leaving  Vienna,  iii. 

137. 

Wcstermann,  August  Tenth,  ii.  204; 

purged  out  of  the  Jacobins,  iii.  175  ; 

tried  and  guillotined.  178. 
Wimpfen,  Girondin  (ieneral,  iii.  wj. 

York,  Duke  of,  Ixtsieges  Vak^nuiennes 

■Mv\  Dunkirk,  iii.  166. 
Youn,i,^  .\i  ihur,at  Fr^'mh  Revolut>*>ii, 

i.  l6;i-i68. 


•ah 


